Governor Perry Vetoes HB 2836, would've taken TEKS School Curriculum Standards from Elected State Board of Education (Texas SBOE)

Gov. Perry Vetoes HB 2836

statement from Governor Rick Perry on veto:

The State Board of Education (SBOE) is responsible for developing the curriculum standards required to be taught in Texas schools. House Bill 2836 has the potential to deemphasize the majority of these important curriculum standards in the classroom, and would also circumvent the responsibilities of the elected SBOE. The SBOE has initiated a process to streamline the scope of the curriculum standards required to be taught in classrooms, addressing concerns about the number of curriculum standards taught and assessed.

Maintaining our rigorous standards is crucial to ensuring Texas students have the fundamental building blocks necessary to succeed in their education and ultimately compete in a global economy.

why this bill was bad from Bob Hall posted on Red Hot Conservative:

HB 2836 - Takes away authority over the curriculum standards (TEKS) from our elected Texas State Board of Education members. If passed this bill allow the Marxists to control what our children are taught.

 

 

Texas CSCOPE Liberal Curriculum is DEAD! - Not so Fast, SB 1406 MUST STILL PASS

update:  SB 1406 JUST PASSED the Texas House!

The TESCCC Board has announced that they will be ENDING all CSCOPE lessons.

CSCOPE is dead, but as a way to prevent it from coming back with no SBOE oversight, SB 1406 MUST STILL pass the Texas House

We must NOT let our guard down and the Texas Legislature needs to continue to take action to prevent bad curriculum and online backdoor curriculum from being introduced into Texas schools with no oversight. SB 1406 MUST pass the Texas House. Just because TESCCC is pulling CSCOPE does not mean they cannot try to start it back up in the future. SB 1406 will help prevent this and must pass even though CSCOPE has been pulled. Ginger Russell reports on her website Red Hot Conservative that an email has been sent to Superintendents saying that CSCOPE will not be completely gone.

State Senator Dan Patrick announced this news earlier this morning (See Dan Patrick Press Release below)

CSCOPE was a controversial curriculum in Texas. There was widespread outrage over the past year because of the outrageous Liberal, anti-American lessons. What made things worse is that this curriculum was created WITHOUT the oversight of the State Board of Education as required by law for all Texas Curriculum. On top of that there were financial inconsitincies and coverups.

After CSCOPE was exposed, school district all across Texas started dropping CSCOPE from being used in their school districts. My hometown of Lumberton, TX was even in the committee process of ditching CSCOPE and researching what will replace it for Lumberton ISD.

It is believed that TESCCC was facing investigations into the financing of CSCOPE and that is what finally compelled them to finally pull all CSCOPE lessons before they could be investigated further.

past articles:
Greg Abbott to CSCOPE - Disclose Info or Face Lawsuit
CSCOPE Director Caught LYING about Communist Chinese Flag Lesson (VIDEO) - Lumberton ISD - David Bellow Investigation
Flawed CSCOPE Needs SBOE Oversight says State Board of Education Member David Bradley
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott Orders Full Investigation into CSCOPE, will SHUT IT DOWN
CSCOPE supplement blames 9/11 attack on America - shocking Texas school lesson
OUTRAGE: The Boston Tea Party was a Terrorist Attack according to Texas School Curriculum, Cscope
Texas Teaching 'Allah is the Almighty God' - CSCOPE Cirriculum Must be Stopped


Press Release from State Senator Dan Patrick:

SENATOR PATRICK ANNOUNCES THE END OF CSCOPE
In sudden turn of events the TESCCC Board decides to end CSCOPE lesson plans.

AUSTIN-- A letter signed by all 20 members of the Board released this morning stated they will notify their 875 school district clients that all lesson plans will be removed from their website on August 31st, 2013 and that districts cannot use any lessons they currently have beyond that date. TheAugust 31st date corresponds to the notice clause in their contracts with their districts. The letter goes on to say that the Regional Service Centers will not produce lesson plans in the future. The 20 Service Centers will return to their original business plan of providing a management tool for teachers to stay on schedule regarding the teaching of the required TEKS. The official vote will take place at an already scheduled Board meeting on Friday, May 24th.

