Develop A Better Educated Workforce
Texas has emerged as a national leader in education reform. Student scores in Texas climbed to the top tier nationwide after the state passed landmark legislation based on the simple but powerful
principles of local control and increased accountability. Every year, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) releases public reports on each school district's performance on accountability standards such as academic performance, dropout rates, and attendance rates. Since 1993, when the Legislature established the Texas Public School Accountability System, the bar has been raised annually to ensure that Texas schools continue improving.
As Texas competes more vigorously in world markets, our children must be prepared to meet the more sophisticated demands of the international marketplace. Nevertheless, many Texans still lack the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century. TEA estimates that 4 million adult Texans never graduated from high school. Yet Texans no longer compete with students from New York, Illinois, or California alone. They must hold their own with graduates from Asia and Europe as well. As Texas competes more vigorously in world markets, our children must be prepared to meet the growing and more sophisticated demands of the international marketplace. Texas has a responsibility to raise its educational standards and strive for excellence in all schools.
1. Raise Standards
Since the mid-1980s, Texas has made great strides in assessing and improving student performance. The heart of this effort is the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) test, a mandatory exam every student must pass to graduate from high school. The present TAAS test emphasizes basic skills such as reading and mathematics, but in future years it must become more rigorous and cover more academic subjects.
TAAS test results have improved for every ethnic group at every grade level. The existing standards, however, need improvement. A school or district now can receive an "acceptable" rating even if fewer than half of its students score 70 percent on the TAAS test--the classroom equivalent of a "C-" grade. What that means is that a district can keep its "acceptable" rating even if half of its students consistently fail the TAAS test. Given the demand for highly educated workers, lawmakers should raise the bar for student achievement and district performance.
Action: For a school or district to receive an academically acceptable rating, at least 70 percent of its students should pass the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) test by 2000. In addition, a minimum number of students should score 95 percent on the TAAS test--the equivalent of a solid "A"before a school or district can receive a "recognized" or "exemplary" state rating. (See ED 3, Volume II.)
2. Increase Public/Private Educational Partnerships
Partnerships are created every day in the private sector, with the understanding that each partner brings new strength to an alliance. Educational partnerships between the public and private sectors are proving crucial to educational improvement. The Texas Business Education Coalition represents an ongoing partnership between hundreds of small and large Main Street businesses and local school districts; its goal is to improve classroom performance by drawing upon the business community's wealth of experience and knowledge.
Educational partnerships are expanding into the areas of early childhood education, basic skills training, and contributions of employee time, equipment, and property. For example, the private sector has provided more than 30 worksite or "satellite" schools to local school districts around the country. In these arrangements, the private company provides and maintains the physical space while the school district supplies the books, teachers, and curriculum. Typically, most of the students are the children of company employees.
Action: State law should offer tax incentives to businesses that assist in the educational process by providing early childhood education programs, adult education programs, or free or low-cost facilities for schools. (See ED 2, Volume II.)
3. Funnel More of Every Education Dollar Directly into the Classroom
Classroom instruction accounts for only 52 cents of every dollar Texas spends on education. Yet the central mission of a school is to provide students with an education, not to run a transportation service, cafeterias, or other ancillary activities. Schools can channel more money into the classroom by achieving greater efficiencies in ancillary services and introducing innovative management practices into school district operations.
Action: The Comptroller's office should establish a program that provides research, policy and technical assistance to school districts to help them drive more dollars to the classroom. (See ED 5, Volume II.)
4. Attract, Retain, and Reward Good Teachers
Most Texas teachers are dedicated and proficient educators. But unless teaching remains an attractive option for bright, motivated persons, Texas cannot expect to attract quality professionals to our public schools. Teacher salaries are based on tenure and educational attainment rather than the innovative and effective teaching that truly merits additional pay.
Action: Texas should institute a salary bonus system for teachers who improve the academic performance of their students. In addition to giving teachers their due, the program would help Texas public schools attract and retain the best teachers. (See ED 1, Volume II.)
