Texas Education Agency Faces Competing Demands
On April 1, 2011, two Texas House members staged a mini-revolt against the state agency charged with overseeing the state’s public schools.
During the lower chamber’s debate on its version of the budget, Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, the powerful chairman of the House Redistricting Committee, proposed an amendment that would remove all discretionary funding from the Texas Education Agency, which he said had become a “beast of bureaucracy.” He said he wanted to send a message to the agency that “unless you're absolutely required to be there, we don't need you … interfering.”
Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston ...
Comments (4)
Leesa Monroe via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I support the tea.
Jon Roland
One of the things that budget-constrained schools need to do is move from print textbooks to online learning systems, the best of which is Moodle, from moodle.org. It is already in use at the Northwest ISD in San Antonio http://moodle.nisdtx.org/ and the Austin ISD has decided to take it up. This alternative needs to be pushed statewide.
Distance learning has been resisted by teachers, some of whom fear it will threaten their jobs. But it could do a lot to do things like prepare students for standardized tests, leaving classroom teachers more time to do what only they can do. It can also save money on those very expensive textbooks.
For my Moodle site see http://constitutonal-courses.org
Clay Boatright via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It's the same as in business. Though office size and salary may suggest otherwise, the further away from the customer (in this case, the student) someone is, the less relevant they become.
valerie koy
After working almost four decades at TEA, I quit due to the corrupt management. Our Director had multiple complaints reported against her and the human resources department and management did nothing. even though one third of her division left in one year. Having worked under all Commissioners, the leadership changed when the Governor began to select the Commissioner. The Commissioners who worked their way up the career ladder from the school district to the Commissioner had a better grip on the needs of our children. Currently, we have Robert Scott as our Commissioner who is a patsy for the Governor's Office. Also, his co-worker friends Todd Webster (Chief of Staff) and Adam Jones (Chief Financial Officer) who are also Governor friends are ruining education for K-12 for the State of Texas. We are rated almost at the bottom when compared with the whole United States. There is a lot of greed in that Agency. Management protects management. When the two reductions in force were completed, there were very few 6 figure salary staff fired. Also, there are many return to work employees who are 6 figure salaried employees remaining when staff who live paycheck to paycheck were fired. A full blown audit should be done at this state agency to uncover all the human resource corruptions. It might be a good idea if EEOC did an investigation, too.