The Lone Star Foundation Conference
Public Education Reform in Texas: Comprehensive Progress Report
Austin, Texas - December 7-8, 2000

"Recent controversies related to managing the Permanent School Fund (PSF), adopting textbooks, and developing a new assessment test to replace the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills have focused renewed attention on the State Board of Education (SBOE). Critics have put forward proposals for scaling back the board’s authority, including changing the board from an elected to an appointed body."

State Board of Education: Controversy and Change, Focus Report

^{House Research Organization, Texas House of Representatives, January 3, 2000.}

^{I. Summary}

^{Texas now has an elected State Board of Education. The board has not always been composed of elected representatives. Established 134 years ago - in 1866 - elected members have governed public education for only 48 years, from 1949 to 1984 and from 1987 until present.}

^{Today, there are loud calls in Texas for replacing the elected board with an appointed board once more or for removing all authority from the elected board. Since 1995, the board has suffered legislative attacks that have diminished its authority. Over the past year, several prominent state legislators have promised to disable or dismantle the elected board during the 77th Texas Legislature.}

^{The attack on elected representation in education is not limited to the State Board of Education. Locally elected school boards have been criticized for too much involvement in education decision-making - The 77th Texas Legislature has been asked to enact law to limit the authority of local boards over public schools.}

^{Efforts to restrict or eliminate elected state boards are common throughout the nation. In fact, elected state boards of educations are close to extinction and becoming historic relics of representative government in the United States. Today, Texas is one of the small and dwindling number of states with fully elected state boards of education.}

^{The replacement of elected local school boards with boards appointed by city mayors is increasingly common. Large districts in cities, such as Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, Hartford, and Chicago, have been taken over by government in the effort to improve failing schools. The creation of public schools with appointed boards - charter schools - is mushrooming throughout the nation.}

^{At the same time, elected school boards are being eliminated. In Texas, authority of elected representation in education has been diminished over the past decade and appears to be headed on a course toward extinction.}

^{Elected school boards have been caught in complex and powerful movements to reform and standardize public education. School boards are trapped between top-down reforms to centralize education (national standards, state standards, and school accountability systems) and bottom-up reforms to decentralization school operations (site-based decision-making, principal-led schools and charter schools). Federal and state education agencies and local school administration view elected boards as hurdles that must be vaulted to implement their reforms and meet their goals.}

^{Education reforms introduced by government, favored by educational professional associations, have found little public support. Curriculum, instruction and forms of school governance described as "Best Practice" by government and professional educators have failed to raise academic achievement - what the public views as the primary and urgent mission of today’s public schools. Opinion research has revealed substantial public opposition to education reforms (such as whole language, discovery math, and cooperative learning) introduced to public schools over the past several decades.}

^{Opinion polls indicate that taxpayers trust local school boards to make educational decisions far more than they trust state or federal officials. Based on the belief that the best government is close to home, transparent and responsive to special community interests, public support for elected school boards is strong. This was clearly demonstrated when Texans voted overwhelming to return the State Board of Education to an elected body in the 1987 state referendum.}

^{The impending challenge to elected governance in education promised for the 77th Legislative session - paired with the public’s mounting dissatisfaction with public schools and distrust in government - threatens the viability of Texas Public Schools.}

^{As the 77th Texas Legislature considers changing education governance, elected representatives should reword the question "Who should control public schools?" as "Who is most able to govern public schools as the public wishes?"}

^{The authority of elected representatives in education - the State Board and locally elected school boards - must be strengthened, expanded and protected by the 77th Texas Legislature to ensure academic success and public support for Texas Public Schools.}

^{II. Criticism Levied Against Elected School Boards}

^{Elected school boards are under attack from a diverse group of policy leaders - legislators, business groups, state agencies, and professional educational associations. Each of these groups contends that elected boards fail to serve the best interests of students, schools and communities. These groups indict elected boards for involvement in policy and operation - areas of governance they believe should be under the expert control of school administrators. Elected boards, they charge, are vulnerable to pressures from constituents for representing special interests unique to the community and lack the special educational expertise required to manage schools.}

^{Critics of elected school boards cite "micromanagement" as one of the gravest flaws of elected governance. A recent School Performance Review of the San Antonio School District conducted by the State Comptroller berated the school board for micromanagement. The board had discontinued a curriculum program found ineffective in raising achievement and disliked by teachers. To reduce micromanagement, the Comptroller suggested the school board meet less frequently. This recommendation would limit the board’s opportunity to trespass on the authority of school administrators.}

