Volume 18, Issue 5
January, 2011
MCALLEN AFT NEWS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION—2011
The State Board of Education meets this week in Austin with a number of new members likely to give deliberations a somewhat more moderate cast.
One of them, Thomas Ratliff of Mount Pleasant, knocked out one of the leaders of the extreme-right faction on the Board in a hard-fought primary last year.
Another, Michael Soto of San Antonio, is a Trinity University professor who testified forcefully against some of the serious flaws in the social-studies curriculum standards passed by the Board last year.
George Clayton of Dallas will bring a current, practicing classroom teacher’s perspective to the Board’s proceedings. Two other newcomers also were elected in November, giving the Board an 11-member Republican majority on the 15-member body.
Ratliff already has signaled his intention to change the way the Board operates by proposing several amendments to Board procedures that he hopes will make its decision-making more rational. For example, he wants individuals appointed as “expert reviewers” of curriculum guidelines to have real credentials as experts in the field of study at issue. Nominated experts from out of state would have to earn the support of two-thirds of the Board.
The Ratliff package of rule amendments would begin to correct some of the practices that have proven so divisive and counterproductive at SBOE meetings.
In recent years, out-of-state “experts” lacking appropriate credentials have been chosen to advance individual Board members’ ideological agenda, while consequential amendments to state standards have been offered at the last minute and rammed through with minimal time for scrutiny or debate.
Donna Howard, Democrat of Austin, has made SBOE reform one of her legislative priorities, and this year she already has filed a bill to make Board elections nonpartisan. Her bill, HB 553, would sidestep the intense partisanship that has left the Board bitterly split and essentially under the control of a small minority of voters who dominate party primaries in SBOE districts with lopsided party identification.
Howard’s bill has won immediate support across party lines from newly elected Republican Ratliff, according to news reports. Said Ratliff: “Our kids don’t go to blue schools or red schools, they go to public schools. If the legislature wants to make board elections nonpartisan, I certainly support it.”
IDEA SCHOOLS
But he said the new bond should push IDEA past its "2012 Plan" to launch 22 schools in the Valley and allow the charter to revise its master plan to operate 38 schools by 2015.
The new construction bond — the third and largest in the charter’s 11-year history — will allow IDEA to build two new campuses in Edinburg and Weslaco, both of which should open next year and push the "2012 Plan" to 24 schools instead of 22.
The Alamo and Pharr campuses will also get more classrooms, and a brand new College Preparatory location in San Juan will help accommodate that campus’s growth, said Chief Financial Officer Wyatt Truscheit.
Unlike charters, public school districts have the power to increase local tax rates in order to cover multimillion-dollar fine arts auditoriums, football stadiums, changing rooms and more.
JUST A FEW REMINDERS
Teachers Remember—You have a contract with only two (2) weeks notice at IDEA schools. You answer that telephone given to you by IDEA until 9 p.m. That laptop given to you is used to work every night. Fund raising is your life at IDEA.
LOBBY DAY
March 14, 2011
We are going to lobby our legislators in Austin on March 14, 2011. We have chartered a bus for our trip. You need only put down a $10 deposit to reserve a seat.
We will leave at 4 a.m. from our office at 1500 Dove. We will have breakfast foods and drinks (including water)
On arrival we will be briefed by Texas AFT President Linda Bridges. Legislators will come to the briefing.
After the briefing, we will attend appointments at the capital with our Valley legislators.
Lunch will be served on the grounds of the capital by Texas AFT staff.
After lunch we will visit again with our legislators.
Then we board the bus for our return trip. We will pick up food on the way back.
