Texas Children Betrayed
by Dave Zenker, The Texas Journal

Generally speaking, Texas Educrats are self-aggrandizing, self-important and self-serving. Thanks to the indifference of many legislators of the 79th Texas Legislature, they're self-perpetuating

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On May 24, 2005, 19,000 Texas children were told their lives meant nothing. The children learned that the continued employment of failed teachers in failed schools was more important than their futures. To the detriment of all Texas children, the Texas House has decreed that there will be no accountability for Texas public education.

Texas House Bill 1263 was a lifeline for Texas' most vulnerable children. This modest proposal would have permitted less than ½ of 1% of Texas' children to flee ONLY the worst public schools in Texas.

That was too much for Texas teachers.

They know, as we know, that those children can learn. They know, as we know, that those children can excel. They know, as we know, that they've failed those children miserably. Thanks to the Texas House, these 19,000 children are heading for oblivion.

Let's review. What do we get for the $33+ BILLIONS we spend every year on Texas public education?

Do we get accountability? Absolutely not! When it's time to name names and provide our most vulnerable citizens the option to flee their failed public schools, the Texas Education Agency intervenes. Commissioner Doctor Shirley Neeley values cronyism over children:

TEA Commissioner Neeley Abandons Standards

Most of us have an idyllic image in our minds of the perfect school for our children. Images range from a Norman Rockwell painting to an ultra sophisticated 21st century setting complete with sparkling stainless steel and trillions of terabits of computing power. In Texas, our schools are best depicted by, "The Scream."

Without regard to the hard work, commitment and dedication of Texas educators, children and parents who had met the difficult standards imposed by No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Dr. Shirley Neeley, Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency unilaterally changed the rules permitting Texas schools not meeting the mandated "Average Yearly Progress" (AYP) as required by NCLB to pass. In doing so she undermined the years of hard work of Texas schools who met the requirements. Further, Neeley's unwarranted actions have denied Texas children who possessed the statutory authority to leave their pernicious environments the ability to do so. Additionally, Neeley may cost Texas more than $1 Billion Dollars in federal education funds.

The commissioner's Orwellian conduct bring to mind numerous relevant quotations:

"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." – George Orwell

The Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency does not work for Texas Educrats. It is not the Commissioner's job to undermine the ability of Texas parents and educators to provide Texas children with the means to learn to read, write and compete in the 21st century. Shirley Neeley's actions did precisely that.

In a tragedy that's being replayed all across Texas, the February 26, 2005 El Paso Times reports that 50 county schools failing to make AYP are now magically qualified. The Commissioners fealty to Texas Educrats has denied hundreds of thousands of Texas children the option and the means to become educated. According to the Times, in El Paso alone, Neeley's actions have returned Texas children to failed Educrats in 48 of 74 county schools.

The circumstances are reminiscent of the Elian Gonzalez tragedy. In clear violation of US asylum laws, the Clinton administration ripped 5 year old Elian from his family and returned him to a totalitarian state.

The comments of a former American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president show that Neeley had precisely the same effect, hundreds of thousands of times over.

Albert Shanker, the former president of the American Federation of Teachers understands that the failed government schools the Commissioner returned our hapless children to operate in precisely the same manner as any other unaccountable totalitarian state.

In 1989 Shanker said:

"It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."

The Educrats Neeley rescued had failed the children they were charged with teaching. Because of her actions, hundred's of thousands of Texas children are now denied the means to leave.

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." – George Orwell

Because of Commissioner Neeley, the truth will, for now and forever, be obscured. Like baseball's "Pre-Steroid" and "Post-Steroid" records, there will always be a question mark by every Texas schools assertion of adequacy.

Parents will wonder:

"Was the adequate yearly progress reported by my child's school achieved before or after the commissioner abandoned objective standards?"

How are we supposed to know? Thanks to Commissioner Neeley dismissing the needs of Texas children in favor of Texas Educrats, we won't.

"The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history." – George Orwell.

Effective now, there are no accurate year over year comparisons. Thanks to Commissioner Neeley, Texas parents must endure more lies and deceit from Texas Educrats.

Because of Commissioner Neeley's ill-advised obeisance to her Educrat colleagues, I believe Texas children will be set back a generation.

"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." - George Orwell
Commissioner Neeley's actions are indefensible. She's denied hundreds of thousands of Texas children the opportunity afforded them by law to leave government schools in search of someone who can teach. The standards the Commissioner abrogates were agreed upon by our elected representatives in an attempt to impose accountability on our failed government schools. With the stroke of a pen, she's undone years of work. It was a monumental task to get schools to come into compliance. To compel a school to prove, via objective standards, that they can teach our children was no small feat. In spite of the difficulty, more than half made it.