^{The Commissioner of Education cited school boards for micromanagement at the joint annual meeting of the Texas Association of School Boards and Texas Association of School Administrators in Houston (September 22-25, 2000). Commissioner Nelson noted that too many school districts are having problems with governance and warned school boards to respect the authority of district superintendents (Texas Education News, October 9, 2000).}

^{The Texas Business and Education Coalition cites micromanagement as one of the reasons for proposing that the 77th Texas Legislature limit authority of elected school boards. The coalition’s legislative recommendations, adopted on 9/13/00, notes "Boards sometimes interfere with management or get bogged down in administrative detail rather than providing strategic leadership for education in the community" and "Boards sometimes respond more to narrow special interests rather than to broader needs of the entire district." The coalition recommends the Texas Legislature enact law limiting school board authority only to the duties already required by law - hiring and firing the superintendent, approving district goals, adopting budget, approving personnel policies, adopting a district and campus planning process, issuing annual reports, adopting a tax rate, and ensuring taxes are collected - duties that exclude oversight for curriculum and instruction.}

^{The policy goal statement issued by the Texas Business and Education Coalition offers a national framework for the elimination of or stripping authority from elected school boards.}

^{"Such concerns [as attributed to the coalition in the previous section] give rise to calls for reforms in school governance or, in the extreme, suggestions that locally elected school boards should be abolished altogether. Many noted education reformers and national organizations have called for reforms in public school governance. Hugh Price, President of the National Urban League, and others have advocated for the abolition of locally elected school boards. In several large urban situations, policy makers have acted decisively in response to calls for reform. The public schools systems in Baltimore, Boston, Detroit and Chicago, for instance, are governed by school boards appointed by the city mayor and the superintendents are answerable directly to the mayors."}

^{National organizations began calling for the elimination of elected school boards during the past decade. The Education Commission of the States (ECS) published a report entitled Bending Without Breaking in 1996 that advocated changing the role of the school board and noted "State governments might at some point need to dissolve existing local school boards and central administrative offices and establish new ones with the new mission" (page 30).}

^{In 1999, the ECS published the findings of the National Commission on Governing America’s Schools. This report, entitled Governing America’s Schools: Changing the Rules, noted that improving public education requires states to "alter public education governance - that is, changing who makes what education decisions within states, districts and schools" (page vi). The commission recommended that states create "Publicly Operated Schools" - a system allowing districts to directly operate public schools and "Independently Operated Schools" - a system of charter schools. The first school model curtails authority of elected school board members to provide a "framework" for the district superintendent and in the second model, school board members are appointed by the chartering agency.}

^{The most direct and powerful challenge to the authority of elected school boards to date comes from the National Advisory Committee on School Board/Superintendent Leadership/Governance and Teamwork for High Student Achievement. The Educational Research Service and New England School Development Council published the recommendations of this committee as Thinking Differently: Recommendations for 21st Century School Board/Superintendent Leadership, Governance, and Teamwork for High Student Achievement. The recommendations call for states to enact laws to redefine school governance and to clearly delineate responsibilities of school boards that prevent boards from involvement in school operations.}

^{Members of this committee represented the - American Association of School Administrators, National School Boards Association, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Alliance of Black School Educators, Committee for Economic Development, National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, National Association of State Boards of Education, Institute for Educational Leadership, National Association of Independent Schools, Council of Chief State School Officers, and the Texas Association of School Administrators.}

^{Critics of elected school boards contend that elected representatives interfere with education reforms they believe are necessary to improve public schools. Educational improvement depends, they believe on the elimination or restriction of elected boards and the transfer of elected authority to school administrators who are accountable for results.}

^{Creation of state school accountability systems has given strength to the attack on elected board authority. State accountability systems require school officials to produce specific goals established by the state. States, like Texas, have enacted laws and adopted policies to give local school officials the resources and freedom required to meet these goals. Some policymakers identify this effort as decentralization. Some policymakers assert this effort is designed to strengthen local control - redefining the term once meant in the hands of the people to mean authority for local school administrators. Elected school boards, holding authority and responsible for resource allocation, have become a hurdle school officials must leap to meet state accountability requirements.}

^{State school accountability systems developed primarily as a result of the standards movement in education - an effort to standardize education in the nation that was introduced by the federal Goals 2000: Educate America Act (1994) and the Improving America’s School Act (1994). The standards movement has been promoted by national educational associations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the American Federation of Teachers, and financed by federal partners of the U.S. Department of Education, such as the National Science Foundation.}

