Enlarge Graphic by Todd Wiseman

This is one in a series of occasional stories about ethics and transparency in the part-time Texas Legislature.

In Texas, there’s nary an issue that aligns the far left with the far right. But this session’s effort to make state government more transparent and ethical — spearheaded by some of the Legislature’s most conservative members and its most liberal ones — has attracted the strangest of bedfellows.

You’ve got ultra-conservative Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, partnering with outspoken Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, on efforts to force lawmakers to report the government contracts they or their family members have.

Liberal Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, is cosponsoring legislation with Tea Party-approved Reps. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, and Rick Miller, R-Sugar Land, to get elected officials who run for higher office — i.e., Gov. Rick Perry — to reimburse the state for expenses for their security detail.

And Michael Quinn Sullivan’s influential Empower Texans has been making robocalls into the districts of Republican legislators who the conservative activist sees as standing in the way of efforts to expand reporting on lawmakers’ personal financial disclosure forms.

A glance down the list of the roughly three dozen ethics bills filed this session shows several authored by so-called establishment Republicans; most were filed by Democrats and recently arrived social conservatives, often partnering together.

Sullivan acknowledged it’s rare for him to be on the same side of any issue with Democrats. One of the only other places it happens is in criminal justice reform, he said, where the two sides get to the same end result via very different paths — social justice for liberals, versus dollars and cents for conservatives.

But unlike criminal justice reform, he said, with ethics reform, the motives are largely the same. “Whether you’re on the far left or the far right ideologically, it’s all coming from the same place,” he said. “You’re for the same goal, which is to make sure the voters have the maximum amount of information.”

Jim Henson, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Politics Project, said government accountability falls into the “weird Venn diagram of common space that you don’t get very much” in the state Legislature. But he’s not so sure the parties share the exact same motives.

Conservatives approach transparency issues because they believe systemic corruption adheres to government, he said, while liberals approach it because they want to make sure that something necessary for a fair society functions properly.

“There’s more of an inherent suspicion on the side of conservatives, and I think they’d agree with that, than you see from the Democratic side, which has more faith in the ability of government to proactively do good things,” Henson said.

But Henson added that regardless of motive, “when you have a rare moment of agreement between those sides, it’s good that people try to make the most of it.”

Capriglione, a freshman who was lambasted by veteran Republicans in the first hearing for his government contracts bill, HB 524, said he didn’t go out seeking Democrats to partner with. It just happened naturally.

Texas Democrats, who are the minority at the state level, and Texas Republicans, who are the minority at the federal level, each want to keep the other side honest, he said. They also look internally, he added, and they know if they don’t practice what they preach, they’ll be labeled “hypocrites.”

“When you look at school finance, at private property rights, it’s easy to get to a partisan answer,” he said. “Transparency is one of those few items where it doesn’t matter what party you’re in. Even if you’re partisan, you’re worried about the other party’s power, and what they’ll do with that power.”

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Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock R-Killeen during a public education committee hearing on February 19th, 2013

When the Texas House takes up Public Education Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock’s House Bill 5 on Tuesday, it will be the 83rd Legislature’s first major floor debate on education policy.

Members are expected to file more than 100 amendments to the Killeen Republican’s comprehensive legislation restructuring the state’s high school graduation requirements and student assessment systems. While most of them will likely fail — the chairman said Thursday that he hoped to keep the bill as narrowly focused as possible as it heads to the Senate — they will provide an indication of where the battle lines are currently drawn on an increasingly contentious division within the business community.

A provision that modifies the courses high school students must take to graduate has invigorated a debate within business and industry about how best to prepare students for the workforce.

Industry and trade groups, motivated by the belief that more students should graduate high school ready to enter their careers, support the changes in the legislation intended to allow them additional flexibility to focus on interests in areas like technology, science or the humanities.

But it has generated vocal opposition from other organizations, including the Texas Association of Business, which say they threaten reverse the state’s progress in improving students’ preparation for college and careers.

It does away with the state’s so-called “4X4” graduation plan that requires four years of courses in math, science, social studies and English. The reduction in math and science courses, including Algebra II, that students need to graduate has raised particular concern.

