Snake Oil

“At this point, the Texas Virtual Academy shouldn’t exist”—that’s how the Observer’s Abby Rapoport put it last October, but just look at them now.

Not only is the online school still around, after whitewashing its record of underperformance with a cool administrative switcheroo, they’ve been approved by the Texas Education Agency to take up to 6,000 students for next school year. That’s up from 2,400 students two years ago.

Texas Virtual Academy is an online-only charter school, so on paper it’s run by a Texas-based nonprofit, though its curriculum, teachers and even its website are run by the for-profit online education giant K12 Inc. The Texas Virtual Academy is K12’s biggest toehold in this fair state, but the company has been the subject of some serious criticism in places where it has a bigger presence, for everything from its top executives’ multimillion-dollar salaries to its practice, since discontinued, of outsourcing test grading to India.

As Abby noted last fall (“The Pearson Graduate,” September 2011), the Texas Virtual Academy is in a privileged position, despite multiple failing grades from the TEA, because it’s part of a program from the Legislature to increase access to online education. It’s one of three full-time online schools in the Texas Virtual Schools Network, and it’s the only charter school among them. The other two virtual schools are run by public school districts in Houston (which contracts with the for-profit Connections Academy) and Texarkana (with a curriculum from the nonprofit Calvert School).

Houston-based charter Southwest Schools had been the local charter-holder managing the Texas Virtual Academy, but after two years of getting “academically unacceptable” ratings from TEA, the district dropped the online school in 2011. Since last year, the virtual academy has been “managed” by the Lewisville-based Responsive Education Solutions, one of the Texas’ largest charter operators, a chain with a good track record under the state’s rating system. That’s a nice-looking wrapper for a chronically underperforming school.

Conservative groups love the prospects for publicly funded online schools. As the group Progress Texas pointed out last month, growing the online K-12 market has been big priority of the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which promote private-sector opportunities in the public education world.

Texas law limits the number of charters TEA can award, but once a charter-holder gets into the system, it can add extra campuses or bump its enrollment cap with a simple administrative OK from TEA. No elected officials had to vote on the decision to more than doubling the Texas Virtual Academy’s enrollment.

The Texas Virtual Academy may be the same K12 Inc. program that failed to meet state standards two out of the last three years, but in the hands of the right charter-holder it’s a cash cow with virtually unlimited growth.

This is the first in a short series of posts checking in with legislators who’ll be setting new public school policy in 2013 and beyond.

Thanks to last week’s Republican primary, the already Hochberg-less Texas House got itself a swift Eissler-ectomy to match. The Capitol will be one full of newbies next year, and a few of them will be public education types who campaigned on issues like fairness in school funding and testing reform.

That leaves Killeen Republican Jimmie Don Aycock in a choice position, not only for a shot at chairing the House Public Education Committee, but also to be the guy who newer members turn to for help turning their ideas on schools into bills that stand a chance. In three terms in the House, Aycock has positioned himself as a leader on school funding and accountability, two of the hottest subjects in public ed.

Aycock faces an election challenge in November from former Killeen City Council member Claudia Brown, a Democrat who spent decades as a principal in Baltimore. His district leans pretty well Republican, so assuming he’s back in 2013, Aycock is well-positioned to take over for Rep. Rob Eissler at the helm of the public ed committee. Eissler has chaired it since Aycock’s freshman session in 2007.

I asked the former Killeen ISD board member if it’s a job he’d want, and he laughed it off. “I think that would be awfully presumptuous of me. I’m wanting to serve wherever the speaker needs me to serve,” he said.

What he’d like to do, he said, is help new legislators with school policy backgrounds turn their ideas into viable statewide policy. “Presuming I’m there, I think my role will probably to be to answer an awful lot of questions for junior members. Just trying to be helpful to the freshman or sophomore members that’ll have to step up to education issues.”

They’ve got their work cut out for them. More than half the school districts in Texas have sued the state over its school finance system, calling it unbalanced or inadequate, or both. The Legislature cut $5.4 billion from public schools last year, and they haven’t embraced opportunities to put some of that money back in.

Aycock co-chairs the joint interim committee covering school finance, which is studying how to restructure the way Texas pays for its public schools, to make it more fair, and better reflect the real cost of education. Whatever they come up with, that almost won’t mean more money overall, though—not next session, anyway. Any leadership position in the House will have to deal with the spectre of further cuts to the budget. It will probably take a Supreme Court ruling on the lawsuits to bring legislators together to put much more money into public schools, something that likely won’t happen before the 83rd Legislature wraps up in June.

We’re also in the midst of a popular revolt against the state’s testing system, led by the hundred-plus school districts that have passed resolutions opposing it. Last month Aycock began writing at RethinkTexas.org, a blog he hopes will jumpstart a more upbeat conversation about how to improve the way Texas measures schools. “It’s real easy to get people to say what they’re unhappy with, but it’s a much more tedious process to get some ideas for how to make it better,” he says.

