I pledged to myself and to my grandchildren after Bush's thief of the 2004 election I would do all I could to oppose this arrogant and blindly destructive man. The pain and suffering Rove-Bush and its mean spirited cohorts within what passes for the "Grand Old Party" now impose on the nation started in Texas. Rick Perry makes sure that we keep feeling that pain. The ultimate blow against hopes for a truly compassionate and more just Texas future lie in educated, empowered future generations. Perry has taken another step to kill this hope.
"Things that were previously decided locally no longer will be," he said, citing another rule that empowers the commissioner to order a school district or campus to hire an outside professional to examine problems in finances, student testing, data quality, governance or learning programs.
"The pendulum has swung pretty far in the direction of more state control over public education," he added.
Crossposted at
Texas Kaos .
I have blogged on this before [see
The lege's plan to KILL public education in Texas] , this article in today's
Dallas News exposes just how accurate my conjectures were in that earlier blog.
Under the new law, the commissioner can replace the entire staff at any campus that is rated academically unacceptable for two years in a row. A campus intervention team appointed by the commissioner would determine which employees would be removed, with the principal automatically removed. The team would run the campus until it was rated acceptable.
The change begins with the recently completed 2005-06 school year. Although this year's ratings won't be out until next month, a total of 364 campuses - including 51 charter schools - were graded academically unacceptable a year ago. If similar numbers are poorly rated this year, thousands of teachers and principals could be replaced in summer 2007.
And if a campus continues to receive poor ratings for two years after state intervention, the commissioner must turn over management of the school to a nonprofit education entity or order closure of the school. The commissioner can take similar actions against a school district for multiple years of poor academic or financial ratings under the state's accountability system.
The changes signal a shift in power not only to the education commissioner, but also to the governor, who appoints the commissioner, said Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association. Dr. Neeley was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry.
Let's think about how all this plays out. First, Perry strikes another blow against one of the key groups that have consistently seen through his game, teachers. For the reasons I laid out in my previous blog, this bullshit policy of using dubious high stakes testing as a club on public schools is both a fraud and a conscious attempt to distroy them. The short of it is that schools have been burdened with more and more strigent requires and simultaneously starved of needed resources. In other words, set up to fail and thus justify privitization.
Under this provision of the "reform" act, Perry, through his hand picked cronies, has the power of jobs or no jobs over literally thousands of Texas educators. If you think that this is about weeding out bad educators, read the previous paragraph again.
Secondly, right in step with his Master, Rove-Bush, Perry wants to privitize public education on the public dime. Notice the provisions for privitization in the blockquote above. Recall Rove-Bush's blatant work in shoveling increasing amounts of publc funds to fundie organizations, religious and secular. [see here and here and especially here]. Do you think for a minute that Perry wouldn't use this process to shovel money as payback to his own fundies in Texas? Can you state funded homeschooling? religious "charter schools" ?
If you think the Repugs have it easy now fooling most of the people, most of the time, just wait. We continue to be amazed that good, ordinary people vote against their own economic self-interest. Witness :
Thomas Frank in his book What's the Matter With Kansas? put it this way:
What's the Matter with Kansas? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
" Not long ago, Kansas would have responded to the current situation by making the bastards pay. This would have been a political certainty, as predictable as what happens when you touch a match to a puddle of gasoline. When business screwed the farmers and the workers - when it implemented monopoly strategies invasive beyond the Populists' furthest imaginings -- when it ripped off shareholders and casually tossed thousands out of work -- you could be damned sure about what would follow.
Not these days. Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO, and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed (unions, antitrust, public ownership), and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower."
If we allow public education to be destroyed , there is more where this came from.
Without a solid, excellent public education system, democracy is impossible because working class and middle class kids are less able to recieve the necessary training in critical thinking . Consider the state of science as a test case:
Ethical Atheist - Sad State of Science in America
" * 70% of American adults do not understand the scientific process;
* Double digit percentage gains in belief of haunted houses, ghosts, communication with the dead, and witches in the past decade; 8
* U.S. depends heavily on foreign born scientists at all degree levels, as high as 45% in engineering;
* Belief in pseudoscience is relatively widespread and growing;
* 60% believe some people posses psychic powers or extrasensory perception (ESP);
* 30% believe some reported objects in the sky are really space vehicles from other civilizations;
* 30% read astrology charts at least occasionally in the newspaper;
* 46% did not know how long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun (1 year);
* 45% thought lasers work by focusing sound waves (they focus light);
* 49% believe antibiotics kill viruses (they kill bacteria);
* 66% don't believe the Big Bang theory widely accepted by scientists;
* 48% believe humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs;
* 47% don't believe in evolution which is widely accepted by scientists;
* 55% couldn't define DNA;
* 78% couldn't define a molecule;
* 32% believe in 'Lucky Numbers'.
This trend is long term and will not turn itself around.
If you think that American mass democracy is under threat now, wait till Perry and their henchmen finish with their assault on public education. In particular , the present generation of young people are showing some signs of turning against the Repugs, but NOT necessarily turning toward the Progressives, rather toward the Kinky's of this world.
link [snip ]it's true that as a whole nonvoters are younger, less educated and less informed than voters...
[snip ]
...we heard more than once that a nonvoter did not want to choose between "the lesser of two evils."
And here:
LinkYoung people are interested in the election but they are not yet as engaged as they should be. ....
What is to be done? Elect Democrats, work with you local school PTO . Local school boards and superintendants are not necessarily happy with this development either. This power grab is also partially punishment for the grief they gave Perry over school finance reform.
What you can't do is nothing. Literlly, this issue touches our children's and our nations future as few others can.