Representatives from companies across the state including Exxon Mobil, IBM, Lockheed Martin and Intel recently sent a letter to lawmakers urging them to keep the “4X4” standards, cautioning that “lowering graduation requirements would send the wrong message to our students, create fewer pathways to additional education and threaten Texas competitively.”

Chief among the legislation’s supporters is the Jobs for Texas Coalition, which is made up of 22 industry and trade organizations including the Texas Chemical Council, the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Association of Builders.

Its reforms take “a pragmatic view that meets the diverse interests of our student population and our economy,” said Hector Rivero, the president and CEO of the Texas Chemical Council.

The problem with the concern about reversing success in graduation rates, he said, is that “when you talk to superintendents and teachers and counselors they will tell you the opposite is true” — that overly stringent requirements were driving students away from academic success.

Aycock said his legislation reflects an effort to provide more preparation for students who want to enter the workforce after high school while still encouraging schools to push them to achieve as much as they can.

Debate over the proposal, he said, centered on two questions.

“One, does everyone need to go to a four-year degree?” he said. “And two, does every kid need to take Algebra II?”

His answer: “Not every one, but a lot of them.”

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The insiders, on the whole, are unswayed by arguments for term limits at the top of the state’s political food chain. The idea has some currency at the capitol, where the state Senate has blessed a two-term limit on statewide officeholders. Most of the political and governmental insiders in our survey — 55 percent — are against it.

They feel even more strongly opposed to 12-year-limits for state and federal lawmakers, with more than two thirds giving those ideas a thumbs down.

Finally, we asked whether lawmakers ought to be eligible for lifetime pensions and health benefits after 10 or 12 years of service, as they are now. That split the insiders: 43 percent said officeholders should get those benefits, while 48 percent said they should not.

We collected comments along the way and a full set of those remarks is attached. A sampling follows below.

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Should statewide officials be limited to two terms in office?

• "Unless one could enact enforceable campaign finance limitations--in other words, to borrow from the late Edmund Kuempel, 'if a frog had a back pocket he'd carry a pistol and shoot snakes.'"

• "Maybe three, but not two."

• "Term limits only empower staffers and the lobby. The revolving door just shifts gears."

• "Term limits are controlled by the voters! The VOTERS are NEVER WRONG! I may disagree with the majority but I can't disagree with those who at least participated."

• "We have term limits: they're called elections. And if someone like Judith Zaffirini or Kay Bailey Hutchison breaks a promise to the people to serve only X terms, then it's up to the voters to either punish or reward her."

• "Too much stagnation is unhealthy"

• "This is obviously a Governor Perry question. Neither frustrated legislators nor bored pundits will decide when his time is up; Texas voters will."

• "HELL NO! And give staff, the agencies and lobbyists even more power and authority. By the way, it is ironic that Republicans are pushing for this. We have as our basic tenants individualism and less government. This would result in less freedom and more government. Plus, are we as voters supposed to be the ones who decide who gets elected. This sounds nice and all but if thought through and logic is applied it is a horrible idea."

• "If voters are CRAZY enough to keep electing the people putting their state at further risk, then so be it. Republicans have been in charge of this state for 20 years now - those who have voted them in have NO ONE but themselves to blame for the horrible conditions of our educational system, the continuing health care crisis and the laughingstock which Texas has become. Sadly, 'Thank God for Missouri/Alabama/Mississippi' has turned into those states saying 'Thank God for Texas'."

• "Gov. Perry's foibles are generating renewed enthusiasm for term limits."

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Should state legislators be limited to 12 years in office?

• "House - 6 terms, 12 years; Senate - 4 terms, 16 years."

• "Maybe just State Senators--a sort of narcissistic personality disorder preemptive therapy"

• "12 years may be too long. I could go with 8 or 10"

• "We have a part-time legislature comprised of citizen legislators; they're not spending too much time in Austin. If we have term limits for members, we should also have term limits for legislative staffers AND agency lifers (aka staffers)."

• "Term limits tend to elevate staff to the actual seats of power since they are the only ones with any continuity of issues. Voting someone out of office is the best limits on terms, not some arbitrary number of years of service."

• "Some legislators are just starting to figure it out in their 12th year in office."

