Tag Archives: Texas Education Agency

State news

Kids who skip school aren’t criminals

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did right by Texas children and their parents when he signed a bill that decriminalizes truancy.

House Bill 2398 means that kids caught skipping school won’t be tossed into jail. And, as Abbott said when he signed the bill into law, “Criminalizing unauthorized absences at school unnecessarily jeopardizes the futures of our students.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/19/texas-decriminalize-truancy-after-abbott-signs-bil/

Critics of the previous practice had said it punishes poor and minority children unfairly. Too many of them come from home backgrounds where education simply doesn’t take the priority that it should. So, the kids skip school to hang out with friends or, sadly, do things they shouldn’t be doing. If they commit a crime while they’re out cavorting when they should be in school, then by all means, arrest them and treat them accordingly. Skipping school by itself shouldn’t be a reason to put a kid into juvenile detention.

The emphasis now falls on school districts to take measures designed to keep kids in school. Since truancy now will be handled as a civil matter, it becomes critical for districts to work with the Texas Education Agency to deal with habitual truants and seek ways to eliminate their impulse to skip school.

As the Texas Tribune reports: “HB 2398 offers preventative measures districts can take to curb unexcused absences and suggests rehabilitative programs for habitual offenders.”

This is a good — and in my view a surprising — move that the governor has taken. He developed a reputation as a “tough on crime” state attorney general. His statement relating to his bill signing suggests he understands that the state can lean too heavily on children who, after all, are just children.

They don’t need to tossed into the slammer because of unexcused absences from school.

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Terrible story playing out in Beaumont

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It pains me terribly to watch this story play out in a city I grew to love while I lived there.

The Beaumont Independent School District is no longer “independent.” The Texas Education Agency, led by Education Commissioner Michael Williams, is about to take over the public school system.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/TEA-to-install-board-of-managers-at-BISD-5620989.php

This is not pretty. However, it contains a lesson that other school systems across the state ought to heed with great care.

I lived in Beaumont for nearly 11 years before moving way up yonder to the Panhandle in January 1995. I saw the Beaumont district go through a lot of pain starting in 1984. The TEA at one point brought in monitors to watch the district’s every move up close and personal. The district worked its way through some messy administrative issues then.

Now it’s come to this.

Williams has named seven managers to oversee operations at the school district. The superintendent has been stripped of his duties. The board members are out of office. The managers comprise local leaders with a keen interest in restoring trust to the public school system. Of the seven people named, I know only one of them: Jimmy Simmons, president of Lamar University.

I’m not up to speed on all the particulars of what ails the Beaumont district. Near as I can tell, the district has fallen into a spasm of incompetence, fiscal mismanagement to the max, conduct that borders on malfeasance — all of which has destroyed the public’s trust in its school system.

I’ve been acquainted with Commissioner Williams for a number of years, going to his days as a Texas railroad commissioner. He’s an aggressive, proactive guy. He’s a West Texan, a lawyer from Midland. He doesn’t appear to suffer fools … at all!

The lesson here for the other 1,000-plus school districts is to ensure you keep your houses in order, spend your money wisely, do the best job possible educating the students in your charge — and do not anger those students’ parents.

I hope this Beaumont story ends well. If it does, it will emerge a better public school district. It might even become a great one.

Good luck, board of managers.

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Beaumont school system off the tracks

It pains me terribly to watch what is happening to the Southeast Texas public school district that educated my sons.

The Beaumont Independent School District is hurtling toward a serious train wreck.

http://www.texasobserver.org/students-troubled-beaumont-isd-campaign-save-teachers-jobs/

My sons came of age in Beaumont after we moved there in 1984. My wife and I uprooted ourselves from our hometown of Portland, Ore., and came to Texas so I could continue my journalism career.

It’s been a great ride for three decades.

But watching the Beaumont ISD implode is painful for me. I feel as though I have an emotional stake in the future of the school system that’s been wracked by controversy for decades.

The community was slow to desegregate its schools, doing so finally in the 1980s after the federal courts ordered it to happen. The very week I took my post at the newspaper that hired me a landmark election occurred in which the school district elected a majority African-American school board.

The racial composition of the new school board by itself was enough to cause serious apoplexy among many Beaumont residents, which testifies graphically to the racial tensions that have existed in that community.

It’s been a rough ride. BISD has been rocked by all kinds of incompetence, feather-bedding, lack of due diligence, mismanagement, alleged malfeasance. From my perch way up yonder, it appears that the district is on its last legs.

The state has all but ordered the school board to disband. The superintendent has been asked to step aside. The Texas Education Agency is poised to take over management of the district; BISD officials plan to appeal … good luck with that.

And then I see this story in the Texas Observer about BISD students working to save teachers’ jobs.

Educators always say they care about the kids. In Beaumont, that declaration is sounding more hollow all the time. The students in this case, are taking up the role of grownups in a dispute that is rapidly spiraling out of control.

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Big-time brouhaha in Beaumont

Some major trouble is brewing in a city I used to call home. It pains me to watch this play out even from such a huge distance.

The Beaumont Independent School District is about to lose control of itself. The Texas Education Agency — headed by Education Commissioner Michael Williams, no shrinking violet, to be sure — is about to seize control of the troubled school system.

The school board has voted to appeal the TEA takeover. It won’t work. To whom will the BISD board appeal?

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/editorials/article/EDITORIAL-BISD-appeal-is-not-justified-5405143.php

I haven’t followed the details of the troubled district. BISD seems to have been run like a three-ring circus. I’ve read accounts of the superintendent allowing the construction of a huge new activities center that will carry his name. There have been significant personnel issues involving key senior school district administrators. Money hasn’t been spent wisely. Academic performance among students continues to flounder.

And school trustees continue to fight among themselves.

That last item seems to go back several decades.

I arrived in Beaumont in 1984 just as two school districts were merging under a federal court-ordered desegregation edict. One district, a mostly white one, merged with another, mostly black district. The combined district held a school trustee election the very week I arrived at my post at the newspaper. For the first time in the community’s history, a majority African-American school board emerged from the voting result.

You’d have thought Planet Earth had just changed course and began hurtling toward the sun, in the eyes of many folks all over the city.

It has been rough sailing ever since.

The TEA already has intervened in BISD’s affairs, sending in monitors in the late 1980s to keep a close eye on matters. The school system managed to right itself then. This matter seems much worse.

It’s painful to watch even from way up yonder.