"I'm pleased that the CSCOPE Board has made the decision to get out of the lesson plan business. This is a positive development for students, parents, teachers, and for the Regional Service Centers,' said Senator Patrick. "I want to thank the members of the Senate Education Committee for their months of work on this issue. I also want to thank Attorney General Abbott and his staff in providing valuable assistance in our review of CSCOPE," added Patrick.

"We would like to thank Senator Patrick, Senator Duncan, and members of the Senate and House Education Committees. Their leadership has been invaluable and we look forward to a positive relationship in the future. We believe that this is the best decision moving forward; and allows us to continue to provide high quality services to the more than 1,000, school districts and charter schools in Texas, said Kyle Wargo, Board Member Region 17 Board of Directors and Anne Poplin, Chair, TESCCC.

"We accept the concerns expressed by the leadership of our state regarding segments of the lessons that were perceived as contradictory to the values of our great state. We will therefore eliminate the model lessons offered as examples of what was interpreted as the intent of the standards and focus on moving forward in a positive manner," said Mary Ann Whiteker, Superintendent, Hudson ISD.

"Once the TESCCC officially approves this measure Friday I will notify the SBOE that they do not need to review the 1600 CSCOPE lesson plans," said Patrick. "The CSCOPE era is over. However, what the last several months has proven is that the state will have to create a plan to monitor all on line material in the future so that our schools and classroom remain completely transparent to parents and the legislature knows what is being taught in our classrooms across Texas," added Patrick.

Texas Senate passes sweeping charter school bill expanding number of charter schools

from KFDM 6 News: http://www.kfdm.com/shared/news/top-stories/stories/kfdm_vid_4444.shtml

By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The Texas Senate has overwhelming approved a dramatic expansion of the number of charter schools allowed to operate in Texas.

But what passed wasn't nearly as ambitious as originally proposed.

Sen. Dan Patrick's bill would increase the cap on the number of licenses to operate charter schools statewide from the current 215 up to 305 by September 2019.

It passed 30-1 on Thursday with surprisingly little debate. Democrats and Republicans alike then congratulated Patrick.

The measure now heads to the House, where it faces a tougher road.

Patrick had originally pushed for lifting entirely the cap on licenses, and creating a special board to oversee a flood of new applications he expected would follow.

But Patrick said the bill that passed is "much, much better" than the original.

Texas Judge Rules School Finance Plan UNCONSTITUTIONAL - Likely to be Overturned - School Waste Spending is the Problem!

Last year, over 600 schools in Texas filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas. These schools claimed they were underfunded, but they somehow found millions of dollars to hire lawyers and file suit against the State of Texas with the claim that the schools did not have enough money.

Yesterday, a Texas State Judge, John Dietz, ruled that the current Texas School Finance Plan is unconstitutional. This ruling is not surprising because this Judge has previously ruled against Texas School Funding Plans in 2005, and the schools bringing the current lawsuit picked his court to file the lawsuit in. This ruling will be appealed to the Texas State Supreme Court where it will likely be thrown out.

These schools claim that the State cut their funding by over 5 billion dollars. In reality, the funding for schools was not cut last year, it INCREASED. The overall amount of money that the State gave Texas schools last session actually increased from the previous session. The 5 billion dollar figure represents the increase in funding that the schools wanted last session. When Texas rejected to fund the increase, the schools said school funding was cut. In fact, school funding was not CUT, it was just not increased as much as desired. Texas is funding education at a much higher level than other states. Education costs are 40% of the budget in Texas while the average education costs of the other States is only about 30%.

The biggest problem with school finance is not that the State is cutting funds, but that the school districts are not properly using the funds they are getting.

Texas Schools have SPENDING Problem, NOT Revenue Problem

According to Texas Comptroller Susan Combs and Texas Governor Rick Perry, Texas School Spending increased up to 5 times faster than enrollment.

