Texas Republican leaders in the state senate unveiled their ambitious plan to enact the ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) agenda for privatization of public education.
With the help of Texans for Education Reform and a battalion of highly paid lobbyists, the Republicans will promote charters, school choice, and accountability measures to stigmatize public schools.
Texas schools have high numbers of students who are poor and who are English language learners. The senate has no new funding measures, despite the fact that $5 billion was cut from school funding a few years ago.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is a voucher advocate. "On Tuesday, he said "148,000 students, approximately, today, are trapped in 297 school campuses across our state that have been failing for more than two years."
His agenda includes school choice and other items, including:
"Giving letter grades (A-F) to individual public school school campuses each year based on their performance -- something already done for districts;
A stronger "parent empowerment" law, often called "the parent trigger," that would allow parents to petition for new management schools that have been failing for two years rather than five;
Removing limits on full-time virtual schools and online courses;
Making sure high school students can take more courses that count for college credit;
Creating a "college and career readiness" course for Texas middle schoolers."
The spokesman for teachers was critical:
""None of the proposals offered by Sen. Taylor and the lieutenant governor would give teachers and students the time and resources they need to improve teaching and learning," said Texas State Teachers Association President Noel Candelaria. "The Taylor-Patrick agenda fails to meet the needs of five million public school students whose schools have been inadequately funded by the very legislators who are eager to declare schools a failure based on standardized test scores."
The Taylor-Patrick agenda is a grab-bag of failed ideas cribbed from the ALEC play book. None of them has been beneficial to students or successful anywhere.
