AISD Notebook

I know that writing

about education doesn't sound very sexy, ya'll, but I love my job. I'm gonna show you why. Once again, in no particular order of importance, are my Top Ten picks and rants about federal, state, and local education in 1995.

1. School lunches -- bag 'em: The federal school lunch program has its origins in a Depression-era farm surplus program, and was signed into law by President Truman in 1946, "as a measure of national security." GOP schemes to reduce funding and to roll the program into a block grant for the states to administer at their own discretion were met with outrage by many. Do we need the program? Go to a school cafeteria where most of the children qualify sometime.

2. Federal education funding -- a Communist plot! Who does more griping about how dumb American public school kids are than conservative Republicans? But they'd jerk away the one thing there's never enough of: money. The flap is mostly over Goals 2000, a voluntary (hear me? you don't have to do it!) program enacted in 1993 to help schools implement some broad educational goals, e.g., every child learning how to read. The nerve of those feds.

3. The U.S. Supreme Court -- do it for the team: In Vernonia School District v. Acton, the court said it's not an invasion of privacy for the Oregon school district to continue random drug testing of its athletes, even if there's no probable cause. The prime rationale for this decision seems to be that since athletes get naked in front of each other in the locker room, they can't howl about having to pee in a cup.

4. Mike Moses -- Texas tough: Moses, former superintendent of schools in Lubbock, succeeded Lionel "Skip" Meno as state Commissioner of Education in March. He cannonballed into hot water when it was revealed he immediately got an $18,000 hike on his $139,000 annual salary. He denies asking Gov. George W. Bush for the raise. His first public speaking engagement in Austin was in front of the Capitol City Christian Coalition in May. Then he quietly jettisoned the remainder of a federal grant for health education.

5. Vouchers bite the big one in Texas: Who knew? Not me, that's for sure, and even many Texas legislators didn't know that the proposal would go down in flames. The coup de grace came when Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) asked his colleagues on the House floor to stop trying to hand minorities what they haven't asked for, and start giving them what they have asked for -- equity.

6. Home rule, ho-hum: George W. Bush campaigned on this issue, and a plan to allow voters to break away from the state and create their own "home rule" school district was written into the state's newly revised education code, but no one's biting so far.

7. Jim Fox became AISD Superintendent of Schools: Fox thinks AISD has suffered for years from a leadership gap. And he really, really, values leadership. So now we have more superintendents for this, deputy superintendents for that, and associate superintendents for other things -- and it's not supposed to cost taxpayers a dime extra. That's good, because a lot of AISD's problems could really be solved with a little more money.

8. Priority schools lost their status: Changes in federal Title I funding rules resulted in the shift of some $8.1 million away from 16 of AISD's poorest and lowest-performing elementary schools. Individual schools lost anywhere from $32,000 to $85,000 from their campus budgets, and the school board didn't raise taxes to make up the difference. They've denied that they did it to put voters in a good mood for a bond issue in 1996. All right. But no new taxes this year doesn't hurt a bond issue next year, now does it?

9. School News of the Weird! Parents in Santa Fe, N.M., sue the schools because -- in violation of their religious beliefs -- their son was "forced to carve a Halloween pumpkin against his will."... The Class of 1995 in Bend, OR, adopted as a class motto, "I was there. It was OK. But then I forgot."... Janitors were hospitalized after they sprayed floor cleaner on a gopher, causing an explosion at the Ceres, CA elementary school. The gopher survived.

10. Please indulge my wishes for 1996: I wish everyone reading this now would consider spending 30 minutes a week at a school. The HOSTS (Helping One Student To Succeed) program at Zavala, Ortega, Barrington, and Dawson schools is one way, and they need volunteers. I wish Newt Gingrich and Rudolph Guiliani would read Jonathan Kozol's latest book, Amazing Grace, a work that puts a human face on faceless people in the South Bronx. I wish AISD residents would educate themselves on the bond issue, and cast their votes knowing they're acting to shape the future of our whole city. n