• "One term is way too much for some; and 6 terms way too little for others. By arbitrarily limiting service, term limits takes power from the people and transfers it to staff and administrative agencies."

• "Experience is a good thing."

• "No. There is a qualitative difference between executive branch and legislative branch officials. The former should be term limited, but not the latter."

• "Would you want your attorney, doctor or accountant to have only 12 years of experience?"

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Should members of Congress — House and Senate — be limited to 12 years in office?

• "Are you suggesting we handicap Texas by sending to Washington, D.C. newbies every dozen years while other states rack up seniority and expertise at the expense of Texas? Or are you suggesting we empower federal bureaucrats by essentially making the Congress weak?"

• "Different ballgame entirely. We need them to be able to build seniority to move up through the ranks."

• "No, but Congressional Terms should be made four years rather than two!"

• "Both Ds and Rs have a distinguished list of congress members and senators who have served beyond 12 years. Why is that a bad thing?"

• "It is hard enough to remember their names now. The reality is that members of congress do not do much. Term limits will not make a difference."

• "Senators should once again be elected by the legislatures. This is the best way to have states issues considered. Senators answering to the legislature would take care of the need for term limits."

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Should officeholders at any level receive lifetime pensions and health benefits for 10 or 12 years of public service, as they do now?

• "Legislators' pensions should be based on their salaries not the salary of a district judge."

• "I don't even think our military personnel receive lifetime pensions and health insurance after 10-12 years of service. If they do, I doubt that their pensions are tied to a judge's salary! Repeal the lucrative pension and health benefits, and legislators might impose term limits on themselves."

• "As long as they remain citizen Legislators, they deserve it."

• "No problem with this because we pay them a pittance to serve."

• "Most officeholders don't draw salaries in line with the market; back end benefits are an appropriate way to compensate them for their service."

• "Federal pensions are now relatively modest, but do include valuable health benefits."

• "Do away with all pensions for all elected officials. It's called public service for a reason and it comes with certain sacrifices. It was never intended to be a lifetime entitlement."

• "Of course. Isn't that the only reason to run for office?"

• "They should not have their pensions linked to a full-time professional salary -- the judges -- as they do now. They are citizen legislators and should earn their pensions elsewhere. But they should get a small pension for their service."

• "Their pensions should be commensurate to those for school teachers."

• "Yes, if you're going to insist on paying them peanuts while in office."

Our thanks to this week's participants: Gene Acuna, Cathie Adams, Brandon Aghamalian, Jenny Aghamalian, Jennifer Ahrens, Victor Alcorta, Clyde Alexander, George Allen, David Anthony, Doc Arnold, Jay Arnold, Charles Bailey, Dave Beckwith, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Hugh Brady, Chris Britton, David Cabrales, Lydia Camarillo, Kerry Cammack, Marc Campos, Thure Cannon, Snapper Carr, William Chapman, Elizabeth Christian, Elna Christopher, John Colyandro, Kevin Cooper, Beth Cubriel, Randy Cubriel, Denise Davis, Hector De Leon, June Deadrick, Nora Del Bosque, Tom Duffy, David Dunn, Jeff Eller, Jack Erskine, Jon Fisher, Norman Garza, Dominic Giarratani, Bruce Gibson, Stephanie Gibson, Eric Glenn, Kinnan Golemon, John Greytok, Clint Hackney, Anthony Haley, Wayne Hamilton, Bill Hammond, John Heasley, Jim Henson, Ken Hodges, Laura Huffman, Kathy Hutto, Deborah Ingersoll, Cal Jillson, Jason Johnson, Mark Jones, Robert Jones, Lisa Kaufman, Robert Kepple, Richard Khouri, Tom Kleinworth, Sandy Kress, Nick Lampson, Pete Laney, James LeBas, Luke Legate, Leslie Lemon, Ruben Longoria, Matt Mackowiak, Luke Marchant, Dan McClung, Scott McCown, Mike McKinney, Debra Medina, Robert Miller, Bee Moorhead, Mike Moses, Steve Murdock, Keir Murray, Nelson Nease, Keats Norfleet, Pat Nugent, Sylvia Nugent, Nef Partida, Gardner Pate, Robert Peeler, Bill Pewitt, Tom Phillips, Wayne Pierce, Richard Pineda, Allen Place, Gary Polland, Jay Propes, Ted Melina Raab, Bill Ratliff, Karen Reagan, Tim Reeves, Patrick Reinhart, Kim Ross, Andy Sansom, Stan Schlueter, Robert Scott, Bradford Shields, Christopher Shields, Jason Skaggs, Brian Sledge, Ed Small, Martha Smiley, Todd Smith, Larry Soward, Dennis Speight, Bryan Sperry, Jason Stanford, Bob Strauser, Colin Strother, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Sherry Sylvester, Jay Thompson, Russ Tidwell, Gerard Torres, Trent Townsend, Trey Trainor, Vicki Truitt, Ware Wendell, Ken Whalen, Darren Whitehurst, Christopher Williston, Seth Winick, Alex Winslow, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