So if School Spending has grown astronomically, then why are schools saying they do not have any money? The answer is simple.

Texas Schools are Blowing their State Money on Non-Educational Waste

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott rightly argues that the system is adequately funded and that school districts don't always spend their money wisely.

Not spending money wisely is an understatement.

Think about this, half of all Texas School Staff are not even teachers!

Beaumont ISD is a perfect example of extreme waste spending by a Texas School District. The former superintendent in this city of a little over 100,000 residents was making $360,000 per year BASE salary. That made him the highest paid superintendent in the State of Texas even though the school district is a small district compared to the much larger districts in Texas. It does not stop there. BISD just built a massive football stadium with school money. But hey, teachers are not as important as football right? BIS also tried to build a HOTEL with tax dollars. Really? A hotel? The State Legislature actually had to pass a law to block the school from wasting school money on building a hotel. Oh, and how about BISD paying to send teachers to a different state for a racially charged black educators conference. Even worse, when BISD was building a school, the district overpaid for a truck rental by half a million dollars. The school was paying $90,000 to rent a truck that normally only costs $7000 a month to rent.

Beaumont is not the only place where waste spending happens. It happens in most school districts. According to Texas Watchdog, Austin ISD recently fired teachers because they said the money was not there, but then the school district turned around and increased the number of school administrators making over $100,000 by 63%

Those examples above are just a few examples of how Texas Schools are wasting school tax dollars.

Clearly, the problem with Texas funding is NOT budget cuts from the State. The problem is that Texas Schools are wasting the school money they get on non-educational things, and when times got tough, they fired teachers instead of cutting non-educational pet projects or firing non-educators.

Texas School Spending grew 5x faster than enrollment - NO Revenue Problem, Its A Spending Problem!

from Texas public policy Foundation:

Recently, there’s been some kerfuffle over how fast school district spending has grown in comparison to enrollment growth.
Governor Perry stated that between 2002 and 2012, Texas increased public education spending at three times the rate of student enrollment growth. Politifact rated this statement as “False” on their “Truthometer”. Politifact claims that once inflation and other factors are brought into the equation, Governor Perry’s statements don’t hold up…only the Governor made no claims that the numbers were adjusted, he was quoting raw data.
To help settle the matter, let’s go to a neutral, knowledgeable source: the Texas Comptroller.
According to the Comptroller’s Financial Allocation Study for Texas 2010, the most recent study available, “Enrollment in Texas public schools rose by about 19.7 percent in the last decade (Exhibit 3). In the last decade, total spending rose nearly five times as fast as enrollment (95.3 percent versus 19.7 percent).”
Though not identical, the time frame is quite similar to the one referenced by Governor Perry. And the numbers are clear: school spending increased at almost 5 times the rate of enrollment growth.
However you look at the numbers, schools don’t have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem.

more here: http://www.texaspolicy.com/center/higher-education/blog/comptroller-texas-isd-spending-grew-nearly-5-times-faster-enrollment

REP. JAMES WHITE FILED HB 704 TO PROTECT TEXAS SCHOOLS FROM OBAMA'S Common Core Standards Agenda

the following message is from Donna Garner:

1.25.13

Texas Rep. James White has filed HB 704 in an effort to protect Texas from the Obama administration’s takeover of the public schools through Common Core Standards. Please express your appreciation to Rep. White for his efforts and then contact Texas Legislators and ask them to vote for HB 704. Below I have posted HB 704.

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

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http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/Text.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB704

83R1191 PAM-D

By:  Rep. James White                                                                                        H.B. No. 704

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to public school curriculum standards and assessment instruments.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1.  Section 28.002, Education Code, is amended by adding Subsections (b-1), (b-2), (b-3), and (b-4) to read as follows:

(b-1)  In this section, "common core state standards" means the national curriculum standards developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

(b-2)  The State Board of Education may not adopt common core state standards to comply with a duty imposed under this chapter.

