Lege or Circus?

Illustration By Jason Stout

In an anti-climactic, last-ditch attempt to salvage what's left of another failed session on school finance, the Senate on Tuesday passed a new version of a school funding bill. The vote was 20-9, with two Democrats absent. But with the session ending Aug. 19 and no sign of a tax bill coming from the House, SB 8 will go the way of other school bills gathering dust.

On a more productive note, the House acted Tuesday to spend nearly $300 million on new textbooks, freeing them from a warehouse where they too were gathering dust. The House bill includes funding for technology programs as well.

If and when state leaders ever agree on a school finance plan, textbook publishers and teachers will have enough material to devote entire chapters and lesson plans to "How the 79th Legislature Messed With Texas."

The comic relief, if nothing else, would keep students awake in class. For now, though, life under the Big Top isn't so funny. Last week, House Speaker Tom Craddick threw up his hands and said, "We are wasting time and money, and it is unproductive to prolong the process." The remark sent shock waves across the state; it was the first realistic assessment offered by a legislative leader since this round of futile exercises kicked off early this year. So much for the House and Senate being "real close" to an agreement. Craddick suggested that the Legislature adjourn while the leaders continue to work toward a compromise, and then "wait to review the Supreme Court's ruling before formally meeting again."

Senate leaders weren't amused at Craddick's timing – just as the Senate Education Committee was passing out a new, abbreviated version of the original Senate bill. The vote was 5-2-1-1, with Democratic Senators Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio and Judith Zaffirini of Laredo voting no, Royce West "present but not voting," and Palestine Republican Todd Staples absent. It's hard to find anyone who actually likes SB 8. Conservatives say it doesn't go far enough on "reforms," and teachers groups say it goes too far – specifically by allowing private companies to take over failing schools – while coming up short on actual funding. Educators prefer an alternate proposal – SB 37 – that Sens. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, filed last week. The senators unsuccessfully tried to hitch it to SB 8 Tuesday. The Eltife-Ellis bill would raise teachers' salaries by $2,000 over the next two years, and restore the health care supplement for all school employees. Under SB 8, authored by Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, teachers would receive about $2,250 over two years, and homeowners would see a property tax rate of $1.20 per $100 valuation, down from the current $1.50.

At a Monday press conference, Dewhurst expressed hope that Senate passage of the bill would serve as a catalyst to get things rolling in the House, which was reportedly crafting a substitute for SB 8 even before Senators opened debate Tuesday.

"We don't think ... that this is a dead end," Dewhurst said, after spending the weekend polling senators for a consensus of lawmakers willing to stay in the game. Craddick remained unconvinced, questioning the point of passing a bill just for the sake of passing a bill. His sense was that the legislation still lacked the major reform measures laid out in HB 2 – the House's now-deceased education plan. The obvious problem with HB 2, however, is that it's opposed by teachers, school administrators, school boards, parents, and public school advocates – everyone, it seems, except a few special interest groups that adhere to the Rick Perry mantra of "We don't need more dollars for education, we need more education for our dollars."

Ideology and Cutting Taxes

In fact, the GOP leadership crafted its school finance plan based on the recommendations that Perry solicited from the Koret Task Force, a policy arm of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. And the witness list of people testifying in favor of HB 2 during the regular session revealed a similar anti-tax, smaller-government obsession. Proponents included representatives of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the right-wing think tank founded by San Antonio voucher proponent James Leininger (also one of Perry's largest contributors); Americans for Prosperity, the anti-tax outfit founded by Congressman Dick Armey; and the Texas Association of Business, the corporate lobby group under a grand jury investigation for allegedly breaking campaign finance laws during the 2002 election.

The only moderate voice testifying in favor of HB 2 had been John Stevens, executive director of the Texas Business & Education Coalition, who spoke very early in the session, before opposition had fully mounted. "We wanted to be encouraging of the process, and we saw the potential for real education reform," Stevens said. But hindsight tells him that the massive overhaul that the bill called for was overly ambitious. "That was a pretty big chunk for the Legislature to bite off," he said. There were other failings, too, with educators and Democratic lawmakers virtually shut out of the process. "I do think we need to look at how to create a consensus," Stevens said. "The extent of inclusiveness ... is important – not just to pass a bill but to actually implement it."

Carolyn Boyle, one of the founding members of the newly formed Texas Parent PAC, says the leadership thumbed its nose at the democratic process in its rush to pass a school bill. The motive was fairly obvious, she said. "It's all about ideology and cutting taxes rather than improving public schools and coming up with a way to pay for them. ... They partnered with anti-tax, anti-public education groups and a right-wing think tank from California to write the bill. Why weren't they talking to educators, to PTA representatives, and to the people elected by their communities to serve on school boards? And why," she asked, "weren't they talking to education experts at UT?" At the very least, the pro-education lawmakers were able to defeat one particularly loathsome aspect of the GOP plan, which would have siphoned education dollars to bankroll a private school voucher program. A majority of House members rejected the proposal, in spite of some serious back-room arm-twisting that convinced some members to vote the "right" way – or face a Leininger-funded opponent in the 2006 primary. "I had legislators tell me that people in their districts wanted them to vote against it," Boyle recalled, "but then they turned around and voted for it."