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This week in the Newsreel: The flap between University of Texas regents and UT-Austin resident Bill Powers rages on, Attorney General Greg Abbott calls for pre-trial DNA testing for capital cases and legislators are talking of arming teachers in public schools.

You can view the video at: https://trib.it/Y24vKK

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

Monday, March 25

• House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transparency and Reform, 9 a.m.
• Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Matters, 9 a.m.
• Senate State Affairs, 9 a.m.
• House Government Efficiency and Reform, 10 a.m.
• House Elections, 11 a.m.
• Senate Administration, 11 a.m.
• Senate Nominations, 11 a.m.
• House Investments and Financial Services, 2 p.m.
• House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence, 2 p.m.
• House Land and Resource Management, 2 p.m.
• House Pensions, 2 p.m.
• House Technology, 2 p.m.
• House Ways and Means, 2 p.m.
• Senate Open Government, 2 p.m.
• Senate Agriculture, Rural Affairs and Homeland Security, 2:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 26

• House Insurance, 8 a.m.
• House Natural Resources, 8 a.m.
• House Transportation, 8 a.m.
• Senate Business and Commerce, 8 a.m.
• Senate Government Organization, 8 a.m.
• House Human Services, 8:30 a.m.
• Senate Health and Human Services, 9 a.m.
• House Environmental Regulation, 10:30 a.m.
• House Licensing and Administrative Procedures, noon
• House Select Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations, 1 p.m.
• House Business and Industry, 1:30 p.m.
• Senate Jurisprudence, 1:30 p.m.
• House Public Education, 2 p.m.

Wednesday, March 27

• Senate Transportation, 8 a.m.
• Senate Veteran Affairs and Military Installations, 1:30 p.m.
• House Corrections, 2 p.m.

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“Would you tell, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—”.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat is speaking to Alice, in Wonderland. But he might as well be addressing some of Texas’ errant pundits and policymakers who, in a quest to dismantle the state’s standards, assessment and accountability system for public schools, seem unfazed about the consequences for students.

But when it comes to education policy, results for students must be central to the debate on where Texas ought to go from here.

Texas has been a trailblazer in its commitment to prepare all students for college and careers. Yet now that the state requires an additional year of math and science and has introduced end-of-course tests to ensure mastery of high school coursework, some argue that we’re asking too much of our high school students. Reasonable people can disagree on issues such as just how many end-of-course exams students must take or pass to graduate, but is it really unreasonable to expect every student who receives a high school diploma to be ready for work or college?

I say expecting anything less is a disservice to our kids.

Some naysayers call Texas’ focus on college and career-readiness a “one-size-fits-all” approach to education — but that’s just false. Today’s jobs demand more education. By the end of the decade, 60 percent of Texas jobs will require a career certificate or college degree. But currently only about 30 percent of Texas adults have such qualifications, and the majority of those entering technical, community or two-year colleges need remediation.

The military, once seen as a “go to” career for those who choose not to attend college, is no longer. By the Department of Defense’s own measures, one in three high school graduates scores too low on the Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Test to be recruited.

The bottom line: We are preparing students for neither college nor a vast spectrum of careers.