(b-3)  A school district may not use common core state standards to comply with the requirement to provide instruction in the essential knowledge and skills at appropriate grade levels under Subsection (c).

(b-4)  Notwithstanding any other provision of this code, a school district or open-enrollment charter school may not be required to offer any aspect of a common core state standards curriculum.

SECTION 2.  Section 39.023, Education Code, is amended by adding Subsection (a-3) to read as follows:

(a-3)  The agency may not adopt or develop a criterion-referenced assessment instrument under this section based on common core state standards as defined by Section 28.002(b-1).

SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect immediately if it receives a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution.  If this Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this Act takes effect September 1, 2013.

Union Grove ISD in East Texas votes to arm Teachers and school officials

Teachers and other school officials will soon be authorized to carry concealed weapons inside Union Grove ISD school buildings after a vote by the school board tonight. Community members who attended the meeting appeared to be 100% in favor of the move. The armed employees would be selected by the district, required to already have a CHL, and go through an extensive training process.

Union Grove is a 2A district in Upshur County, about 10 miles west of Longview (or 35 miles or so northeast of Tyler for those unfamiliar with the area). It is only the 2nd school district in Texas to make such a move, and the first in the last five years. The district is not within an incorporated city and relies on the sheriff's department for law enforcement. They say they are making the move in part because response times would be quite slow in the event of an incident.


more here: http://www.news-journal.com/news/local/union-grove-isd-to-allow-select-teachers-administrators-to-be/article_4fbbc630-612c-11e2-acb2-0019bb2963f4.html

New Law Would Require Texas Schools to Do More to Document and Prevent Bullying

UPDATE: For the record, I would be against any national regulations. This is a state level law. I would also be against any requirements to specifically target people who are bullied based on their sexual preference. I believe bullying is bullying and it should not be tolerated no matter what the reason for the bullying. Special treatment of gay bullying (which is only a percentage of all bullying) would open the door to promoting a homosexual agenda. Bullying should be dealt with and not just one type of bullying. There should also be special provisions to allow people to genuinely speak their beliefs against homosexuality. No homosexual deserves to get beat up, but there students should also be able to believe and civilly express their beliefs against that chosen lifestyle. Michigan passed an anti-bullying law recently with a great provision that protects religious beliefs. That section of the Michigan Law reads: (8) This section does not abridge the rights under the First Amendment of the constitution of the United States or under article I of the state constitution of 1963 of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian. This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian.

The Texas Senate passed a bill that will require School Boards to develop specific methods for reporting and investigating bullying, including allowing school boards to transfer bullies to another classroom or campus.[1]

This is REAL reform.

No longer will a teacher at Seagoville High School in Dallas, TX be able to watch a kid get beat up by a bully and not even report the bully.[2]

No longer will a Principal at Lumberton ISD be able to tell a concerned parent that there is no bullying in his school and that it is “kids having fun.”[3]

With this new law, these schools will have to document and investigate every potential instance of bullying. Now parents will be informed about what is going on at school. Now schools can transfer bullies away from the kids they are bullying.

No more excuses, no more ineffective and politically correct policies that do nothing to prevent bullying. Now schools will actually have to start DOING something about bullying. A Lumberton High School Principal Mr. Bilberry (the same one who said bullying was “kids having fun”) did a play last year that was completely inappropriate.[4] It contained many vulgarities and sexually explicit jokes that had nothing to do with bullying. Even the principal in the play used vulgar language, as if that has to do with bullying. Mr. Bilberry defended the play because it had an “anti-bullying” theme. First of all, the anti-bullying theme was buried in the vulgar language and talking about putting an online ad up to get laid. Second of all, the play does not do anything to actually investigate, report and prevent bullying. Schools don’t need an inappropriate play to do something about bullying, especially since the play was completely ineffective. Schools need real policy to stop bullying. Not even a couple of days after the play a kid got beat up at the school and, over the last few month, students say bullying in Lumberton ISD has not gone down at all.