So far, he’s gotten mostly complaints. The site’s drawn just under 60 comments, some of them book-length, about what’s wrong with Texas’ testing and school rating systems. But  a few comments have tapped into ideas with broad support, like technical certifications for high school kids who don’t pass their end-of-course exams.

“I think our whole one-test-fits-all kinda deal is a little problematic,” Aycock says. “To say we’re basing our entire strategy for education policy on just a single element is just narrow.” Aycock led off his blog by suggesting three separate ratings for student performance, financial management, and some other measure of overall quality encompassing college credits, career readiness and extracurricular involvement.

He’d like to see a major shift in the way Texas measures schools, but doesn’t expect it to come quickly. Even without the folks who’ve led the Legislature for so long on things like schools, budgets and prisons, Aycock says there’s no way a bunch of new leaders are going to step in and dramatically change how things are done.

“I compare the Legislature to being a great big blob of protoplasm. You get enough people pushing in one direction, it sort of squeezes over a little bit,” he says. “It matters where on that great body of stuff people line up and begin pushing.”

Photos courtesy Amanda Boyd, USFWS/SpaceX

Cameron County could be headed for a showdown between the SpaceX Falcon and the threatened peregrine falcon.

It took a little longer than promised, but sure enough the California-based private space outfit SpaceX is soaking up good press since its successful robo-mission last month to restock the space station and splash back to Earth.

While the company was gearing up for that mission, the news broke that it’s seriously considering building its own launch site in South Texas, on a 50-acre stretch of private property on the beach at the end of State Highway 4 in Cameron County. It’s one of three possible sites where the company could launch its Falcon rocket, along with Florida and Puerto Rico. Those are all southern U.S. sites where rockets could launch east over water.

The announcement about Cameron County didn’t come from SpaceX—one of the biggest players in the private space movement—but from the Federal Aviation Administration, which announced it would study how a launch site would affect the surrounding environment. They’d begin, they said, by asking for input from locals.

Last Tuesday, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department offered up their thoughts, with a 12-page letter from the agency’s Deputy Executive Director Ross Melinchuk. He lists 34 rare and protected species that could be affected by the SpaceX project, “if suitable habitat is present,” (his italics) including sea turtles, snakes and, appropriately, three falcon species.

While the SpaceX project would be on a strip of privately owned land, it’s surrounded by Boca Chica State Park, at the end of the Rio Grande Valley Wildlife Corridor. According to Melinchuk, the launch site would be 300 feet from park property. Noise, heat and vibration, from the launches could all cause trouble for animals living so close, he writes—but that’s not all. Fences around the SpaceX site could get in the way of ocelot migration. Bright lights around the launchpad could lure sea turtles onto the roads. Or a fuel spill, a launch mishap or a tourist’s stray cigarette butt could burn the whole place down.

Luke Metzger at Environment Texas first heard about the SpaceX plans from Parks and Wildlife last week, and promptly sounded the alarm. On Friday, they began a letter-writing campaign to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. “Don’t build spaceport inside a wildlife refuge,” is the suggested subject line.

“There’s so few places we’ve set aside,” Metzger said over the phone today. “It’s just inappropriate to have an industrial development in the middle of a wildlife refuge.”

SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham has argued that Cape Canaveral, for instance, is also right near a wildlife refuge—but Metzger says that doesn’t make it safe. “There’s a billion-dollar environmental cleanup effort going on at the NASA facilities in South Florida, and how that’s impacted the environment is something we still don’t know yet.”

Though they’ve already launched their petition drive, Metzger says he’s still learning just what kind of trouble the launch site could cause, especially relative to other heavy industrial sites. “It’s kinda hard to compare to something else, because it’s pretty unique. We don’t have a lot of rocket launch pads in Texas.”

That’s something the Texas Space Alliance is hoping to change—its leaders say Texas just isn’t doing enough to attract space business, and that SpaceX is a golden opportunity. The Brownsville Economic Development Council has been trying hard to show SpaceX what a welcome neighbor they’d be. In April, their vice president Gilbert Salinas told me the SpaceX project “is what we call a game-changer. It could totally change the face of our community.”

Metzger warns that betting on the space business is going to mean betting against the nature tourism industry that’s already developed in the Rio Grande Valley. He cites a Texas A&M study that said birdwatchers, hikers and campers generate $300 million a year for the entire Valley.

And the resistance to SpaceX isn’t isolated to one Austin-based environmental group. At the blog Save Boca Chica Beach, Bobby Wightman-Cervantes is rallying the local resistance to the space boosters. “We are not a bunch of loud locals and we are not opposing SpaceX for publicity,” he writes in one post. “We care for Boca Chica and do not want it destroyed by SpaceX and those easily impressed with shiny objects.”

