TEA Accountability Ratings Not Good

By Alden Nellis

August 2, 2008 - TEA (Texas Education Agency) posted its accountability ratings for the past school year. Eleven of CISD’s 12 campuses were rated. None were rated Exemplary. Three were rated Recognized, seven were rated Acceptable, and one, Santa Fe, was rated Unacceptable.

Last year none of the campuses were rated Unacceptable. Adams was rated Exemplary but fell to Recognized this year. Details are at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2008/static/summary/d126903.html

The school ratings from last year cannot be compared on a school-to-school basis because of massive redistricting to distribute students among the three new schools.

Are the students or teachers to blame? No. Despite contrary comments by former Superintendent Damron, our students are as bright and eager to learn as any in Texas, and overall we have excellent teachers.

I place the blame on the past Board and Administration, but certainly not the teachers or students. The school board took great pains to redraw campus boundaries so that all schools except Gerard would qualify for Federal Title 1 funding. At one point during the gerrymandering, then-Board President Donna Boles leaned back and said to Gerard Principal Jay Lewis “Gerard is Cleburne’s Highland Park.”

Other actions by the administration worked to the schools’ disadvantage. They transferred some students to specific campuses, and transferred some teachers to campuses or favored principals to give them an advantage.

Another reason for poor ratings might be that the students were cheated out of the tools to do well on the state tests by the administration’s misspending of federal funds they received that were supposed to be used to help the disadvantaged students. The administration used much of those funds for personal perks and robbed the children of opportunities to excel. (M. J. Larrison is the only new Board member.)

Santa Fe, the campus rated unacceptable, was an all-new school with an all-new staff (except the principal). To compound these problems, the Board and Administration assigned a student body that was 88% economically disadvantaged and 70% Hispanic. Neither of these classifications is inherently bad, but they were disproportionately concentrated at Santa Fe.

The newly built schools are no longer true neighborhood schools. The old Adams, our one Exemplary campus last year, was a true neighborhood school, but the new Adams, with an almost doubled student population, lost its unity and neighborhood flavor. Adams fell victim to the Board and Administration’s gerrymandering.

It is up to the present Board and Administration to get us out of this quagmire. I am convinced that Superintendent Dr. Ronny Beard is sincere about improving the academic standing of CISD schools. He is faced with correcting the mess left by the previous Board and Administration with respect to federal funds spending. The TEA will more or less be at the helm of future spending, but implementation of TEA mandates will fall on Dr. Beard and his staff. Dr. Beard deserves the whole district’s support and patience.