I don't think it will happen again. If I were an Educrat, I would be thinking:

"Why bother?"
As an Educrat, my attitude would be:

"If the Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency is going to change the rules so that I don't have to adhere to objective standards, I won't disappoint them. Instead of striving towards those now non-existent standards, I, and my colleagues, will head to Austin to lobby for more money."
By suspending objective standards, I believe that Neeley has damned hundreds of thousands of Texas children to educational oblivion.

What if anyone could do this? What if your life was impacted and controlled by people who owed you no allegiance? What if they had the power to tax? What if they had the power to compel payment without regard to performance? What if they could cause unlimited chaos and consternation? What if there was nothing you could do about it?

You can see why Neeley and her Educrat brethren fight tooth and nail against consumer accountability. If Texas provided parents the $10,000/year per student in the form of a voucher constructed so that the dollars followed the eligible Texas child at least 50% of the current population of Texas Educrats would be looking for work.

It shouldn't be this way. The way we pay these people is absurd. Does the state pay any other professionals on our behalf? Do they pay our accountants, our lawyers, our auto repair people, or our grocers? No. To suggest that they should is patently absurd.

Let's pretend Texas accountants unionized, organized and lobbied for the same protected status Texas Educrats enjoy. They demand compensation without cause and admiration without accountability. It's not enough. They're consistently demanding more resources and more rewards. Not from the people they serve, but from their government. A government, that is in no position to know which accountant is competent, which accountant is exceptional or which accountant is a disaster. If the accountants tried it, they'd be thrown out on their ear. That is exactly what we should to with Texas Educrats.

For the sake of this thesis, let's pretend the accountants prevail. They're granted their special revered status. Everything is granted before Enron, WorldCom, and other defalcations are known.

In these Pre-Enron days, whom do we find as their fearless leader, none other than Arthur Anderson. Time passes; Enron and WorldCom come to pass. No problem. Since Arthur Anderson possesses full Educrat powers, they pull a Neeley. They unilaterally assert, on their own authority, that the financial statements they'd prepared leading to billions and billions of dollars in losses were in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principals (GAAP). They do so directly, confidently, and with every expectation that the defrauded, swindled, bilked, shafted and screwed investors would be forced to agree.

What can we do? They're revered. They live exclusively on government largess. We don't want to tick them off; they'll impose another tax on us. They're not accountable to anyone. There are no consistent standards of performance they need adhere to. If they screw up they simply change the rules and declare themselves in compliance with law.

Just like present day Texas Educrats, Arthur Anderson is disgraced in the real world, revered in the topsy-turvy unaccountable world they control.

What if you needed the services the Arthur Anderson accountants purported to provide? What if you were compelled to pay for their incompetence, even though you knew they performed at their discretion, providing you with neither accountability nor recourse? What if you knew that whenever Arthur Anderson failed they would simply change the rules?

What would you do? Would you take a chance with your livelihood, your family's financial security, and your retirement, or would you tighten your belt and pay twice, once for the government mandated accountants and once for qualified CPAs?

With the betrayal of Texas children by Texas' Lead Educrat, Dr. Shirley Neeley, that is precisely the choice Texans face.

We bow and scrape to Texas Educrats. Why? There's no reason for the homage, the deference, the special status, the esteem, the respect, or the reverence we afford them. Educrats happily take our money, bleat for more all the while rejecting accountability.

Under NCLB Texas Educrats were given three years, that's three years, that's 36 months to come into compliance. For this period of time, under duress, we placed our children in their care. During the intervening years there have been increases in money, there have been firings for cheating and lying, there have been blind eyes turned towards probable malfeasance, and still, nearly 50% of Texas Educrats failed.

No problem. The Commissioner rushes in and changes the rules so "No Texas Educrat Will Be Left Behind."

It's an untenable, horrific, grotesque situation, but take heart.

"Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible." – George Orwell

Texas Educrats seem big. Texas Educrats seem bad. Texas Educrats seem invincible. Don't believe it. When you're speaking with one of them, make it crystal clear that:

"They're Our Children and It's Our Money!"

Texas taxpayers pay nearly $10,000/year per student to educate its children. In competent hands, that's more than enough money. The only people that are qualified to say whether Texas children are making "Adequate Yearly Progress" are Texas parents. Not a TEA commissioner who doesn't know for whom she works.

Maybe there were extenuating circumstances. When you say "Failed," what do you mean? How bad can these bad schools really be? How about a school that arguably inflicts statutory child abuse on Texas children and has done so for 40 years under the jaundiced eye of the Texas Education Agency? Is that bad enough for you?

How about Texas schools that turn a blind eye to children that are assaulted because they dare to excel? Is that bad enough for you? For details, review Jose's public testimony.

You say you're certain your Texas school's OK? You like your children's teachers, they work really hard and you're sure they're doing a good job.

Are they? How do you know? Consider this:

A May 18, 2005 editorial in the Austin American Statesman revealed that fully 50% of the freshmen entering state colleges require remediation in math, reading or writing.

