[CSPS] running for education

[Jonathan Coopersmith]

FYI,
         Jonathan




Fed up, pro-education candidates step up




Believing lawmakers won't give schools a fair shake, some educators will 
try to take their jobs instead.


by 
<http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/10/mailto:jembry@statesman.com>Jason 
Embry, 
<http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/10/mailto:relder@statesman.com>Robert 
Elder

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, October 23, 2005

WAXAHACHIE ­ At a recent Rotary Club meeting in nearby Midlothian, Q.D. 
"Duke" Burge had planned to deliver an energetic speech for his campaign 
for the Texas House. The day before, he was told that the club doesn't 
allow political speeches. Undeterred, Burge sat down at the club's piano 
and knocked out a five-song set that featured indirect jabs at the Legislature.

"Whatever it takes," Burge said over lunch at the Applebee's near his 
computer services business.

Burge is in his sixth year on the Midlothian school board, so he's no 
political novice. But he's punching in a new weight class, challenging 
13-year incumbent Jim Pitts, the well-funded chairman of the House 
Appropriations Committee, in the Republican primary in March.

An impossible dream? In most years, yes, and probably in 2006 as well.

But Burge hopes to tap a well of frustration over lawmakers' repeated 
failure to improve public schools while also lowering property taxes.

Burge, in fact, is just one of about 15 candidates with education ties, 
either as school board members, administrators or teachers, who are 
planning to run for House seats next year. That's an unusually high number, 
and more candidates are likely to emerge in the next couple of months. Many 
are counting on unprecedented turnout and financial support from 
education-minded voters.

Beyond the Legislature's lack of policy solutions, some educators are 
infuriated by what they see as lawmakers' disregard for their opinions and 
contempt for how they do their jobs. In August, for instance, House Speaker 
Tom Craddick characterized the school system as a "bottomless pit" in need 
of reform as much as new funds.

"The difficult thing for all of us is not to take this personally," says 
Mary Ann Whiteker, superintendent of the Hudson Independent School District 
and president of the Texas Association of Mid-Size Schools. "You just walk 
through the Capitol thinking, 'Why do they hate me so much?' "

"Of course," she adds, "I think there were times where legislators thought 
we hated them."

All this is more than name-calling. Control of the education agenda in the 
Legislature affects how much money schools have ­ and who is going to pay 
more taxes as a result. The state ranks near the bottom nationally in 
high-school graduation rates and Scholastic Assessment Test scores, and 
it's in the bottom 50 percent in teacher pay and per-student spending. 
School districts are plagued by reports of cheating on standardized tests 
and concealing dropout rates, among other governance issues.

Long term, the health of the state economy rides on the quality of public 
education. The friction between legislators and educators raises questions 
about the chances for reaching consensus on the way forward.

School lobbying groups of every stripe prided themselves on maintaining a 
solid front this year at the Capitol. They fought off proposals for private 
tuition vouchers, a plan to let voters veto tax increases by school 
districts and a funding proposal they deemed inadequate.

But a political campaign is a more individual pursuit, and the emergence of 
the new House candidates has been far less organized. Education groups seem 
unlikely to unify behind them, considering that these candidates stress 
varying issues ­ to the extent they've laid out agendas at all.

View from the top

State District Judge John Dietz last year declared the Texas system of 
paying for schools unconstitutional. His ruling that schools do not have 
the money to meet state and federal mandates emboldened school leaders, who 
have borne the weight of legislative funding cuts and tougher state tests.

Legislative leaders entered 2005 trying to comply with the part of Dietz's 
ruling that told the school finance system to rely less on property taxes.

But they largely ignored his calls for huge increases in state funding, 
instead offering a smaller funding boost ­ the House wanted $3 billion more 
over two years, about a 4.5 percent increase in total funding ­ paired with 
education reforms that made school leaders nervous, such as incentive pay 
for teachers and requiring school districts to hold elections in November 
instead of May. School officials regularly lined up at meetings of the 
House and Senate education committees to assail the school finance plans, 
pleading for more money with fewer strings attached.