Some state legislators are also now debating whether Texas should scrap the STAAR exams in grades 3-8, introduce tests with no alignment to the state’s standards or assess “samples” of students for school accountability purposes.

But before we make a wrong turn, let's remember where we came from.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Texas set a critical foundation for improving schools: setting academic standards, designing assessments to measure student progress against those standards, being transparent about results and holding schools accountable for the progress of all children.

It wasn’t enough to know how a school was doing in general; we had to make sure all kids were learning — because many of them weren’t. So Texas publicly reported test results not just for campuses but also for each school’s African-American, Hispanic, low-income and special-education students.

It took courage, and let’s be clear why it was necessary. It wasn’t to shackle the creativity of teachers or narrow the curriculum. It was an insurance policy of sorts to make sure disadvantaged and struggling students were not ignored and that, at a minimum, schools would bear some responsibility for helping all students read and cipher on grade level.

Texas has not gone far enough or fast enough to improve outcomes for its children. But despite entrenched interests who’ve fought these reforms, there is no question they’ve paid off for students.

A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that Texas had the biggest advances in eighth grade math scores since 1990 of any of the large, diverse states in America, and was the only state among Texas, Florida, California, New York and Illinois where eighth grade math and science scores were above the national average.

According to the nation’s report card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the achievement gap has narrowed in Texas, although, again, not as much as we’d like. In fourth-grade reading, black and Hispanic students have gained a full grade level since 1992. NAEP shows similar gains for eighth graders.

The progress Texas has made in student achievement at the elementary and middle-school levels is testament to exactly why we must now focus on getting better results in high schools.

Without standards designed for college and career readiness, our students won’t be ready for the demands of the 21st century global economy.

Getting rid of assessments is akin to shooting the messenger. Testing is critical to knowing whether a student has mastered the basics — or even better, the skills needed for success. Demanding less testing as a “solution” to insufficient progress is like tearing up a child’s report card when she receives an “F.” It perpetuates a Wonderland fantasy where the problems we can’t see aren’t really there.

We must also remember that standards, tests and accountability policies are tools. They don’t make learning happen; great teachers do. Test results reveal where needs are greatest, and we must meet these challenges with effective teachers, strong curriculum, choices for families and students, and break-the-mold interventions for failing schools.

Listening to some in Texas these days, you’d get the sense we’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole with no idea where to go or why. But we know the path to improving student achievement. It’s a trail Texas has blazed for three decades.

Margaret Spellings, a former U.S. secretary of education and White House domestic policy advisor, is president of a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm. 

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Carolyn Heinrich

Texas is in the midst of a serious and much-needed conversation about the role that standardized testing can play in improving educational outcomes for children.

Stakeholders from across Texas — parents, school administrators, teachers, business and community leaders, policymakers and others — have come together for critical discussions about where Texas has been and where it is headed in its efforts to graduate more young people with the educational preparation and skills needed to succeed in life. New Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams and recently retired Texas Workforce Commissioner Tom Pauken set an engaging tone for this conversation, listening to Texans and widely sharing their views about what meaningful change to the system might look like.

And change is needed. Texas outspends every state in the nation on testing, and not just because of its size. A November 2012 Brookings Institution study showed that California, which had nearly 1 million more students enrolled in grades 3-8 (for which annual testing is federally required), spent approximately $53 million on standardized tests; Texas is spending about $90 million annually.

Texas also leads the nation in the number of tests it requires students to pass to graduate from high school. If there was some association between the amount of testing, the stakes attached to tests, or the total resources dedicated to test-based accountability, wouldn’t Texas be way out in front of the other states by now in terms of its students’ educational performance? Rather, Texas is still behind many of its peers on a number of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) measures, and among the 10 states at the top for students’ NAEP exam performance, seven did not have any high school exit exam, and the other three required passage of no more than three exit exams.

Texas legislators have now filed more than a dozen bills that, to varying degrees, would forge an improved path to student achievement gains. Some of the most vocal critics of these recent proposals suggest that the current system’s detractors are attempting to dismantle accountability, lower standards and eliminate testing, but those are false alarms. There is growing agreement that we can design a better test-based accountability system that maintains high standards, costs less, makes more effective use of testing data and reduces harmful, unintended consequences that have been documented nationally as well as in Texas. Research definitively shows that these negative effects — including excessive focus on test-taking skills; outright cheating and manipulation of the test-taking process; reduced student effort, withdrawal and lower self-expectations; dampened intrinsic motivation to learn; and lower graduation rates — are exacerbated when high stakes are attached to test scores and are most detrimental for the lower-performing schools and student subgroups at greatest risk.