This law will force all Texas schools to start doing something real to PREVENT and INVESTIGATE bullying. No more talking the talk. It is time to walk the walk.


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[1] http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Texas-lawmakers-approve-anti-bullying-legislation-1392136.php

[2] http://texasgopvote.com/restore-families/security/shock-video-dallas-teacher-watches-and-does-nothing-bully-attacks-student-002846

[3] http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/2011/03/sexually-obscene-play-shown-lumberton.html

[4] http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/2011/03/lumberton-isd-lies-about-obscene-play.html

Second Video Emerges of Teacher Watching Seagoville School Fight – Also Lumberton School Fight Goes Unnoticed

Just yesterday I posted this article[1] about a Seagoville High School teacher watching a kid get beat up right in front of him and not even calling for help. I also pointed out problems with school policy that allows for kids to get beat up without being able to defend themselves.

It gets much worse!

A SECOND video has just surfaced which shows a different fight a couple of weeks ago and the same teacher just stands there and watched the fight and does not even say anything!

Thank you Teacher’s Union for wanting to keep this teacher in Texas Schools so he can allow kids to get beat up and fight each other.

This teacher finally got suspended while the school is reviewing these videos. The problem is that if these videos did not get posted online, and if there was not a public uproar about these videos, then I have a bad feeling that the administration would have never done anything about this teacher.

Lumberton Middle School Fight Last Week. Teachers Do Nothing and Parents have to Call Front Office to Tell School About Fight.

After posting this fight video yesterday, I got a call from a concerned parent right here in my hometown of Lumberton, TX. This parent said that, while she was waiting in line to pick up her child at Lumberton Middle School, she witnessed a huge fist fight break out with several students involved. She said she was waiting for a teacher to come break it up but that never happened. The parent said there were teachers out there and they had to have heard the fight because all the kids were yelling and chanting fight and the fight was enormous and involved several students. After it was clear that no teachers were stepping in, this parent called the front office of Lumberton Middle School and told them about the fight and asked them to break up the fight.

First, I am not accusing any Lumberton Teacher of standing and watching this fight like the teacher at Seagoville High School. I would hope they just were not out there to see it.

BUT…  even if they school did not break up the fight because they did not see it, we now have the issue of WHY DID NO ONE SEE IT. Why were there no teachers supervising the students outside getting picked up after school? How does that make you feel knowing the level of supervision your children are getting when a huge fight like this can go unnoticed until a parent calls the fight in to the front office.

We need to get back to the basics of protecting the children in school and we also need to focus on good teachers. We need to stop all this political correctness of punishing a victim if that victim fights back after getting attacked and we need to stop the unions from making it hard to fire bad teachers like at Seagoville High School in Dallas, Texas.

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[1] http://www.texasgopvote.com/restore-families/security/shock-video-dallas-teacher-watches-and-does-nothing-bully-attacks-student-002846

(Shock Video) Dallas Teacher Watches and does NOTHING as Bully Attacks Student. Texas School Policy Enables Violence and Bullying

               

Fights happen at schools, right? Well this fight is different than your normal school fight story. A Seagoville High School Student (Dallas, TX) gets attacked at school and the teacher just stands there and watches the whole thing. The teacher did nothing! Even if you buy the argument that the teacher did not want to get hurt, the teacher still did not even yell stop or call for help. This teacher even seems to enjoy the attack and just stands there watching until the boy who was attacked walks out of the room. This teacher is a disgrace. Even the granny in this video[1] has the guts to step in to try to break up an assault at McDonalds. It is interesting to note that the guy flipping burgers at this McDonalds was fired for watching and enjoying the fight instead of, I don’t know, calling the police! It is good to know we have a much lower standard of school employees trying to keep students safe in Texas Schools (sarcasm). The guy flipping burgers gets fired but the teacher gets a pat on the back.