Rep. Bill Keffer, a Dallas Republican on the House committee, says he tuned 
out education lobbyists who said they would rather have no funding increase 
than what the House was offering. "After I heard about the 10th person say 
that, it almost became pointless for those folks to come testify before the 
committee, as far as I was concerned personally, because I didn't feel like 
they were participating in the process in good faith," he says. The Senate 
fought off some of the most controversial elements of the House proposal, 
such as moving school board elections to November and capping the amount of 
money that districts with extremely high property values must share with 
the rest of the state.

In part because of educators' objections, the two chambers didn't complete 
a plan during their 140-day regular session or two 30-day special sessions. 
That made a total of five fruitless sessions since 2003.

Keffer likens education groups to the Luddites, English workers who 
destroyed manufacturing equipment to slow the Industrial Revolution.

"I imagine someone sitting around, hoisting a mug of ale after busting the 
printing press thinking, 'Well, we took care of that, didn't we?' " he 
says. "Well, that lasted for however long it lasted, but it didn't stop 
progress."

House Public Education Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, 
says not all educators opposed the plan. House members behind the plan 
included former teachers Dianne Delisi and Glenda Dawson, former principal 
Martha Wong and Rob Eissler, a former school board member.

At least one of the educators now seeking a House seat says he, too, found 
the leadership plan "acceptable."

Republican Kelly Hancock has been on the Birdville school board near Fort 
Worth for 13 years; he also owns a chemical distribution company.

"I'm a businessman, strong conservative, that happened to be involved in 
education for 13 years," says Hancock, who is running for a seat being 
vacated by Bob Griggs, R-North Richland Hills.

The parent PAC

Carolyn Boyle is a former PTA president at Doss Elementary School in 
Austin. For eight years she coordinated the Coalition for Public Schools, a 
leading voice against vouchers, which would use public money to send 
students to private schools.

Vouchers failed again this year. Even with that victory, Boyle says she 
became fed up with what she saw as a Legislature that did not listen to 
educators or parents. She and a handful of like-minded parents formed the 
Texas Parent Political Action Committee to dole out campaign contributions 
to candidates whom they consider pro-education.

The PAC has received donations from 150 people. Boyle declines to give a 
total raised so far but has set a goal of $125,000 for the March primaries.

"Our hope is that a typical contribution will be $5,000 to $10,000 per 
candidate, plus a group of parent volunteers recruited by Texas Parent 
PAC," she says. Though Boyle's anti-voucher work had made her a thorn in 
the side of many Republicans, she expects GOP candidates to receive much of 
that support. That's different from the approach taken for the 2004 
primaries by the state's four major teacher groups, whose political 
committees stuck to incumbents or gave most of their money to Democrats.

In heavily Republican districts, though, the GOP primary is the only race 
that matters.

The groups that focused their money on Democrats say that could change if 
they find the right candidates. "As Republican party politics mature, we 
probably will become increasingly involved in Republican primary races," 
says Richard Kouri, public affairs director for the Texas State Teachers 
Association. The other group is the Texas Federation of Teachers.

"Let's just come up with some new talent," Boyle says. "Clearly, the talent 
that's there couldn't get the job done."

Grass roots

If Boyle is a familiar insider at the Capitol, Frank "Bo" Camp is a field 
soldier. On a Tuesday night early this month, Camp, clad in sweat pants and 
a T-shirt, perspires mightily as he sets up tables and chairs inside the 
sweltering Former Students' Association Building in the small East Texas 
town of Gladewater. Camp's wife, Carmen Camp, is a special education 
teacher in the nearby Longview Independent School District.

Both are also brand-new political activists. They are two of the founders 
of a group called No Texas Teacher Left Behind, which is holding the fifth 
in a series of rally-the-troops meetings, mostly in East Texas.

Sitting on a folding chair, Bo Camp thumbs through thousands of pages of 
e-mails the group has received since June through its Web site. "We can't 
even answer them all," he says.

"We're degraded; we're laughed at by legislators," says Bo Camp, a former 
trustee of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. "It just blows my mind 
that those people feel the way they do about public education."