We have over-invested in testing (as if it was some kind of “magic bullet”) and under-invested in other tools for educational improvement. We need multidimensional measures of student achievement that recognize the many types and areas of learning linked to students’ educational and career success. We have clung to stereotypes about technical education that have stymied our efforts to support students’ preparation for high-demand occupations, and which new research suggests may have contributed to our nation’s loss of well-paying, middle-skill jobs to our global competitors. And test scores will be more effective tools for addressing student learning deficits and promoting accountability if we focus on their use for diagnostic purposes. Resources should follow their effective use in improving educational outcomes, for example, using test score data with proven models for measuring changes in students’ individual learning trajectories and rewarding real gains.

The reason that proponents of the current flawed system do not cite any credible research that supports a causal link between this type of aggressive, test-based accountability system and student improvement is that it does not exist. Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University stated it well: “The notions of standards and accountability have become synonymous with mandates for student testing that are unconnected to policies addressing the quality of teaching, the allocation of resources, or the nature of schooling. Tests are asked to take on burdens of decision-making and of instructional improvement, which they are not designed to carry and are not capable of accomplishing.”

Carolyn Heinrich is the Sid Richardson Professor of Public Affairs, affiliated professor of economics and director of the Center for Health and Social Policy at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs.

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Tom Lindsay, Director of the Center for Higher Education, Texas Public Policy Foundation

Higher education, in Texas and nationally, faces a crisis. Studies testify to grade inflation’s erosion of standards (An “A” is the most common grade given in America’s colleges), to poor student learning (36 percent of students surveyed nationally show no significant increase in learning during four years of college), to skyrocketing tuitions (while state funding to colleges declined a relatively modest 10 percent during the past decade in Texas, average tuition collected  jumped 115 percent) and to crushing student-loan debt ($1 trillion nationally). One study finds 31 percent of 2009 graduates, unable to secure full-time employment, moved back into their parents’ homes. Consequently, 57 percent of prospective students told a Pew survey that college no longer delivers a value worth its cost; 75 percent deem college simply unaffordable.

Addressing this crisis requires strong leadership. Who can provide it? Senior administrators? Regents? Ideally, both. But former Harvard President Derek Bok, in his book Our Underachieving Colleges, finds presidents “often reluctant” to lead for fear of “faculty opposition,” which could “threaten their jobs.” College CEOs lack the power of their corporate counterparts. Facing a faculty no-confidence vote, few presidents possess the wherewithal to lay down their jobs.

Who, then, is empowered to implement reforms commensurate with our crisis? Benno Schmidt, former Yale president and current chairman of the CUNY board, answers, “Change in institutional strategy can only come from trustees.”

Such change is overdue: Higher education reached its crisis state with the acquiescence of trustees, who too often let boosterism trump their fiduciary duties. “Fiduciary” derives from the Latin fiducia, for “trust.” A trustee possesses the legal power and duty to act on behalf of others, both the school and the Texas citizenry, under conditions requiring both complete trust and complete openness.

The nonpartisan American Council of Trustees and Alumni describes the role of trustees as “responsible for both the fiscal well-being of the institution” and “the quality of the education it provides." Central to “fiduciary responsibility is transparency — and in the case of public colleges and universities, this is all the more appropriate and necessary, since taxpayers fund these institutions and have a right to know whether those funds are used effectively and responsibly.”

Yet, precisely when we need trustees to reclaim their fiduciary duties, some would constrain them further to avoid perceived “micromanagement.” Charles Miller, former chairman of the UT Board of Regents, disagrees, arguing that boards are already tightly regulated: "Regents are trustees with duties defined by constitutional, statute, regulation and common law, both state and federal.”