Teacher Unions Enable Bullying…. And they even Support Cop Killers

The teacher’s union backs this teacher 100% because, well, that is what unions do. Most of a union sales pitch is centered on the idea that the union will represent you and protect you from the big bad supervisors who want to punish you when you do something wrong. This California teacher’s union is even supporting convicted cop killers for crying out loud![2] And I will be coming out with a story soon about a killer here in Texas who wants to be a police officer and, you guessed it, the union is backing this killer to get a badge.

Texas School Policy Enables Bullying and Assaults at Schools

A big problem in most Texas Schools is that school policy enables bullying, fights and violence. Yep, you heard me right. So how do they enable bullying? It is simple. Many Texas Schools have a policy that automatically and evenly disciplines both students involved in any fight (or assault). This enables bullying and victimizes the victim because the victims of assaults are not allowed to fight back, and if they do try to defend themselves they get the same punishment as the bully who attacked them. This allows for bullies to roam schools and attack students with little or no resistance because the good students do not want to fight back for fear of getting disciplined. But wait, you might say they don’t have to fight back because the teachers are there to protect them from fighting and discipline the student who attacks other students. WRONG! Apparently in Dallas the unions are telling the teachers to just stand by watching and do not even bother calling someone to come stop the fight or discipline the bad guy. The Dallas school system says they are “investigating” but I don’t know what there is to investigate because you have the darn video.

Lumberton ISD Principal Mr. Lynn Bilberry is Prime Example of Schools Enabling Bullying

 I am not just making this stuff up about schools in Texas enabling bullying. I write this based on personal knowledge of kids in my own hometown of Lumberton, TX who got assaulted at school and the principal tried to give the person who was attacked a suspension for trying to defend himself in the attack. And don’t bother reporting bullying to the High School Principal here at Lumberton ISD, Mr. Lynn Bilberry, because this principal told me once, when I reported bullying of a student, that there is no bullying at his school and when kids harass and make fun of other kids it is not bullying and instead it is just “kids having fun”. Principal Bilberry even tried to get a student arrested for attempting to record the verbal assaults of the other students so that there was proof of the bullying to show the principal who does not believe there is bullying at his school.

We need to do a better job of protecting children in schools from bullying. It starts with hiring decent teachers and goes all the way up to changing school policy.

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[1] http://newsone.com/nation/newsonestaff2/mcdonalds-girl-beat-up-seizure/

[2] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/calif-teachers-union-endorses-convicted-cop-killer/

Update on Lumberton ISD Secret IOU’s to School Attorney

In a previous email about Lumberton ISD hidden grant money, I suggested that something funny was going on with the payments to the School Attorney. Specifically I suggested that the Administration, without the knowledge of the School Board, was writing IOU’s to the school attorney. The School Attorney stood up and completely denied any allegations.[2]

That means I have to show everyone my proof or else it is a he said she said thing.

Here is the proof:

I requested an LISD Open Records Request for all the payments to the School Attorney for the last 5 years.

What I discovered was that the School Attorney received regular monthly paychecks from LISD up until the very last payment he ever got from LISD, which was on January 6^th, 2006[3]. Well, the problem is that the School Attorney served in a full capacity until he resigned on June 11^th, 2010 and the School Board accepted his resignation on June 22^nd, 2010[4]. So that means there is a gap of about 4 years where the School Attorney was NOT getting paid. Do you still believe that there is nothing fishy going on here? Obviously, based on the facts, there was some kind of strange financial deal going on. What it was we might never know, but the School Board did not know about it and when they found out, one of the school board members questioned if the Administration had been lying on the audit when they claimed they had no outstanding debts. The School Board worked something out in an executive session so we don’t get to know anything. The School Attorney resigned. He did not get any back pay because he never billed the school because he was told by the school he was not going to get anything. My guess is that whatever was going on he wanted to keep secret so he did not pursue getting back pay and just let it go. Also, the Administration official who did this strange agreement is no longer at Lumberton ISD and is now at another School District.

For further evidence, you can go to the online LISD Operating Fund Check Register[5] and see that, as far back at the check register goes (2008), the previous school attorney did not get paid. On the other hand, you can see at the online check register that the new school attorney immediately started getting monthly payments when he took over in 2010.