In the words of The Statesman, this statistic is:

"A harsh condemnation of public education in Texas"

These are the children that made it to college. These are the children that had every advantage. These are the children that passed the TAKS. These are the children that got their Texas High School Diploma. These are the children that are the apple of their parent's eye. These are the children Texas Teacher's point to with pride. These are the children Texas is banking on to lead us into the 21st century.

As revealed by the Austin American Statesman:

Fifty Percent of Our Best Can't Read, Write or Compute.

How did these kids manage to get a high school diploma when they can't read, write or compute? One reason a Texas High School Diploma is worthless is because some schools create "Miracles Through Malfeasance":

Miracles Through Malfeasance

Significant numbers of schools in the Dallas, Houston and other Texas Independent School Districts are under investigation for cheating on the TAKS tests. Evidently, many Texas educational miracles were achieved through malfeasance.

Let's see if we can figure out how this happened. We provided a monstrous, unaccountable, corrupt system billions of Texas taxpayer dollars. In return, we made few demands and required only spotty accounting. For this largess, we received poorly educated children unable to compete and plummeting test scores. To fix the problem, we institute a "Winner Take All" assessment. The Texas Educrat's career now hangs on the results of the test. Their incompetence is no longer a dirty little secret. Because of the TAKS, it's trumpeted from The Red to The Rio Grand.

Knowledgeable Educrats weren't worried. Why should they be? The watchdog that's supposed to catch the miscreants is asleep at the wheel.

You see, it's the official policy of the Texas Education Administration (TEA) to pay no attention to statistical anomalies. They collect some statewide information, but they don't use it. TEA policy is to investigate allegations of cheating only when a district requests it or when it receives credible eyewitness evidence of cheating.

As long as Educrats maintain their conspiracy of silence, the revelry continues.

Lisa Chandler, the TEA's Director of Assessment was quoted as saying:

"Typically the schools police themselves. We trust educators to educate our kids."

Ms. Chandler said she refuses to act cynically when TAKS scores improve by leaps and bounds.

"It may be an optimistic viewpoint, but it's also a necessary viewpoint. We can't afford to lose five years in a child's educational career. They have to have improvement. Can we expect quick turnarounds? We have to. We can't let those kids not be successful."

So, we're counting on the crooks turning themselves in. Texas Educrats are wasting the most productive learning years of tens of thousands of Texas children. To keep their jobs, they've inflicted egregious harm upon Texas' most vulnerable citizens.

All the while, the TEA is whistling past the cemetery.

The TEA does collect information. They do a statewide erasure analysis. Excessive erasures, especially excessive erasures resulting in changing the initial response to the correct response can imply cheating.

Don't worry, the Educrats have nothing to fear.

TEA policy dictates that it ignores information it produces. When asked why the information wasn't used, Chandler explained that more conclusive evidence would be necessary to be certain cheating has occurred.

What is the point of the Director of Assessment? Why doesn't the assessor assess? What is the office's mandate? Are they just eye candy so Educrats can assert diligence? What do they do all day? Why are we paying these people?

The Dallas Morning News conducted a statistical analysis on publicly available information and found over 200 Texas schools with anomalies indicating the probability of cheating. As a result of their efforts, investigations have been launched in Dallas, Houston and elsewhere.

Without The Dallas Morning News, Educrats would sill be cheating our children out of their most productive years.

Texas Journal thanks The News for their diligence and dedication. If they hadn't dedicated the money and manpower, Texas Educrats would continue to place Texas children in jeopardy for their own gain.

Are you still sure you're children are receiving an education? Don't be.

The self-absorbed arguments Texas Educrats' use to defend their turf are galling. Educrats insist Texas parents; children and educators prove that the free market works for education.

Newsflash for Educrats, it's already working.

Because of the free market, Texas colleges and businesses are able to remediate huge percentages of Educrat product. It's the free market, not Texas schools that have prevented a slide into third world poverty. By any objective measure, Texas Educrats are an abject failure. Thanks to the 79th Legislature, Texas children will continue to suffer at their hands.

I know there are good Texas teachers. I know the only way to identify them is for a parent to observe his child learning. If your child isn't learning, you need to be able to move him immediately. To empower parents, children and educators, we must have fully funded education vouchers permitting all Texas children to maximize their potential.

When we have vouchers, good Texas teachers will triple their salary.

Texans lost the battle, but not the war. At this stage, Texas Educrats have it all. They've got 100% of our children, 100% of our cash, 100% of the books, 100% of the buildings, 100% of the busses.

It's time we held their feet to the fire.

Texas Educrats Have 100% Of The Resources.
Texan's Demand 100% Success.
Work with us to keep the heat on the Legislature and the Educrats. Let's make No Child Left Behind mean "No Child Left Behind".

Contact your State Senator, State Representative, the Governor, and the Lt. Governor and your State School Board Representative. Ask them to say YES to education, YES to achievement, YES to 100% fully funded Texas Education vouchers.