^{Over the past decade, the federal role in education has grown significantly. Today, the U.S. Department of Education is engaged in recommending curriculum standards, endorsing textbooks, developing tests, identifying "Best Practice" instructional methods and funding states to implement what the federal government calls "systemic reform." As the federal role in education has increased, the states’ roles have decreased and the authority of elected state boards of education has eroded.}

^{Elected state boards of education and local school boards have a diminished and limited role, if any, in today’s education reform. Increasingly, the involvement of elected school boards in educational decisions, representing the interests of their constituency, is described as "micromanagement" or "interference."}

^{States have been eliminating elected state boards of education throughout the past decade and today, Texas is one of only ten states with fully elected state boards of education. According to a report published by the National Association of State Boards of Education in 1999 (NASBE State Education Governance), fully elected state boards of education exist only in the following ten states: Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, Texas and Utah. Three states have a mix of elected and appointed members: Louisiana, Ohio and Washington.}

^{Elected representation in education has become the unfortunate casualty of increasing government control of public schools, the development of charter schools, and school accountability systems.}

^{Historically, elected school boards in Texas have held authority over curriculum and instruction. The power of locally elected officials to represent the special and unique interests of their communities and constituencies has been called "local control." As the Texas Legislature enacted laws establishing school accountability requirements and increased the responsibility of school officials to meet goals, authority for educational decisions has largely passed from local school boards to school administrators. Today, "local control" is most accurately described as authority held by school administrators.}

^{The draining of authority from locally elected school boards mirrors the fate of the State Board of Education. The Texas Legislature has laid siege to authority held by elected members of the State Board of Education over the past decade and today, the board is little more than titular head of public education.}

^{As noted by the House Research Organization’s Focus Report, State Board of Education: Controversy and Change, "The 1995 rewrite of the Education Code, enacted as SB 1 by Ratliff/Sadler, made comprehensive changes to the entire public education system, which included curtailing many powers the SBOE had wielded for years. The board’s authority was reduced in such areas as appointment of the commissioner of education [author’s note - and, therefore, oversight of the Texas Education Agency], textbook selection, and jurisdiction over teacher certification and other instructor matters" (Number 76-19, January 13, 2000).}

^{The Education Code now restricts the State Board of Education to exercise only those powers expressly designated to it by the Education Code or by the state Constitution (completely removing general rule-making authority). Today, the board’s authority is limited to: developing a long-range plan for education, purchasing textbooks, approving curriculum standards, setting graduation requirements, granting open enrollment charters to schools, establishing performance standards on student tests, identifying criteria for identifying gifted and talented students, developing a long range plan for technology, adopting rules for extracurricular activities and Interscholastic League procedures, and directing investment of the Permanent School Fund (House Research Organization, State Board of Education: Controversy and Change, January 3, 2000).}

^{Decisions about the essential function of public schools in Texas - teaching and learning - are now fundamentally managed by education professionals housed at the Texas Education Agency and school district administrative offices. State and district educators - who unlike elected school boards are unaccountable to the public - make critical decisions about curriculum and instruction although few have ever had classroom experience.}

^{The educational decisions made by local school administrators are largely determined by rules and policy established by state education agency officials - and the policy set by state agency officials is largely determined by federal education officials. Federal, state and local education officials depend on national education associations for guidance on what schools should teach and what students should learn.}

^{The transfer of educational authority - change in educational governance - and transformation of "local control" has been transacted in Texas without any substantive public debate or engagement. Indeed, most Texans believe that elected school boards wield real authority over education because the boards still conduct meetings.}

^{Would Texans willingly relegate authority for public schools to appointed school boards or government officials? This question was answered in 1987 when Texans voted in referendum to restore elected members to the State Board of Education, reversing the 1984 Legislature’s decision to create an appointed board.}

^{VII. Who Should Control Public Schools?}

^{Texans, like their counterparts throughout the nation, have demonstrated their support for elected representation in educational governance and for real "local control" of education.}

^{A national opinion poll conducted by the Center for Education Research in Washington found that over 70 % of Americans supported little or no involvement of the federal government in education (National Survey of Americans’ Attitudes Toward Education and School Reform, 1997). Another national poll conducted by Public Agenda, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization in New York, indicated that only 22 % of Americans think decisions about education should be made by the federal government while only 14 % think federal education officials make good decisions about curricula and instruction (Public Agenda Online, 1998). According to a report on educational governance published by Education Week, Gallup Polls show Americans trust local school boards to make educational decisions far more than they trust state or federal officials (Who’s in Charge, November 17, 1999).}