I DO NOT care to make a nice man look bad. I know the previous school attorney and he is a real nice guy and it pains me that I had to bring all of this out about him.

But I DO care about school administrations ending their shady financial dealings and I DO care that our elected School Boards have more control over their Administrations. That meant I had to bring out all this dirty laundry about the School Attorney's situation. This situation brings many questions like, if the School Attorney was not officially the school attorney and not getting paid, then every executive meeting he attended might have been illegal because only the official School Attorney can be at those meetings. Or was he getting paid some other way under the table? I know this previous attorney and I would don’t think that he would not have been involved in anything illegal because he is a very nice guy and I wish him well in retirement. But we JUST DON’T KNOW. That is the problem, we don’t know because of the secrecy of School Administration and the inability for School Boards to oversee them like they are elected to do.

Obviously there was something funny going on behind the scenes with the School Attorney payments and the School Board SHOULD have known about it. They did not know about it and that is the point of all of this. What else does this, and other School Boards across Texas, not know about their School Administration’s financial practices?

School Financial Practices need to be reformed and elected School Boards need to legally have more oversight over the School Administration’s dealing.

Thankfully Lumberton ISD has a few new School Board members and they are cracking down on all of these problems from the past. They just aren't really coming out about it all so that there is no bad press for the school. but the people need to know the truth because it is their tax money at stake.

Lumberton ISD Superintendent Dr. Sims needs to come out and clarify what is going on here.

Sincerely,

David Bellow

mdbellow@gmail.com

http://www.davidbellow.com/

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Owrclxsbgw&feature=BF&playnext=1&list=QL&index=1

[3]https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9O8ABNs2zMKN2RkZjNhMjYtOWZjMy00ZWQ1LTllYjctNTU0MDQ5ZjZhOWZh&hl=en

[4] https://v3.boardbook.org/Public/PublicItemDownload.aspx?mk=50007379&fn=minutes.pdf

[5]http://lumberton.tx.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/docmgr/default.php?sectiondetailid=157&catfilter=1136#showDoc

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Financial Corruption in Texas Schools

This Thursday at 7PM, the Lumberton School Board will reveal that the School Administration had been hiding, and spent, several million dollars last year without the knowledge of the School Board. To put this into perspective, the LISD Budget was only about 30 million last year. Several million on top of that is a huge chunk of change.  The Administration has acted as though practices such as these are no big deal because this is how it has been done for many years. This is east Texas after all where old Democrat politicians have controlled the political landscape and have been doing what they want behind the scenes. In this instance, the LISD Administration has been applying for federal grants and taking and spending the money without informing the School Board of the grant money or having the School Board vote to spend the grant money. I am not saying they stole the money or used it for non-educational expenses. I do not know what they spent it on and I would hope it was all on educational expenses. But ergardless of how they spent the money, the fact is that they have been secretly getting and spending millions of dollars without telling or getting approval from the School Board members who were elected by the people to oversee everything. That is a scandal. It is not that much of a surprise though because this is long time Democrat controlled east Texas politics at work and because the LISD Administration was also found recently to be lying to the auditor about debts LISD owed. The LISD Attorney had been receiving IOU’s from the Administration for some time. When the School Attorney needed the money he finally came out and asked for payment and that is when the School Board discovered the debts owed because the Administration had been lying to the Board, and the Auditors, about debts owed. This Thursday the School Board will reveal the Administration’s cover-up. (unless of course they decide to push back the issue to a later board meeting in hopes that things will quiet down). Lumberton ISD Superintendent Dr. Sims needs to come out and clarify what is going on here.

What is the point of all this? The point is that this situation in Lumberton is not unique. The fact is that the entire educational system is becoming corrupt. Money is being raised and spent all over the state with little or no accountability. Education costs are 40% of the budget in Texas while the average education costs of the other States is only about 30%.[1] Financial reform is needed in order to save money from being wasted and to make education better by focusing money on education and not so many side projects.