In fact, limiting boards’ powers at this critical time would not enhance but fetter institutions. Although such limitations hope to increase administrators’ powers, they would dilute them. Presidents would find themselves with only bad choices. If they implement needed changes, they risk losing their jobs through no-confidence votes by faculty armed with virtual life tenure. If, as Bok expects, presidents therefore decline this risk, their sole remaining choice is to sit idly by — lacking a board empowered to support them — letting their colleges capsize for lack of captains. In time, presidents might come to pine for a return of big, bad boards at which they can redirect the ire of faculty and alumni. Bottom line: No presidents, however visionary and courageous, can succeed in transformational roles without duly empowered boards that have their backs. Thus Miller reasons, “Trying to redefine all of these duties and their interrelationships with a new statute would not only be impossible but would likely result in a horrible mess,” leading him to conclude that it is not the regents but the proposed bill that “might properly be called micromanaging.”

Additionally, restricting boards’ powers ignores their contributions made through these powers. UT’s chancellor and regents have achieved national leadership in vital areas, such as “productivity improvement” to ensure schools maximize return on investment — thus benefiting all stakeholders in our time of scarce resources — and implementing “blended learning,” the wave of the future, which capitalizes on information technology to improve time and facilities use. These and other contributions lead Miller to remind Texans that our “public higher education is in better shape than any other major state even while there are existential threats to institutions everywhere.”

Sadly, the proposed legislation, far from preventing a micromanaging crisis, would instead prevent managing a crisis. Adds Miller, “Trying to solve policy differences or address mistakes made in execution by focusing on the governance structure is nothing less than avoidance of the tough issues.” If the bill were passed, he adds, the result would be “a serious loss of time and energy, taking attention away from solving real problems and damaging what is a positive Texas story."

For all these reasons, we owe it to our regents to let them do their jobs. More important, we owe it to our students.

Thomas K. Lindsay is the Director of the Center for Higher Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

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The Texas Constitution mandates that the Legislature “establish, organize and provide for the maintenance, support and direction of a University of the first class … styled ‘The University of Texas’ for the promotion of literature, and the arts and sciences.” In the Texas Education Code, the Legislature placed the governance of the University of Texas System, which includes the University of Texas at Austin, in the nine member board of regents appointed by the governor. The board is charged with governing the UT System “in such a way as will achieve the maximum operating efficiency of such institution and entities.” It is within this framework of governance that the board is duty bound to operate.

With respect to UT-Austin, in the last two years certain regents have conducted themselves in a manner that can best be described as contrary to the imperative of the Texas Constitution to provide support and direction of a “University of the first class” and in violation of their statutory duty to govern the UT “in such a way as will achieve the maximum operating efficiency” for UT.

It has taken years and a great deal of effort to get UT to the point that it is nationally recognized as a tier-one teaching/research university. On the UT campus is the No. 1 ranked public College of Education. UT also boasts a School of Law that has a national reputation as one of the one of the best. Anyone familiar with UT knows that it also has a nationally ranked College of Engineering, School of Business, School of Fine Arts, School of Nursing and School of Social Work, just to mention a few. UT’s current president, Bill Powers, has continued the work of his predecessors in enhancing the national standing of UT as a premier tier one public university. Powers has directed his attention to improving the undergraduate core curriculum and the graduation rate for incoming freshmen. Additionally, he has led a capital fundraising campaign that has already raised over $3 billion. Undoubtedly, Powers has had his eye on the goal mandated by the Texas Constitution of maintaining and supporting UT as a university of the first class.

There is an old adage in Texas that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The very public and undisputed evidence makes abundantly clear that UT is not broke and needs no fixing. Yet certain members of the board have injected themselves into the day-to-day affairs of UT in a manner which evidences either a lack of understanding of their constitutional and statutory duties, or a total disregard for such constitutional and statutory mandates. The most recent and obvious examples of this conduct are the inexplicable demand by a regent for all documents making up responses by UT to the open records requests, the demand that Powers appear before the board to explain why he had not appointed a vice president for fundraising, and seeking an independent review of the operations of the UT School of Law Foundation after the board’s own general counsel conducted an exhaustive review of the foundation and issued a comprehensive report on the findings. The open records requests resulted in the delivery of 40 file boxes of documents to that regent. The inappropriate questioning of Powers with respect to hiring a vice president for fund raising ignored a most impressive record of raising over $3 billion in difficult economic times. The board’s demand for an independent review of the foundation’s operations, after receiving the report of the system’s general counsel, smacks of a “witch hunt” — as the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee labeled it in a public hearing. All of this and other board actions with no apparent good governance goal constitute a diversion of valuable staff time and resources from UT’s constitutionally mandated mission to be a university of the first class and the board’s statutory duty to achieve the maximum operating efficiency for UT.