^{Public distrust of government involvement in education decision-making is founded on practical, not ideological, reasons. Both federal and state education reforms represent the prevailing beliefs of educators about "Best Practices" in curricula and instruction. It is important to understand that the term "Best Practice" does not refer to classroom approaches proven most effective for academic learning by empirical, replicable research. "Best Practice" is refers to instructional approaches favored by professional educational associations and the U.S. Department of Education for ideological, not practical, reasons.}

^{"Best Practice" is generally not effective practice. Educators and their associations "resist effective practices," according to Douglas Carnine, Director of the National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators (University of Oregon) and they "embrace teaching methods that don’t work (Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 2000). Despite evidence that "Best Practices" fail to support or improve academic learning, educators persist in using whole language to teach reading (students memorize words instead of using phonics to recognize letter-sound correspondences), "developmentally appropriate instruction" (students determine for themselves the knowledge and skills they wish to acquire), and discovery math (students construct or find their own algorithms and formulas for solving problems).}

^{According to a vast number of research studies conducted both in and outside of the United States, many popular education practices described as "Best Practice" that prevail in public schools today fail to support or improve academic learning. These studies are detailed in Dr. E.D. Hirsch’s book The Schools We Need-Why We Don’t Have Them (Doubleday, 1996).}

^{Parents in Texas and throughout the nation believe that educators often make unwise decisions about classroom learning - decisions that fail to reflect public objectives for meaningful academic learning. Research conducted by Public Agenda indicates that educators and parents have very different ideas about what schools should teach and how students should learn (Different Drummers: How Teachers View Public Education, 1997 and Given the Circumstances: Teachers Talk about Public Education Today, 1996).}

^{VIII. Rule by Appointed Boards}

^{The number of appointed school boards in public education has grown over the past decade. The failure of large urban school districts to educate children has triggered mayors of several major cities to take over schools and establish appointed oversight. This has occurred in Boston, Hartford, Chicago, New York City, Detroit, and Baltimore,}

^{It is, however, the surging popularity of charter schools that is responsible for the large and growing number of public schools that are governed by appointed school boards. By state and federal definitions, charter schools are public schools - schools that are publicly operated and publicly governed by appointed boards. Charter schools are the "first real model for true decentralization and autonomy within public schools" according to a report published by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (Redefining School Governance, 1995). Enjoying bipartisan support, charter schools "represent the culmination of efforts to reform America’s schools," notes this report - by redistributing authority for educational decisions and establishing a fundamentally new form of governance for public schools.}

^{There is no evidence that appointed governance helps improve public schools or boosts student learning. There is no broad scale or sustained evidence that schools taken over by government are more efficient or effective than schools governed by elected boards. The evidence is mixed in Texas on whether charter schools are more successful than traditional public schools in educating youth. Texas charter schools have demonstrated, however, that good governance cannot be assured to any greater degree than in schools governed by elected boards.}

^{IX. The Role and Value of Elected School Boards}

^{Elected school boards, both state and local district boards, serve a critical and irreplaceable role in the state system of public schools. Elected boards represent public interest in government-managed schools. This representation must be vigilant and active because the interests of government and educators have been shown to be very different from, often conflicting with, the educational goals of taxpayers. Elected boards engage the public in public schools and maintain the public as constituents and supporters of public education. This role is critical to the continued existence of public schools in a time when taxpayers are increasingly distrustful of government and dissatisfied with schools.}

^{The public relies on elected education officials to represent their interest in proven academic methods and high academic standards. Taxpayers expect elected school boards serve as a check and balance between themselves and the educational bureaucracy.}

^{Decisive action taken by the State Board of Education action in 1999 met these expectations and serves to illustrate why the Texas State Board should remain elected and full authority for educational oversight should be restored by the 77th Legislature.}

^{The 1999 adoption of first grade reading materials was a critical moment for education reform in Texas. Phonics had been largely eliminated in public schools for decades - and reading skills had declined. The state adoption of new curriculum standards in 1996 re-introduced phonics as a "balanced approach" to reading instruction. The Proclamation, describing textbook content, to publishers had to specifically identify what the state required to teach reading.}

