Personal Spats Hold Back School Change

By John Maginnis

Whatever success Gov. Bobby Jindal may claim in the recent legislative session does not extend to his K-12 education agenda, which lawmakers trashed. Not only did the administration-backed package of bills to rein in the power of school boards fail to go anywhere, but passage of a controversial career diploma bill, which Pastorek opposed but the governor signed, could mark a big step backwards from the gains made in student accountability over the past decade.

So it's not surprising that the session barely ended before the blame games began—with emphasis on games, as played on schoolyards.

Legislators complained that state school Superintendent Paul Pastorek was abrasive and talked down to them.

Pastorek said the teacher unions and school boards badmouthed him in order to defeat bills that threatened them.

The governor said one of his appointees, Tammie McDaniel, was stirring up trouble on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and he asked her to resign.
She said no, because the constitution said she didn't have to.

McDaniel requested and was granted a meeting with the governor at the Mansion, but when she arrived, she found deputy chief of staff Steve Waguespack sitting in, which made her "uncomfortable." The governor explained that's how things are done in his office. She decided not to stay and drove back to Oak Ridge. The governor's staff leaked word to columnists that she walked out on him and that she was rude. Was not, she said.

Thankfully, the bell rang: recess over.

Now can we have a reasonable conversation about what needs to be changed with schools and school boards and how to get that done? Personalities will always play a role in how public policy is formed, but too often they are the excuses rather than real reasons for failure.

Whether or not Pastorek treated legislators and school board members with the deference they think they deserve obscures the point that he's right: that local school boards should stick to policy and let superintendents and principals run the schools, without the politicians' advice and consent on which school bus drivers must be hired or cafeteria workers promoted.

If micromanagement was the biggest problem that needed correcting, it should have been the main focus, if not the entirety, of the education change agenda. Instead, that issue was sidetracked by debate over term limits and pay limits for school board members, which made it easier for school board and teacher lobbyists to mobilize opposition to the whole package of bills, all of which failed.

Pastorek points out that it took seven years for education advocates to pass a bill against micromanagement in the Texas legislature, and that, despite attempts, a school board term-limits bill never passed there. So why even try a term-limits bill here if the distraction makes it harder to pass a micromanagement bill? Let's hope that lesson has sunk in.

As for the spat between Bobby and Tammie, the governor is now resigned to the fact that he appointed a loose cannon and now can't get rid of her. He has three appointments to BESE and eight members are elected, so her independence poses a challenge for the administration, but hardly an insurmountable one. McDaniel, a former teacher and principal, denies that she is for the status quo and insists that she most often supports Pastorek's policies in principle. She has the chance to prove it, especially now that Jindal has singled her out.

If personal differences can be set aside, BESE has work to do. An immediate challenge is to fashion a curriculum for the new career diploma track that doesn't make hash of the hard-won improvements in student accountability and ending social promotions. While the career track could help in reducing the dropout rate, it will hurt if it also reduces the graduation rate for the academic track. The danger is that many marginal students, who would otherwise tough it out for a real diploma, will choose the path of least resistance, toward a dead end. The Legislature didn't address those details; BESE must.

For their part, the governor and legislative leaders must play a stronger role on future legislation to change how public schools are governed and managed. Otherwise, they will just be spectators when the education community gets into another schoolyard brawl.