For example, just down the road from Lumberton is a city called Beaumont, TX. This place is a cesspool of waste. The city is just over 100,000 people and the superintendent of this medium sized city is very likely the highest paid public official in Texas. He receives a 360,000 base salary per year (plus extras) to run the School District.[2] The waste does not end with his salary. The BISD passed a few hundred million dollar bond recently and the bond was voted on to pay for a long list of things, but then BISD tried to use the money to pay for something completely different. For instance, they tried to tear down an historic school using the bond money even though they had sold voters the bond on the premise that the school would not be torn down. A judge granted an injunction on using bond money to tear down the structurally sound historic school.[3] Even worse, BISD is looking into building a hotel and convention center right by the new Educational Support Center (Football Stadium).[4] The School District wants to use extra bond money and other taxpayer education funds to build a hotel and compete with private businesses? Something is wrong here. The people are being swindled, taxes are getting raised, and education is suffering.

Statewide, school administrators are currently attacking our Governor, Rick Perry, because he refused federal money for education due to the strings attached. Governor Perry did the right thing. Instead of blaming the Governor’s defending of our state’s educational sovereignty , the best use of our time is in cracking down on the waste in Texas Schools that is sucking up so much of the money we already have here in the State.

Local school districts should have freedom to determine their own education locally by an elected school board. I am in no way advocating for the state to make specific financial or educational decisions regarding local education. In fact, some of the reason that schools have money problems is also due to unfunded legislative mandates.[5] So I am not advocating for the State to take educational decisions out of local control. What I am advocating for is reform that requires schools districts to spend their taxpayer money on EDUCATION and not so much on non-educational waste. Also, the local communities need to be protected from local political machines that hide the finances from the people and that deceive the people with tax increases from shady bonds elections.

Here are some ideas:

1)     1)  When the people of a School District vote to raise taxes for a bond, that bond money needs to be spent on exactly what the people voted on and if there are major changes in how the funds are to be spent then there needs to be a new vote. Leftover bond money should be used to pay down the bond debt and not spent just because you have it extra.

2)    2)   School Administrators should not so easily be able to get grants for the school without the knowledge of the school board members who are elected to control the budget.

3)   3)    School Districts, especially in this tight economical setting, should spend money on education and not so much on completely off the wall, non-educational things like building a hotel. School Districts should especially not be able to create a non-educational business that competes with hard working private businesses.

I am not sure how much of this can be done on a legislative level, but certainly the people should know about this so, at the very least, they can take action themselves through voting. Beaumont is starting to. see a change already. The people of Beaumont have woken up and recently they did a petition to change the way the school board is elected so they can crack down on this taxpayer fraud. It is interesting to know that the wake up of the people and the crackdown on the government waste coincides with these old democrat counties turning republican and bringing in new conservative leadership. Jefferson County, Beaumont, TX, recently elected their first county wide Republicans in nearly 150 years right at the same time that the people are waking up to the BISD taxpayer waste.[6] Hardin County, Lumberton, TX, just had many new Conservative Republicans elected to county offices and also to the School Board, and many of the old Democrats are switching over to the Republican Side. This switch happened right at the same time that Lumberton voters started waking up to educational waste and they just rejected an unnecessary 30 million School Bond.[7] Like Beaumont, Hardin County is also starting to wake up to the waste in their good old boy, decades long Democrat controlled county. So as People wake up to the fraud and waste of the Government, these very same people start voting Republicans into office to clean up the mess that the old democrats left….. interesting how that goes hand in hand

Sincerely,

David Bellow

http://www.davidbellow.com/

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[1] http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=42576

[2] http://www.kfdm.com/articles/contract-41124-raise-superintendent.html

[3] http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/225822-bisd-circumvents-judges-south-park-order-by-using-general-funds%3Cbr%3E

[4] http://www.12newsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=13470755

[5] http://www.jameswhiteforeasttexas.com/?p=526

[6] http://setxhomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=120686

[7] http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/TOP-10-OF-2008-Schools-ask-for-millions-in-bond-701536.php