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"Raise Your Hand for a
Hand Out"
by Donna Garner
February 18, 2007
Ex-Texas Senator Bill
Ratliff and Ex-Texas Commissioner of Education Mike
Moses must believe that Texas citizens are all brain
dead. These two men evidently think we have
forgotten their role in Texas' public school
problems.
NEW SPECIAL INTEREST
GROUP FORMED
Ratliff and Moses are
continuing to swill from the education trough by
forming a new organization called Raise Your Hand to
pressure the people for more tax dollars for Texas'
public schools. Have these two gentlemen any
credibility on the subject?
William Murchison said
it best in the 2.16.07 Lone Star Report,
"...keep a country mile away from Raise Your Hand,
and from Bill Ratliff, and from Mike Moses, whose
solution for dealing with a sinking boat is to pour
some more water in the gunwales."
Before we citizens put
our trust in Raise Your Hand, let's do a quick study
of its leaders, Ratliff and Moses.
RATLIFF: ROBIN HOOD,
LOSS OF LOCAL CONTROL BY TEACHERS
Not only did Ratliff
author the failed and oft-maligned Robin Hood Plan,
but he also drafted SB 1 in 1995 which stripped
local teachers of control over what they taught.
Due to SB 1, Texas
teachers have lost control over their day-to-day
instruction and instead must follow the poorly
constructed Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)
standards.
The English / Language
Arts / Reading TEKS are particularly egregious
because they are not explicit, measurable, or
specific for each grade level; and the curriculum
requirements listed in the ELAR/TEKS are much too
numerous for a teacher to cover thoroughly in a
year's time. Therefore, teachers flit from one TEKS
element to the next, never really having time to
make sure students gain mastery.
It is these poorly
written standards (the opposite of
back-to-the-basics curriculum requirements) upon
which the much-despised TAKS tests are based.
RATLIFF: LOSS OF
CONTROL BY LOCAL SCHOOL BOARDS
As the author of SB 1,
Ratliff is also responsible for taking the authority
away from elected local school boards and
placing that power into the hands of unelected
superintendents.
No longer do locally
elected school board members have any real
control over the all-important issues of
personnel hiring and district curriculum decisions.
Local school board
members' duties have basically been reduced to (1)
hiring and firing the superintendent, (2) buying and
selling property, and (3) setting board policy
(e.g., those items which involve board
members themselves -- elections, vacancies on the
board, travel and reimbursement policies, etc.).
RATLIFF: LOSS OF
CONTROL BY ELECTED SBOE
At the state level,
Ratliff tried for years to replace the elected
State Board of Education (SBOE) with an appointed
one. Appointed boards really do not care what
voters want. They will do the will of whoever
appoints them and of the lobbyists who orchestrate
from a distance.
Ratliff's SB 1 reduced
the authority of the elected SBOE and
enhanced the power of the unelected Texas
Commissioner of Education who at the time was
Ratliff's joined-at-the-hip ally, Mike Moses.
Ratliff always
pretended that the SBOE had lost control over
textbook content; and until Attorney General Greg
Abbott's 2006 opinion, the SBOE was shut out of
fulfilling its lawful responsibilities. For eleven
years the Board labored under Ratliff's false
interpretation; and during that time, numerous
inferior textbooks were placed in front of our Texas
students.
Because of Ratliff's
influence on SB 1, elected SBOE members cannot even
elect their own chairperson; the Governor appoints
one.
RATLIFF:
TAXPAYER-ENRICHED OPPORTUNIST
Ratliff is a registered
lobbyist ( http://www.ethics.state.tx.us/dfs/loblists.htm)
and has made large sums of money from a number of
clients including the Texas Association of School
Boards (TASB). Having retired from the Texas Senate
in 2003, he began representing TASB on May 10,
2004. That year he received up to $99,999.99 from
TASB, and again in 2005, and 2006.
We taxpayers paid
Ratliff's rich lobbying fees because the membership
dues that education entities pay to join TASB come
from our taxpayers' dollars.