Two middle-school teachers in Gladewater, Jan Doerr and Martha Wright, 
established the group as the regular legislative session endedin the spring.

"We're full-time educators who decided that just whining is not our style," 
Wright tells the group of about 70 people.

No Texas Teacher's agenda calls for a $4,000 teacher pay raise, a 
cost-of-living raise for retirees, who haven't had one since 2001, and more 
state money for the underfunded Teacher Retirement System.

Showing a PowerPoint slide on the generous pensions for veteran lawmakers ­ 
a lawmaker with just 12 years of service can draw a $34,000 annual pension 
­ Wright peers over her glasses and says, "Let's help these legislators 
reach their retirement goals" by throwing them out of office.

The group is trying to marshal the votes and financial strength of the 
state's 1.1 million active and retired educators ­ roughly one of every 20 
Texans.

Mesquite Fire Department Lt. Chuck Tull is there with his wife, Susan, a 
fourth-grade teacher. He is challenging two-term House member Dan Flynn of 
Van in the GOP primary.

Voters know "we've not really accomplished anything" on education at the 
Capitol, Tull says as his wife grades papers nearby. "I think we're going 
to have a few fresh faces" in the next Legislature.

Fighting history

In 2004, all 12 Republican House members who had primary challengers 
walloped them, each getting more than 60 percent of the vote.

Republican political consultant Craig Murphy predicts that no GOP candidate 
would win in 2006 running against the party's education position. "I don't 
know what the major issue is going to be in March, but it's not going to 
necessarily be the same one that was a major issue in July," Murphy says.

Retired Lewisville school Superintendent Clayton Downing ran for the House 
in 2002, saying he would use his experience to improve the school finance 
system. Incumbent Mary Denny beat him by 19 points in the Republican primary.

Downing figured he had a strong support base because the suburban Dallas 
district included part of the school district where he was superintendent 
for 18 years. He said longtime friends who were active in GOP politics told 
him they had to publicly support Denny because she had the support of the 
party establishment.

"I worked my tail off and could not get people to vote," said Downing, who 
today heads the Texas School Coalition, a group of districts with high 
property values. "It was just really hard to focus in and get people to 
really give it the attention that I thought it deserved."

Downing said a challenger running in the primary "doesn't have a prayer" 
without unifying all of the education groups, such as those representing 
teachers, parents and administrators, in their districts.

But pulling all of those forces together for a House campaign is unheard 
of, he said. "I think it could happen, but I sure haven't seen it happen," 
he said.

Groups that present a united front to all of the legislators in the Capitol 
see their influence diluted when it is spread among 254 counties and 150 
House districts, and the burden falls to local officials and teachers who 
often do not have an interest in politics, he said.

Challengers are bound to be underfunded, as well. If the Texas Parent PAC, 
for example, were to contribute $10,000 to Burge, that would be small beer 
compared to Pitts' fundraising muscle. In 2004, against a 21-year-old 
Democratic opponent, Pitts raised about $300,000 and won 72 percent of the 
vote.

But former Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff said the school community could 
be a force.

"That is the great unanswered question, whether this sleeping giant of 
PTAs, school boards and teachers will ever organize enough to make their 
presence known" at the polls, says Ratliff, who advises the Texas 
Association of School Boards. "I do think it's a sleeping giant, though."

What the Legislature liked, educators didn't

Proposals that leading lawmakers supported, and many educators opposed, 
during this year's legislative sessions. Included in broader school finance 
legislation, they ultimately died when the Legislature failed to reach a 
consensus on the finance issue.

Voter-approved tax increases

Legislature: Wanted school boards to seek voter approval before boosting 
tax rates beyond the state cap, arguing that it would give taxpayers more 
control.

Educators: Said the elections would hurt children in areas that regularly 
defeat tax increases; said other political bodies, such as the Legislature, 
do not need voter approval to increase taxes.

Incentive pay for teachers

Legislature: Said principals should be able to reward teachers with higher 
salaries if they take challenging assignments or if their students show 
marked improvement.

Educators: Teacher groups say incentive-pay programs concentrate raises in 
the hands of a few teachers.

