School Districts, State Trade Blame at Finance Trial
After a morning where school district lawyers attacked Texas for underfunding public schools and its “hopelessly broken” finance system, an attorney for the state shot back, saying that decisions made at the local level — not the state — were to blame for school districts’ failures.
Another party in the lawsuit, Texans for Real Efficiency and Equity in Education, an organization made up of school choice advocates and business interests, took a broader tack. The state’s public education system is fundamentally flawed, lawyer Chris Diamond said, because it is a monopoly.
Monday’s hearing in district court before Travis County Judge ...
Comments (6)
blanca fogleman
I agree, the system is flawed!To expect better results from a more difficult test without adressing the problem regarding our obssesive focus on a standardized test is just going to stress out the system further. There is an exodus that is going to come from teachers who have to leave to save their health. Parents, like my daughter, are taking their children out of public school to protect their child's health and to bring them back to a love for learning. Does the state not realize that there is a significant reason why so many schools joined together to sue the state? The local level mangaement has their hands tied by sanctions if they do not comply with directives from the state.Sadly, the worst damage is the hopelessness that teachers, parents and students are dealing with everyday. This goes deeper than low morale. Where is Superman?
GS Crispus
Unsurprisingly, the business sector has no idea what public goods and natural monopolies are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
Unsurprisingly, those who advocate loudest from the business sector never learned their econ 101.
D Garrett
New school rules, passed under Republicans, have made it easier to either put pressure on to quit or fire older teachers who make more money. In past, teachers were protected if they failed a school board member of athletic money contributor's kid. Now, principals will find something to move you out.
More schools are going "flipped" education, where there is no home work, students are supposed to view content at home on their computers, and do their work in class. Many times the work is done in groups; hard working kids do the work, lazy students get the passing grade. Education is being dumbed down. Standards are falling. No one wants to see students fail, but give extra tutoring time, additional work to help the students pass, don't give them a grade. Public education clearly has many problems, not easily solved.
Texas RMS
By all means, let's have a complete breakdown of the public schools before we make an attempt to fix things. The state's attitude is absolutely ridiculous. I would have been embarrassed to stand up in court and make those opening arguments. Apparently those running our great state are prepared to throw our children under the bus rather than take any responsibility.
Anya Khan
Drop funding for ESL. In Italy, US kids have to speak...Italianin school. Algerians just off the boat have to speak Italian. Russians moving to the US don't get a seperate language class. Should they sue. Teaching begins at home, teach your children English
PAULA DENMON
Texas Public Education is broken because the Republican majority has put it there. Crazy decisions by Text book committees to ignore science and history, ridiculous cuts in budgets to pay for gifts to race tracks etc., and actions which seem to be aimed at forcing parents who can afford it to put their children in private schools, so that public schools are aimed at turning out robots who cannot think creatively or scientifically and make perfect low cost laborers for the industry that we wish to lure here with low taxes, low wages, and low utility costs...but high donations to greedy politicians with no character. My solution is to vote for Paul Sadler, for Senator, a man who knows how to improve Texas education. Start there and make intelligent choices in the elections. Rid Texas of ideologues who have no right to ruin our schools. We are only a few places from being less successful in educating our children than Mississippi. Not a huge bragging point for the Once Great State of Texas.