Snake Oil

During a busy day of reintroducing himself to half the reporters in Austin, Gov. Rick Perry told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Dave Montgomery on Tuesday that he very much doubted there’s much interest in Texas for a special session on school finance.

“I would be stunned if there is an outcry from the people of this state or, for that matter, a majority of the members of the Legislature that want to come back in here and have a special session when I don’t think we need one,” Perry told him.

Other folks have a different read on what Texans really want. For weeks, the Texas State Teachers Association has been pushing for a special session on school finance, to fill in last session’s $5.4 billion hole in school funding with some of that fat Rainy Day Fund we’re sitting on. “Most Texans believe it is senseless to leave more than $7 billion of taxpayers’ money in the bank, while their children’s schools continue to suffer cuts,” TSTA president Rita Haecker said in a statement yesterday.

While the damage is already done for this school year, a note from the Center for Public Policy Priorities points out there’s still a way to recover the $2 billion the Legislature cut from schools’ baseline funding for next year, thanks to a $1.6 billion projected bump in sales tax revenue, along with $400 million from the Rainy Day Fund.

Perry’s against spending any of that Rainy Day Fund on schools, and yesterday’s House Appropriations hearing confirmed that a new session on school finance today would be distasteful in the extreme to lawmakers too.

“I don’t think there’s an appetite to go back in and undo what we did during session,” House Appropriations chair Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie) said, according to the Dallas Morning News, and Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R-Killeen) agreed re-opening the school finance conversation would be a huge mess.

In fact, it’ll probably be a long time before lawmakers do anything at all with school finance while those school finance suits mosey on through the courts. As quoted in the Quorum Report last week (subscription required) Rep. Harvey Hilderbran (R-Kerrville) said even a lower court decision on the suits is “not going to influence what we do state finance wise or ways and means wise.”

It’ll be years until the Texas Supreme Court might come up with any guidance or deadlines for the Legislature.

This may look like a holding pattern at the Capitol, a reluctance to upset tough decisions made last session, but every lean year for a school district makes a difference for its kids—more schools getting shuttered, sports programs cut and new costs, like riding the school bus, passed along to families. Texas schoolkids will get thousands less than the average American student each year. 

It was nearly a year ago that Perry reminded us all how this works: “the lieutenant governor, the speaker, their colleagues aren’t going to hire or fire one teacher,” he said. Think about it that way, and it’s hard to figure why they’d take any responsibility now.

Patrick Michels

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has a nice talk with former White House chief of staff Andrew Card at Texas A&M Monday night.

When Ted Kennedy dropped by College Station in 2003, the pissed-off Aggies turned out in droves, mocking the late senator with a look-alike contest, a grape-juice toast and a sing-along round of “Ted the Magic Driver.” When President Obama came three years ago, 1,000 demonstrators railed against his presence, with “pissed-off seniors” cruising in from hundreds of miles away to disapprove of Obama more personally.

So the news that U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was spending her President’s Day holiday in Aggieland—the heart of Rick Perry “treat ‘em pretty ugly down in Texas” territory—looked like the setup for a thrilling third round of culture clash. A student group called the Texas Aggie Conservatives promised they’d be there to greet the former House speaker with scathing political street theater. Commenters screamed “liberal hag” and “San Francisco communist” at the news of Pelosi’s coming, announcing they’d canceled their membership in the A&M alumni Century Club, and wondering why A&M doesn’t just invite Mao Zedong to speak next. (Since that TED talk on desert farming co-ops, Mao’s been a star on the lecture circuit.)

With the stage thus set, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum threw open its doors Monday evening for a polite and well-dressed crowd of hundreds who were interested in what the highest-ranking woman in Congressional history had to say. She spent an hour chatting with Bush’s former deputy chief of staff (and George W. Bush’s chief of staff) Andrew Card, and was eminently deferential to the former president, who looked on from a wheelchair in the front row. It was, after all, his holiday and his museum.

