Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Whose interests do these elected officials represent anyway?

State Board of Education meet at SMU Friday

By Betsy Oney

DALLAS — Can we elect public officials and then trust them to represent us in good faith? The fact is our job as citizens doesn't stop when we leave the voting booth. Now, we must monitor the State Board of Education to ensure Texas children don't get left behind.

A sub-committee of the SBOE is holding a meeting at SMU's McCord Auditorium at 2:00PM on March 14. Unless enough of their constituents respond, several members will be there paving a dead-end road for Texas children as they serve their own narrow interests. They are trying to quietly slip through a new set of TEKS that Texas teachers and respected experts nationwide say will disservice Texas children and leave them unprepared for college or the workplace. TEKS are Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and are the standards by which teachers must teach and textbooks are adopted. And students are tested each year, to pass or fail, on TEKS. But a few members of our elected Board, a faction led by Don McLeroy, are ignoring research, classroom experts, college readiness experts, and calls from literacy and industry leaders to improve our education system.

Texans were well on our way to a set of English Language Arts and Reading TEKS that would work for all children. More than two years ago the Board commissioned the development of a new set of standards. A consulting firm worked with a group of highly qualified and successful teachers and came up with a working draft of TEKS. This draft was reviewed at a February 13 SBOE meeting in Austin. But in a last minute maneuver, McLeroy injected a substitute amendment. It was the same one that had been rejected ten years earlier by the Board because it was flawed and backward even then. McLeroy, who represents parts of the Dallas area, and other board members ignored the testimony of the 25 educators. These educators included university professors, curriculum developers at large and medium school districts, pubic school teachers, and legal representatives of teacher associations. Every witness essentially said that the substitute amendment was so flawed in its theoretical basis that it did not warrant consideration. Every witness favored completing the editing of the originally commissioned document and then adopting it.

Why were these teachers and educators so opposed to the substitute amendment and so in favor of the commissioned document? Fast forward to February 29 and March 12 when the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, the two premier organizations for literacy and education research with a total of over 135,000 members, decided to step in. They both wrote letters to the SBOE, both saying the substitute amendment is flawed because of its narrow scope and prescripted methods. Both said it will harm Texas children. Indeed, McLeroy's surprise substitute amendment is laden with rote memorization and parroting back facts, the very things Craig R. Barret, chairman of Intel and former university professor, says our education system must move away from if we as a nation are to be competitive in the future. The commissioned document, by contrast, was developed from years of research on reading and writing and the combined experience of teachers who have demonstrated success teaching in classrooms filled with learners of all kinds. The methods and materials in the commissioned document are inclusive and work for all of the children of Texas. Its standards are rigorous and complete and prepare students for college and work, arm them with skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, analysis, problem solving, communication, and innovation. These are the skills that Craig R. Barret said a reformed education system in America must teach. The commissioned document is grounded in a theoretical basis that emphasizes the processes of learning, or as Barret said it: learning how to learn.

This is what the twenty-five educators had said. But McLeroy ignored them, and a motion was passed to form a sub-committee that was to consider additional input. This effectively opened the door to the substitute amendment. McLeroy named the sub-committee: 3 Republicans from the narrow interest faction of the SBOE and 1 non-faction Democrat, stacking the deck in favor of the minority faction. One major consideration for all educators today is how best to ensure quality education for English language learners, but with 3 Hispanics to choose from on the Board, McLeroy neglected to appoint one to the sub-committee.

The sub-committee met on February 29 in Austin to choose from a list of recommended experts. Five experts were to be enlisted, but in the end six were. Observers now think the sixth was added to give weight to the faction's case. Three of the six are experts, but not literacy experts, and none of the six have expertise in second language learning. As the expert list was being drawn, one of the faction members surprised observers by claiming that all children learn to read the same and have learned to read the same way for the last 100 years. Any primary grade teacher knows this is not the case, but at least one board member who is instrumental in making decisions about our children's education seems completely uninformed.

And finally in the Feb 29 meeting, observers were stunned that the narrow interest faction, through numbers and ignorance of literacy learning processes, was able to elevate the substitute amendment to the level of the commissioned document for further, side-by-side, consideration by a group of experts that is not representative of classroom teachers or the public school population.

The two Austin meetings had attracted a crowd of teachers who openly disagreed with the SBOE faction. Don McLeroy scheduled the next meetings for Dallas.

On March 13 and 14, Thursday and Friday morning, a facilitator and the chosen experts will meet behind closed doors on the SMU campus. After these meetings, on Friday afternoon the SBOE sub-committee will meet in open session to hear a presentation of the work done in closed session. No public testimony will be allowed. The product of that session will then be read before the entire Board March 26. Final refinements will be discussed and a final adoption will be voted on May 22 or May 23.

SBOE members need to be made aware now that their actions will not go unnoticed by their constituents, and that ignoring teachers, classroom experts, and researchers will not only leave Texas children behind, it will also leave them behind. They can be contacted at sboesupport@tea.state.tx.us.

Betsy Oney of Fort Worth holds a master of education degree and is a Master Reading Teacher (and English-as-a-second-language teacher) in the Arlington school district.

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