A Texas Parks and Wildlife diagram shows the proposed SpaceX locations in Cameron County (in purple), along with 1.5-mile (red) and 5-mile (blue) buffers.

Update (9:13 a.m.): With Election Day behind us, it’s safe to say that tidal wave of pro-school sentiment didn’t quite materialize, either in the state House races or at the State Board of Education.

At the SBOE, the night was nearly a wash in the ongoing tug of war between the hard-line conservatives and the more moderate Republicans. Gail Lowe, a longtime member in the latter camp, lost her seat to retired Lampasas teacher Sue Melton, a former state president of the teachers grow; Association of Texas Professional Educators.

The very conservative David Bradley has fended off a challenge—his first in a quarter of a century on the board—from former Lege staffer Rita Ashley. Thomas Ratliff, a (relatively!) moderate Republican from Mount Pleasant will hold onto his seat, as well.

The far-righters will gain a vote in the Panhandle, where their candidate of choice Marty Rowley eged out former Amarillo ISD board president Anette Carlisle by just over 1,000 votes.

The only moderate Republican who’s been ousted from the board is George Clayton, the Dallas ISD teacher who would have become the state’s first candidate to win office as an openly gay Republican. He nearly got into a runoff for his seat, but instead it’ll go to either Tincy Miller—who held the seat for eons before Clayton beat her in 2010—or tea party favorite Gail Spurlock, who’s found of pointing out that the pilgrims were communists.

Round Rock ISD teacher Rebecca Osborne will face former school board member Tom Maynard in a runoff for the seat now held by moderate Marsha Farney.

In the Texas House, Rob Eissler’s ouster by Texas Home School Coalition-backed Steve Toth is the change with by far the greatest implications for public ed.

But as a new House leadership forms around public school policy, there’ll be a handful of freshmen there to lend their school administration experience—and a few new voices pushing for tight budgets and school choice.

Magnolia ISD board member Cecil Bell Jr. won his bid for an open seat, Lufkin ISD board president Trent Ashby knocked out Rep. Marva Beck, and on the Democratic side, former Eagle Pass ISD trustee Poncho Nevárez nabbed his seat without a runoff.

In all, seven of the 21 House candidates backed by the Texas Parent PAC won seats last night, all but one of them newcomers to the Lege. Five more will head to runoffs in July, and nine of their picks are out.

Many of the group’s biggest recipients of campaign cash lost last night, but Marshall mayor Chris Paddie’s campaign to send Rep. Wayne Christian packing was a major exception. Christian was backed by home-schoolers, and targeted by public ed groups for his role in last year’s budget cuts. Realtors groups spent even more on Paddie to help show Christian the door, but he’d also been one of the House’s biggest anti-choice and anti-LGBT crusaders.

Update (11:02 p.m.): House Public Ed Chair Rob Eissler is out, for real, bumped by Tea Party Insurgent Steve Toth, who  campagined on a promise of cutting the bureaucracy from public ed. In a casual conversation, Eissler would agree with him in principle, but his ties to House speaker Joe Straus and his generally moderate ways made Eissler a big target this primary season.

So the next Legislature will be down a few school finance experts, which is no big deal, really, because it’s not like they’ll have to come up with an entirely new system for funding Texas schools. Well, they might. But still. Jimmie Don Aycock looks to be a quick study, and Arlington Rep. Diane Patrick has won her race tonight handily. All of a sudden, they’ll be two of the Legislature’s top experts on public schools next year.

Update (10:00 p.m.): The night has been good so far to the State Board of Education incumbents in the highest-profile races, with far-righters David Bradley, Barbara Cargill and Ken Mercer all leading in their races. Thomas Ratliff has the edge in his race, too, 52-48 over former SBOE member and Don McLeroy acolyte Randy Stevenson.

The biggest upset of the night on the board, though, has got to be San Antonio Democrat Michael Soto, who has lost his primary race to challenger Marisa Perez. Perez’s was a quiet campaign—she “essentially ran no race,” as Texas Freedom Network’s Dan Quinn put it, not raising or spending a dime. She’s a social worker in San Antonio. Soto had been one of the board’s toughest critics of charter school applications.

Update (9:26 p.m.): The big news so far in the public edusphere is that House Public Education chair Rob Eissler—who was thought to be in a fairly safe race—is trailing his tea party-backed opponent Steve Toth, who runs a pool installation and service business. Without Eissler around next session, the hole in the Legislature’s education know-how would be much, much bigger. They’ve already lost Rep. Scott Hochberg and Senate Public Education chair Florence Shapiro to retirement-slash-the-private-sector.