“He was strong enough and confident enough in his strength to talk about a kinder, gentler America,” she said. She recalled Bush’s civility during his time in office, even with his political rivals, “something badly needed today.”

As it turned out, all that vitriol brewing against Pelosi in College Station erupted with a hiccup of a dozen protesters—a sign, maybe, of a kinder, gentler College Station. No “pissed-off seniors” came in from miles away. Nearly all the demonstrators were Texas Aggie Conservatives, the same folks who hand out copies of the U.S. Constitution on campus, and celebrate Ronald Reagan’s birthday by passing out slices of a big cake frosted with the president’s face.

As the much older audience waited outside for the talk, the unhappy students lined up a few hundred feet away. One student wore a ball and chain around his ankle and held a sign reading, “Unchain the American Employer.” Another dressed as Death, complete with the grim reaper’s cloak and scythe, with a paper mask of Nancy Pelosi’s face. “Pelosi = Job-Killer!” his sign explained.

Reporters with questions were directed to speak with Cary Chesire, a group leader who said he was happy with the turnout, and was glad some of the folks waiting to get in to the talk came by to chat about health care and tax policy. “We’ve had a large number of supporters from the crowd,” Cheshire said.

“And curse words,” Death interjected, sounding a little hurt.

Cheshire cut back in. “It’s a great way to get our message out,” he said.

Beside them, two more students said they’d turned up to support the Catholic church’s right to exclude birth control from its health insurance coverage. Their pink signs set them apart from the others. “You can’t be Catholic and pro-choice,” A&M freshman Laura Campos said.

Pelosi, who is Catholic, addressed the issue inside, in response to what Card said was a question from the audience submitted ahead of time.

“I’m from a family that you’d call pro-life. I was raised in that atmosphere. I understand it, I respect it,” Pelosi said. “This is so personal… I’m of an age, we don’t really talk about these things in public.”

“The issue is, in my opinion, not about contraception. It’s about women’s health.” It was her biggest applause line of the night.

“Women have traditionally been discriminated against in the health insurance industry,” she said, making insurance harder to get or more expensive if they are or have been pregnant. “One of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act is that being a woman will no longer be a preexisting condition.”

Pelosi kept reminding the crowd that even her career ambitions were old-fashioned, too—that she’d been a wife and a mother of five first, and ended up in Congress almost by accident. But that was 25 years ago, she said. “It is really urgent that women take responsibility for leadership in the decisions that need to be made for our country,” she said.

She drew lots of applause for that line, and a little less when she suggested campaign finance reform was the way to get there. Women running for office are consistently out-raised by men running against them, she pointed out. “If we can reform the role of money in our political system,” she said,” I promise we will have many more women elected to public office.”

“Change the whole environment [to] one that is much more conducive to us having full participation,” Pelosi urged. “Otherwise, it’ll be incremental for the rest of eternity.”

Until now, it’s been easy to miss the Muslim community in Longview.

As workers, students and families from North Africa and Pakistan have moved to the town over the past few decades, the Islamic Community of Longview has congregated in a member’s apartment to pray and celebrate holidays.

But now that construction is underway on a small mosque on the northern edge of town, the revelation that there are Muslims in Longview planning to worship out in the open has drawn nasty resistance from some future neighbors.

“We’re not acquainted with that culture, and we have children and we have concerns, yes we do,” longtime resident Elizabeth Owens told the Longview News-Journal late last month. “I understand everybody has to worship, but why do they have to bring it to a Christian community? I think that’s terrible.”

Owens planted red signs in yards up and down the street, and on the construction site, with the word “Jesus.” and an ad for the local First Baptist Church. Another resident brought his worries about the mosque to a Longview City Council meeting in late January. Saleem Shabazz, an Islamic Community spokesman, said even before that, a man dropped by the construction site to intimidate workers.

“There are some people here that are just anti-Muslim,” Shabazz said this morning over the phone. He said the resistance to the mosque is coming from people who want to tell him about this country’s Christian roots, and that organized Islam isn’t what Longview is about.