5. Improve Teacher Retirement Benefits
As many as 80 percent of Texas' teachers are not covered by Social Security, making their state retirement benefits crucial. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), which served more than 687,000 active members and 158,000 retirees in 1997, is in excellent actuarial shape and can afford to bolster its benefits and make them more flexible.
Action: Annuities for current retirees should be raised by 5 percent to 7 percent to restore lost purchasing power. In addition, the multiplier of 2 percent per year of service used to calculate retiree benefits should be increased incrementally, to 2.1 percent and then to 2.25 percent, as soon as the system's actuary can certify that these increases can be funded at current contribution rates and that the system would remain actuarially sound. (See SE 3, Volume II.)
Teachers and state employees work hard for their money and merit continuing opportunities to reap rewards. As in the private sector, state employees should have opportunities to devise their own retirement plans, with more choices among retirement options.
"I'm going to be 'the education watchdog' for the people of Texas, seeing to it that more of every education dollar goes directly into the classroom where it belongs." Carole Keeton Rylander
Action: An optional lump-sum payment plan should be offered to retirees of both TRS and the state's Employees Retirement System (ERS). This option, increasingly popular in other states, gives retirees greater flexibility in their financial planning by allowing them to draw a large lump-sum payment upon retirement in exchange for reduced monthly benefits. (See SE 4, Volume II.)
6. Make Schools Safer
Children cannot learn when they fear for their safety. Parents were worried about violence in schools even before the 1997 string of school-related shootings across the country. Statistics show that gang-related violence and incidents involving vandalism and weapons found on school property have risen sharply in recent years.
Texas can help improve education by taking steps to keep our schools safe. Some schools have taken the initiative to develop programs to eliminate drugs and violence, but many others lack such efforts, and even when the programs are in place, it is difficult to measure their success.
Action: School districts, as a part of their annual performance reports to parents and the community, should report on violent and criminal incidents that occur on each campus, as well as district prevention and intervention initiatives. (See ED 7, Volume II.)
7. Clean the Slate at Substandard Schools
Many Texas children are trapped in low-performing schools that have failed to improve despite pressures from the
Texas Public School Accountability System. A number of states as well as some Texas school districts have experimented with a powerful remedy: reconstitution.
Chronically low-performing schools should be required to reconstitute their staffs if they fail to improve.
Reconstitution calls for at least some, if not all of a school's staff to resign and reapply for their jobs. The proposal is to give the staff a probationary period to improve before cleaning the slate and give the school's staff a final chance to meet their responsibilities to students. Several San Antonio districts experimented with reconstitution and reported dramatic improvements in test scores.[2]
Action: Chronically low-performing schools should be required to reconstitute their staffs if they fail to improve after a probationary period. A school should be given a reasonable opportunity to improve student performance before its staff and administrators are reassigned. (See ED 6, Volume II.)
8. Prepare Toddlers for School
Groundbreaking research suggests that efforts to improve public education must start with children well before they enroll in school. In Texas, 700,000 children are three years old or younger. Research shows children begin to learn far earlier than previously thought; their ability and capacity to learn are largely molded in those first crucial months and years. Policymakers in several states have devised ways to enhance the development of their youngest citizens. Texas' efforts have been scattered and uncoordinated.
Action: State childhood programs should take advantage of recent discoveries in brain research by finding ways to apply that new knowledge to programs that educate Texas' youngest children. A high-level task force should devise a Texas Zero to Three Plan and implement model programs to assist parents help their children excel. (See ED 8, Volume II.)
Endnotes
2 The following San Antonio schools have been reconstituted: Louis William Fox Academic and Technical High School, Thomas Jefferson High School, David Burnet Elementary School, Sam Houston Gates Elementary School, Martin Luther King Middle School, and Frederick Douglas Intermediate School.
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