The below-mentioned Trent Ashby, a school board president with major backing from teachers’ and parents’ groups, is making major headway against incumbent Marva Beck in Lufkin, but most other Parent PAC-backed candidates are struggling early. The memorably named Mineola ISD superintendent Mary Lookadoo hasn’t made much of a dent in her bid to upset Rep. Greenville lawyer George Alexander, backed by Parent PAC in his attempt to bump Dan Flynn out of office, is down 60-40 in his race.

Posted earlier: Between the monster school funding cuts dealt by the Legislature last year, a popular uprising against school testing and the biggest school finance suit ever against the state, Texas’ public education leaders have plenty to get riled about.

Texas Parent PAC and other pro-education groups have poured big money into races they care about this year, propping up former school board members and challengers to folks they’d like to bump out of the Lege. The investment looks to be paying off in Lufkin ISD board president Trent Ashby, who’s up 76-24 in early voting, in his big to oust freshman Rep. Marva Beck.

Former Lewisville ISD board member Amber Fulton is down by the same margin against Frisco City Council member Pat Fallon, a guy who made light of her school experience and said he’d be a more reliable tax figher. Fulton’s hoping she convinced voters that fighting for schools doesn’t mean more spending.

On the State Board of Education, all 15 seats are up for grabs this year, with some longtime incumbents facing big primary challenges tonight. Those includes members of both the hard-right Intelligent Design-backers and the moderate Republican Darwinistas.

SBOE inclumbent Thomas Ratliff, one of the latter, sees that with so much talk about friends of public schools putting up a fight fighting this primary seasonm they’d better deliver. “It could be a hugely good or hugely bad,” he says. “After all this hew and cry about the cuts and this overemphasis on testing, if they don’t get their people elected, they’ll be ignored forever.”

Police departments and crime labs in Texas still have a ways to go before clearing out their rape kit backlogs. Like, a really long way. Most of them haven’t told the state yet how many they have, though they were supposed to do so last fall.

The trouble with the law creating a new timeline for rape kit testing is that it required more work from police and labs, but didn’t provide extra funding. That’s also the only way it was going to pass in the Legislature last year: totally unfunded.

Earlier this month, though, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was in San Antonio trying to drum up support for a measure that would commit more federal money to clearing out the backlog. It sounded like just the sort of answer Texas police departments have been waiting for.

At the Bexar County Courthouse, Cornyn laid out the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Registry Act he plans to introduce in the Senate, which includes more grants for studying and clearing out rape kit backlogs, and a new nationwide registry of sexual assault evidence. As the San Antonio Express-News described it:

The legislation would build upon the Debbie Smith Act of 2004, which expanded the Combined DNA Index System, otherwise known as CODIS, and created grants for states to reduce testing backlogs. The SAFER Act would shift the already existing money so 75 percent of it is focused on rape kit testing instead of 40 percent, Cornyn said.

That’s how it worked when Cornyn introduced the same language late last month, as an amendment to the Republicans’ version of the Violence Against Women Act. As the Dallas Morning News wrote:

Cornyn’s budget-neutral amendment would increase the proportion of grant money doled out under the Violence Against Women Act that would have to be directed to rape kit testing and research, but it does not specify what other programs would be cut as a result.

So it may not be new money exactly.

It’s worth noting that this idea didn’t just spring fully-formed from Cornyn’s head.

The SAFER Act, as worded in Cornyn’s amendment, is the same language introduced in the U.S. House each of the last two years by New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney. Last year, it was co-sponsored by Texas Republican Ted Poe.

Like that bill, Cornyn’s amendment got support from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, or RAINN, as well as the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.

But the forensics workers who process all that evidence aren’t on board. In a newsletter, the American Society of Crime Lab Directors president Jill Spriggs thanked the group’s Texas members for their help dissuading their representatives. “While the intent was sound- the actual implementation of the Act would have taken funds away from processing of rape kits,” Spriggs wrote.

The crime lab directors I spoke to about the new Texas law—the unfunded one that sets deadlines for testing all of a police department’s rape kits—didn’t like the idea that every scrap of evidence in storage was supposed to be processed and run through a database, whether or not police needed it to make a case. “I think it’s unfortunate that the law has taken any police work out of this,” Austin PD crime lab DNA supervisor Cassie Carradine told me.

Laying out his amendment on the Senate floor late last month, Cornyn suggested that he understood that concern, but he still wanted to see all the kits run through a dedicated national registry, connect serial rapists with their crimes across the country.

“There are two distinct types of rape kit backlogs: the well-known backlog of untested rape kits that have already been submitted for testing, and the hidden backlog of kits in law enforcement storage that have not been submitted for testing,” Cornyn said. “This amendment would help us learn more about this hidden backlog and ultimately help state and local law enforcement officials to end it.”