Plenty of others, including Longview police and local Jewish leaders, have jumped in to support the new mosque, Shabazz said. “Even though they might not believe in Islam as a religion, they believe in the right of people to worship.”

It’s hard to argue Shabazz is some kind of outsider in Longview, where he’s lived off and on as a kid, and where his grandfather once led an African-American Baptist congregation.

Almost 30 years since his conversion to Islam, Shabazz said even some of his family doesn’t want to call him by his new name. But he’s had a busy civic life in Longview outside the Muslim community, too. He’s vice-president of Longview’s race relations committee; he volunteers with a kids’ group; and he organizes the Kwanzaa celebration each year.

Longview’s Muslim community includes about 80 people, including children, at major holidays. “You’re talking about people who are going to school, who have families,” he said, “people who have been here 20 years or better.”

“It’s hard to find a place to go and pray,” he said. After Shabazz converted, it took him months to find out where other Muslims were congregating in Longview. Today, he says they’ve simply outgrown the apartments they’d meet in before.
According to the News-Journal, Shabazz has been working with Gregg County Commissioner Charles Davis to handle concerns like noise from the call to prayer (there won’t be one) or potential drainage problems.

“I think it’s full-steam ahead to build a mosque out there. I’m not sure we can do anything about it, or if we should be trying. It’s a free country,” Davis told the News-Journal.

Still, those stories in the local paper keep drawing detractors in online comments—one worries about property values, others about traffic on the mosque’s narrow street—and as workers finish the mosque’s foundation, Shabazz said he hopes to win over neighbors before the building is finished.

“I told them two weeks ago that I’d be willing to meet with them,” Shabazz said. So far, though, he’s heard nothing back.

Wrap-up of the The 2012 Texas Observer Rabble Rouser Round-Up

The 11th annual Texas Observer Rabble Rouser Round-Up and Fat Cat Schmoozefest shook the Continental Club this past Monday, February 27. It was a great party to celebrate the Observer and our wonderful community of supporters and friends!

We’d like to thank a few of those who made it all possible:

OUR DEDICATED SPONSORS
The Texas Observer would like to thank the following people for their generous support of the 2012 Rabble Rouser & Fat Cat Schmoozefest:

$5,000 Community Leader
Lisa Baron Blue

$2,500 Agitator
Sharron Rush
Dale & Libby Linebarger

$1,000 Rabble Rouser
Gilberto Ocañas & Cha Guzman
AFL-CIO and Becky Moeller
Kathleen Clark
James Marston & Annette LoVoi

$500 Legislative Supporter
Nancy Alliegro
American Printing & Mailing
Becky Beaver
State Rep. Lon Burnam
Carlton Carl
Randy Chapman
James Davis & Jan Demetri
Congressman Lloyd and Libby Doggett
Susan Longley
Melissa Jones
Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton and Bruce Marton
Mary Nell & Phillip Mathis
Catherine & John Paul Moore
James Phillips
Robert Shivers into Robert & Nancy Shivers
Travis County Legislative Caucus (Reps Strama, Howard, Dukes, Rodriguez & Naishtat)
State Senator Kirk Watson
Nancy Williams
Marc & Suzanne Winkelman

Our fabulous auction donors

Our Silent Auction raised over $6,700, all of which will go to benefit the work of the Observer. We thank those that donated items big and small to the Silent Auction this year, including:

Phillip Mathis; The Texas ACLU; Alan Pogue; Alison Eden Photography; Allan and Louise Hirst; All Things Considered and Robert Segal; Amie Rodnick; Ann Herbage; Barbara Morgan and the Austin Film Festival; Barbara Schlief; Ben Sargent; Carlton Carl; CBS Morning News and Bob Schieffer; CinnaMan and Michael Hurd; D’ann Johnson; the Davis McLarty Agency; Dick Lavine; Dick Leverich; Ellen Gibbs; Ellen Sweets; Gordon Fowler; Inn Above Onion Creek; Jim Hightower; Malcolm Greenstein; Math for Keeps; Miles of Chocolate; Monkey Wrench Books; Nan Sawyer; Paul Stekler; Relaxing Therapeutics by Jeanne Arquel; Sarah Stevens; Sarah Bird; Texas Healing Arts Spa & Wellness Center; Ty Fain; Robin Jackson Photography; UT Press.