The actions of the board and its focus on UT also diverts the board’s own time, efforts and energy from its governance responsibilities relative to the other system institutions. UT is the flagship institution, but it is part of a 15-member system. The public record over the last two years leads to the conclusion that the board is pursuing a misguided agenda unrelated to its constitutional and statutory governance responsibilities to manage all of the institutions in a manner designed to achieve maximum operating efficiency.

Someday the current members of the board will have completed their tenures. What legacy will they leave? One of working with all the institutions to truly carry out the mission of providing meaningful education to students seeking a wide range of educational experiences? Or a legacy of opportunities lost and a memory of acts of obstruction which only served to diminish the flagship and other institutions of the System in the eyes of those seeking a great educational experience in Texas?

The eyes of Texas are upon them.

De Leon is an attorney and founder of Austin-based De Leon & Washburn, and a UT alumnus.

The Texas Senate approved a $195.5 billion budget Wednesday that even supporters called an intermediate step toward a final spending plan for the next two years. The $193.8 billion budget approved by the House Appropriations Committee Thursday includes an extra $2.5 billion for public education. The bill is smaller than the Senate budget by about $1.7 billion.

Longtime employees of the University of Texas System could not recall a split vote on the board of regents, which has traditionally settled differences behind closed doors and presented a unified front. That changed on Wednesday, when the board voted to review relations between UT-Austin and the UT Law School Foundation.

Wichita Falls is the largest city in Texas in danger of running out of water. According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the city of more than 100,000 could run out of water in less than six months.

Legislation that could lead to term limits on statewide officeholders made its way through the Senate this week; if approved by the House and then by voters, it would limit non-judicial statewide officeholders to two four-year terms.

As recently as 2003, the president of the Greater Fort Bend County Tea Party had a different title: director of propaganda for the American Fascist Party. James Ives says he was working undercover doing research for a book he never wrote.

Add Tom Pauken to the list of Men Who Would Be Governor. The former Texas Workforce commissioner and Republican Party chairman filed papers this week for a 2014 run. He’s not running against Rick Perry, exactly, but he’s not exactly not. He told The Texas Tribune he wants to reunite the “Reagan coalition of social and economic conservatives.” He told the Dallas Morning News, which broke the story, that it's time for "a different style of leadership." He said he likes Perry and likes Attorney General Greg Abbott, most often mentioned as next in the line of succession in the GOP.

Put Barry Smitherman on the maybe list for the 2014 race for attorney general. He is currently chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, a post to which he was elected in November, and hasn’t made a public peep about anything else. But fellow Republicans — non-officeholders, by the way — say he is talking about a shot at AG. He says, in response, that he’s planning to run for reelection to the RRC.

Democratic activist Celia Israel says she has filed the paperwork to run for Rep. Mark Strama’s spot in HD-50 in 2014. The Austin Democrat announced early in the session that this will be his last term; Israel says she’s got 300 supporters and a website.

Press corps moves: Brad Watson leaves Dallas’ WFAA-TV after more than three decades (!) to become a spokesman for Luminent. 

Gov. Rick Perry appointed:

• Tony Buzbee of Friendswood, Morris Foster of Austin and Charles Schwartz of Houston to the Texas A&M System Board of Regents. Buzbee is a trial lawyer. Foster is retired president of ExxonMobil Production Co. Schwartz is a partner with the Skadden Arps law firm.

• John Clamp of San Antonio to preside over the board of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority. Clamp runs the San Antonio Hotel and Lodging Association.

• Leslie Bingham and Lowell Keig to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for new terms. Bingham is CEO of Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville. Keig is an Austin attorney.