November school board elections

Legislature: House leaders said November elections would produce higher 
turnout in school board elections, giving more taxpayers a say in choosing 
their boards. Turnout is always higher in November, when there are more 
high-profile races than in May. Senate leaders showed much less enthusiasm 
than their House counterparts for November board elections.

Educators: Said school board candidates, now elected in May in most 
districts, would be lost among the many partisan races held in November and 
would be asked by voters' groups to answer questions on topics unrelated to 
education, such as gun control and abortion.

Instructional spending

Legislature: Said schools should spend at least 65 percent of their 
operating budgets on instruction, up from 63.8 percent.

Educators: Argued that the mandate, without a significant increase in 
overall funding, would tie school boards' hands and trigger cuts in areas 
such as counseling, transportation and food services.

(Note: After this failed to clear the Legislature, Gov. Rick Perry ordered 
the Texas Education Agency to write and implement a 65 percent rule.)

New to the game

Groups formed in the past 13 months to promote education issues.

Texas Parent PAC

Headquarters: Austin

Mission: political action committee for "pro-public-education" candidates

Goal: Raise $125,000 for 2006 primaries

Leader: Carolyn Boyle, former lobbyist for Coalition for Public Schools

Size: 150 donors to date


----------
No Texas Teacher Left Behind

Headquarters: Gladewater

Mission: "Restore respect" from lawmakers and the governor for public educators

Goal: Generate widespread activism and voting among educators

Leaders: Martha Wright and Jan Doerr, middle-school teachers in Gladewater

Size: Undetermined; group is processing membership applications and sorting 
through 4,000-plus e-mails


----------
Friends of Texas Public Schools

Headquarters: Rockwall

Mission: "Strengthen the public's faith in public schools"

Goal: Apolitical public relations campaign and polling to boost public 
support for school system

Leader: Scott Milder, vice president of an architectural firm that designs 
school facilities

Size: 500 individuals ($25 minimum contribution) and about 35 business 
($500 minimum) have donated money

 From schools to the campaign trail

Candidates with ties to education are emerging at a faster-than-usual pace 
to run for the Texas House. Many are frustrated by the political stalemate 
over school finance. But they're not a slate of candidates in the 
traditional sense, and they hold varying views on education and tax issues. 
Other candidates are likely to emerge before the end of the candidate 
filing period in January.
District Name Party Education tie Incumbent
2 Graham Sweeney Democrat Boles superintendent Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van
2 Chuck Tull Republican Edgewood school board Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van
10 Duke Burge Republican Midlothian school board Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie
48 Donna Howard Democrat Formerly on Eanes school board Rep. Todd Baxter, 
R-Austin*
48 Kathy Rider Democrat Formerly on Austin school board Rep. Todd Baxter, 
R-Austin*
52 Kelly Felthauser Democrat Substitute teacher Rep. Mike Krusee, 
R-Williamson County
54 Jimmie Don Aycock Republican Formerly on Killeen school board Rep. 
Suzanna Hupp, R-Lampasas*
63 Anne Lakusta Republican Formerly on Lewisville school board Rep. Mary 
Denny, R-Aubrey
72 Drew Darby Republican school site management committee Rep. Scott 
Campbell, R-San Angelo
72 Kevin Housley Republican Christoval school board Rep. Scott Campbell, 
R-San Angelo
91 Kelly Hancock Republican Birdville school board Rep. Bob Griggs, R-North 
Richland Hills*
98 Bill Skinner Republican Retired teacher, administrator Rep. Vicki 
Truitt, R-Keller
129 Sherrie Matula Democrat Teacher Rep. John Davis, R-Houston
133 Barbara Larson Republican Formerly Spring Branch school board Rep. Joe 
Nixon, R-Houston*

* Incumbent is not seeking re-election

[]



Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/10/23statelocal.html


Jonathan Coopersmith
Associate Professor
Dept. of History
MS 4236
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas  77843
979.845.8584
979.862.4314 fax

Secretary
History & Philosophy of Science Section (L)
American Association for the Advancement of Science
aaas.org 
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