Program participants

Genevieve Van Cleve was an outstanding emcee who delivered a program that was lively, insightful, and fun! Texas State Representative Jessica Farrar struck a high note to start the evening with her keynote speech!

The People’s Friend Recognition and Award

At the event, The Texas Observer announced the 2011 Tyrant’s Foes and presented the 2012 $1000 People’s Friend award to Suzie Canales. The 2011 Tyrant’s Foes included Brian Carr; John Folks; Scott Nicol; Shailey Gupta-Brietzke; Chuck Luther; Zita Telkamp and Therese Cunningham; Wally and Peggy Van Wyk; Allen Weeks; Suzie Canales; and Walter Reaves.
(more at www.texasobserver.org/tyrants-foe)

The 2012 Texas Democracy Foundation Next Generation Leaders

The Rabble Rouser introduced the second class of Next Gen Leaders, including: Joshunda Sanders; Cristina Tzintzun; Phoebe Moore; Matthew Gossage; Brandon Dudley; Andrew Cates; Cliff Walker; Roger Garza; Jaclyn Uresti; Kelly Wilson; Vincent Aguirre; Dan Buda; Melissa Cubria; and Robert Longoria
(more at www.texasobserver.org/next-gen)

Rabble Rouser Committee

These outstanding volunteers and supporters were tireless and we are tremendously grateful for their extraordinary effort. Hats off to a great group of dedicated organizers for throwing such a fabulous party! Thank you so much to: Peter Ravella; Sharron Rush; Jen Cooper; Robert Behrendt; Kate Fain; Eric Scott; Nancy Alliegro; Sean Chitty; Vanessa Fuentes; Belinda Acosta; Diana Claitor; Ellen Sweets; Deliana Garcia; Susan Longley; Shelley Smith; Carlton Carl; Jamie Connatser; Charlotte McCann; and Susan Morris.

Vendors

We greatly appreciate our vendors for the event, including American Printing; CinnaMan; Creative Creations Catering; Hoover’s Restaurant; Satay Restaurant; and, of course, the Continental Club. Plus Chocolate samples courtesy of Miles of Chocolate.

And special thanks to our fabulous band, The White Ghost Shivers!

Staff

We also thank the amazing staff of The Texas Observer, who not only throw a good party but also work hard everyday to bring you the stories not carried by the mainstream press: Candace Carpenter; Krissi Trumeter; Jen Reel; Jonathan McNamara; Dave Mann; Piper Stege Nelson; Forrest Wilder; Susan Smith-Richardson; Patrick Michels; Emily DePrang; and Melissa del Bosque.

Until next year, keep Rabble Rousing and fighting to fix the world!

Courtesy Grand Prairie ISD

Kids and parents shop around at the

At Grand Prairie ISD headquarters today, administrators are prepping for an overnight occupation, clearing room in the parking lot for at least a few die-hard parents who’ll show up tonight and brave the cold to be first in line by 8 a.m. Friday.

That’s when the district throws open its doors and starts accepting applications for next year’s “programs of choice” in sports medicine, cosmetology and other enticing specialties. There’s a fifth-grade program focused on the STEM (that’s science, technology, engineering, and math) concentration that’s in such high demand today, and another in culinary arts.

Many of the parents in line will have already been through last weekend’s “GPISD Experience” open house, where parents were invited to “Experience the power of choice in GPISD.” That’s usually the sort of deal school reformers offer to coax parents away from traditional schools they try to paint as outmoded and clunky. Now, Grand Prairie hopes to turn the tables and use the promise of “choice” to reel parents in from private schools, charters, and even traditional public schools nearby.

The district passed out 2,000 applications to its new specialized programs on Saturday, according to district spokesman Sam Buchmeyer. They even mailed out postcards to parents outside their usual enrollment boundaries.