^{The guidelines for first grade textbooks developed by the TEA advised publishers that only two selections of decodable text (selections that can be read by using letter-sound correspondences - phonics) had to be present in a textbook for state approval. Worse, the TEA defined decodable text as reading selections with only 51% of the words that can be recognized by knowledge of letter-sounds (phonics). These guidelines interpreted state curriculum standards to emphasize "Whole Language" or "Site-Based Reading" and de-emphasized phonics. "Whole Language" is, as is now known, an approach to reading instruction that is predominantly favored by educators, despised by the public and soundly discredited by research.}

^{Several members of the State Board of Education rejected the agency’s textbook guidelines and directly urged publishers to change their textbooks to ensure children learn phonics skills. This intervention, opposed by the TEA staff, stood on no legal authority - and may have, as some charge, violated statutory restrictions on board authority (because the State Legislature severely curtailed authority of the State Board of Education over adoption of textbook content in 1995, permitting the board to reject a textbook only if it fails to meet curriculum standards or contain errors).}

^{After much deliberation, publishers agreed to add phonics and decodable text to instructional materials for first grade reading. Today, as a result of heroic action by elected members of the State Board of Education, students in Texas have an immense advantage in reading and improved opportunities for educational success.}

^{The 1999 adoption of first grade reading textbooks for Texas Public Schools dramatically revealed the adverse impact of limiting board authority over textbook adoption, the dangers inherent in removing oversight of the State Board of Education over the TEA, and the critical importance of elected (not appointed) school boards.}

^{Who should control public schools in Texas? Who is best able to effectively govern Texas Public School System? These questions require immediate answers to ensure the integrity and continuance of state schools.}

^{In Texas, local communities have traditionally governed public schools by electing parents and taxpayers to school boards. As government funds increased, the amount of control over education exercised by local boards diminished in Texas.}

^{Top-down centralization of education policy and bottom-up decentralization of school management has almost fully eroded local control or the authority of elected school boards in Texas. Today, the legislature stands poised to eliminate or castrate elected boards of education…despite public support of elected school boards and despite the essential function that elected boards perform to advance effective educational reforms.}

^{Public schools of Texas would be served best by legislation that protects the authority of locally elected school boards to govern school districts - legislation that confirms local boards are vested with all powers expressly designated as well as those powers not enumerated by law.}

^{Public schools of Texas would benefit if the Legislature restored all excised authorities of the State Board of Education, and established the elected status of the board by statute. The 77th Legislature would best serve the people of Texas by following the concluding recommendation of the House Research Organization’s report State Board of Education: Controversy and Change:}

^{"Perhaps the best action the Legislature could take to prevent future controversies over SBOE actions, board supporters contend, would be to return the board to its rightful place as the sole decision-making body for educational policy in the state. The board now is hamstrung from providing clear direction, and at times, even the direction it can provide with its reduced authority, is ignored by TEA staff, they say. No local school board would allow its administration to be as uncooperative as the TEA has been with the SBOE, they say. Therefore, they say, the state educational system should be changed to allow the board to operate as more than simply the titular head of the system."}

^{State Board of Education: Controversy and Change,} Focus Report

^{House Research Organization, Texas House of Representatives, January 3, 2000.}

^{The elected State Board of Education and locally elected school boards have proven deserving of public trust. Elected representatives in education have the knowledge of public interest to introduce the specific academic reforms necessary for raising student achievement - as well as the objectivity to implement the practical steps required to improve public schools. The 77th Legislature must empower elected school boards to do their jobs and protect the democratic process of elected governance in the State of Texas.}

Attachment

^{Douglas Carnine. Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices, The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, Washington, D.C. at Internet www.edexcellence.net/library/ <http://www.edexcellence.net/library/> carnine.html}

Honorable Geraldine Miller - Member of the State Board of Education for 16 years-representative for District 12, Chair of the Committee on Instruction, and Master’s Certification in Academic Language Arts Therapy for Children with Dyslexia.

Hon. Geraldine Miller
972-419-4000
3815 Beverly Dr.
Dallas, TX 75205

Chris Patterson, Director of Education Policy
The Lone Star Foundation

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Paper presented at the Lone Star Conference on
PUBLIC EDUCATION REFORM IN TEXAS - COMPREHENSIVE PROGRESS REPORT December 7th and 8th, Austin, Texas. Contact information for the Lone Star Foundation 10711 Burnet, Suite 333, Austin, Texas 78758 (Telephone 512-339-9771).

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