Because the TASB dues
come from public funds, we taxpayers are actually
paying TASB to lobby Legislators for more school
funding so that our taxes will increase. We are
paying to lobby ourselves!
MOSES: HIT-AND-RUN
ARTIST
As Texas Commissioner
of Education, Mike Moses oversaw the creation of
course standards (TEKS) which have proven
dysfunctional, particularly in English / Language
Arts / Reading (ELAR). Now the Texas State Board of
Education and the Texas Education Agency are trying
to undo the damage by rewriting these TEKS.
MOSES: THE TAKS MONSTER
The public tends to
vent its wrath against the TAKS tests, but TAKS
tests are based on the faulty TEKS. If the
foundation (TEKS) is weak, then the house (TAKS)
built upon that foundation cannot stand.
Mike Moses was directly
responsible for the entire TEKS process, thus making
him responsible for the TAKS. Students, parents,
and educators dislike intensely the unfair
accountability system built on these tests.
Parents, students, and
educators are obsessed with the TAKS --TAKS units,
TAKS practice tests, TAKS preparation tools, TAKS
information booklets, TAKS activities, TAKS
projects, TAKS data, TAKS testing strategies, TAKS
benchmarks, TAKS tutors, TAKS tests.
This constant emphasis
on the TAKS is destroying teachers' creativity and
students' interest in school, thus contributing to
the drop-out problem. According to Jamie Story,
education policy analyst at TPPF, "Every hour of
every school day, 93 students drop out of Texas
public schools."
It is disingenuous of
Moses to expect the taxpayers to pour more money
into the public schools to fix the mess that he
helped to create.
MOSES: TAINTED
ADMINISTRATION IN DALLAS ISD
The Dallas Morning
News has
found multiple dubious behavior patterns during Mike
Moses' watch as Dallas ISD superintendent.
Allegations have
surfaced about out-of-control spending with school
credit cards, lost dollars for health plans, abuse
of federal e-rate funds, irregular technology vendor
contracts, misspent federal bilingual education
funds, costly deals with Kinko's, apparent conflicts
of interest involving Voyager Expanded Learning,
contributions by computer vendors, questionable bond
sales, multiple teacher grievances, eyebrow-raising
private consultancies, lucrative Coca-Cola
contracts, and special privileges for vendors
participating in the Education Research and
Development Institute (ERDI) conferences.
MOSES: GOLDEN PARACHUTE
Meanwhile, Moses
received the highest superintendent's salary in the
nation ($340,000 per year, excluding benefits) even
though eleven school districts in the country were
larger than Dallas ISD.
When the DISD problems
began to surface in 2004, Moses resigned and walked
away with an additional $480,850. Along with his
ongoing and lucrative superintendent search
business, he now receives a yearly TRS
pension of $224,400 per year. Note that Moses'
wealth comes from taxpayers' dollars.
MY RECOMMENDATION
Instead of expecting
the taxpayers to pour more millions into our public
schools, why not expect the schools to live within
their means.
Before the last
legislative session, Texas was already spending over
$10,400 per public school student (http://www.governor.state.tx.us/priorities/education/facts_figures),
and those figures have increased substantially since
then. I agree with Peggy Venable of Americans for
Prosperity who has said, "Texas
schools do not have a funding problem. We have a
spending problem." Case
in point: The education dollars heaped upon Ratliff
and Moses by our state --
MY QUESTION TO RATLIFF
AND MOSES
Sen. Ratliff and Dr.
Moses: Before we taxpayers decide to support Raise
Your Hand with you two altruists at the helm, how
about disclosing your lobbying contracts (and
benefits) with the companies who stand to profit if
more taxpayers' dollars are given to the public
schools?
Donna Garner is a retired Texas teacher and served
on the TEKS writing team for English / Language Arts
/ Reading (ELAR). She is also the lead writer of
the Texas Alternative Document for ELAR. She is
presently the writer/consultant for an online
tutorial to help people (ages 10 through 100) to
improve their ELAR skills. She can be reached at
(254) 666-2798;
wgarner1@hot.rr.com.
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