That marketing campaign aimed at parents outside GPISD won them a little free press early this month, when one of their mailers reached the Dallas Observer’s Robert Wilonsky at home, inviting his family to leave Dallas ISD for greener pastures to the west.

“GPISD is an open enrollment district,” the postcard read. “You don’t have to live in Grand Prairie to choose GPISD!”

Buchmeyer told Wilonsky the “choice” programs were growing this year because they’d had had such a good reception for the district’s first experiment last year at Garner Fine Arts Academy. The school’s sagging enrollment put it on the verge of being shut down, so parents came up with the idea of rebranding and marketing the school to help lure new kids. Now Buchmeyer says he’s heard of parents in McKinney commuting an hour each way to bring their kids to Garner.

“The game has changed for public schools,” Buchmeyer told the Observer. “Before you didn’t say words like ‘marketing’ a district.”

Today in Grand Prairie, that’s exactly what you do, Buchmeyer told me on the phone. Charters have, of course, been playing the PR game for years, so all they’re doing is leveling the scales. “Our main competition that we see right now is from those private and charter schools, because they’ve been doing this overt marketing for years now,” he said.

Of course, smooth P.R. isn’t the same as good instruction, and it can be dangerous when it drowns out more even-handed measures of a school’s quality. Commenters on the Observer story were quick to allege it’s all just a scam to help fill the schools and shore up the district’s finances. They said the district was overselling its product.

The district was rated “acceptable” each of the last eight years, apart from a one-year climb to “recognized” in 2010. As they expand, Buchmeyer said they’ll continue marketing to the district’s strong points, and areas, like STEM programs, with the most demand.

The “choice” campaign at Garner Elementary did start with money troubles. “We knew that things were going to get dire. Not only for us but for districts all over the state,” he said. “As these budgets are getting tighter and tighter, [some districts] want to lop off programs. We didn’t want to go down that road.”

Instead, beginning with Garner Fine Arts academy, they’re rebranding schools to highlight their strengths. With a new name, and a new focus developed by fine arts faculty and curriculum directors, Garner went from around 300 students to more than 500 this year.

“The academic rigor stays the same. They just add this other emphasis,” Buchmeyer said. Not that a school whose mascot is a red, white and blue “All Star” needs an ego boost, but the state rated Garner “exemplary” in its first year as a fine arts academy.

They’re like magnet schools in many ways, but some of Grand Prairie’s “schools of choice” automatically enroll neighborhood kids first, then fill remaining spots with outsiders in the order they apply. “We’re trying to take care of our Grand Prairie kids first,” he says. Between 50 and 55 students from outside Grand Prairie are enrolled at Garner today, he said.

“It may be such that parents are not aware of what we’re doing, maybe they’ve seen stories in the media,” he said—all that gloom and doom about the budgets. This way, parents can get excited about traditional public schools. Choice won’t have to mean leaving the local ISD.

Unless they don’t already live in Grand Prairie, of course.

“We’re not encouraging anybody to just up and leave their current districts,” Buchmeyer says. “If they’re happy with their school and their district that’s fantastic.”

But they did send out those mailers.

Even if it’s a rare arrangement today, Texas Education Agency spokesperson Debbie Ratcliffe said any district can accept students from other districts if they like.

If a student leaves, say, Dallas ISD, and enrolls in Grand Prairie, DISD would lose funding at its per-student rate, and the state would boost GPISD’s funding for that student, at its per-student rate.

”If we’ve got empty seats, we’re not getting the state funding for those empty seats. It actually benefits our taxpayers if we put [more] kids in.” The scale is too small to register much across the system, but if it’s good news for Grand Prairie, it’s probably not great news for public schools losing kids to the suburb next door.

Ultimately, Buchmeyer hopes he can sell the point that it’s a good arrangement for students.

An earlier version of this story misstated the financial implications of a student transferring between districts. Districts would not split the funding for a student who transferred from one to the other.