In Austin this week ....

An Assistant Superintendent from LISD was in Austin this week. He sent out an email to teachers today which read :


Good morning. It is really great to be back in Lewisville after spending the last two days in Austin.

That is the "good news" for the day. The really "bad news" is that the Legislature is still meeting. Having been in education now for 34 years, I have seen a lot of legislative sessions, and I have spent a lot of time talking with legislators over that time period. I can honestly say that I have never seen a legislative session that was as mean spirited as this one is. Key Austin leaders have an agenda that they appear intent on passing regardless of the negative consequences. Never have I seen the anger and animosity toward public schools as is reflected this session. At least four major thrusts are lowering local property taxes (without adding additional revenues), implementing a state-wide property tax which will erode local connection and support of public schools, the implementation of vouchers (kindly referred to not as vouchers, but rather "parental choice"), and most importantly for the state leadership, it would get them out of the Court House by sanctioning the currently unconstitutional system of funding education.

At this point, the major education organizations are holding together to try to push for adequate funding, equity, and local control. Unfortunately, the major players down there seem to care little about what we have to say on behalf of public schools and the children of this state. There is an effort afoot to dangle increased equity in front of one of the major groups to gain their support for a statewide property tax. Hopefully, that group will realize the need of not selling out without a commitment for increased capacity for all districts.

It appears that there are not 100 votes in the House (needed for passage of a constitutional amendment) to pass the statewide property tax as proposed by the Senate plan. The House plan (HB 2 and HB 3) underwent major renovation in the Senate. The two houses seem so far apart, that there is a good likelihood that they will not be able to agree on any of the major issues in time and are headed for another Special Session. That, I think at this point, is the best that we can hope for as the court case is to be heard this summer in the Texas Supreme Court.
Are you having fun yet? Just be thankful that you have the greatest job in the world - working daily with young people. Thank you for what you do inspite of all of the distractions.

Have a wonderful day,

Mike Killian

I bolded and underlined a couple of sentences above ... those are My edits .... but those sentences very clearly express the feelings I am getting out of Austin ... and help to explain why I feel the need to find another job.

Public Education itself is being threatened by our elected officials. The whole idea of an "independent" school district seems to be lost. That is what the "I" in ISD stands for. And I, for one, think maybe it may be time to take back our schools!

I wonder if LISD really needs any state money. Maybe LISD should privatize it's schools. Keep our property taxes in LISD and use them to educate our students .... instead of "sharing the wealth". Maybe that is what the legislature is hoping school districts will do .... get so fed up with the state that we will take back control .... give up any state monies .... BUT then we would totally control how our children will be educated. No TAKS if we don't want it. We would control the curriculum. We would control the start date and end date. Take Back control of so many of the things which the State has taken over in the past 20 years or so.

I wonder how truly dependent we are on the State ..... and I wonder what it would take for us to become INDEPENDENT again.

Hmmmmmmm ......