(2) AEA Goals for What Needs to Happen: Federal Judicial Takeover of TEA; Defeat or Radically Alter Abbott’s Corrupt Vouchers Scheme; Abolish Corrupt STAAR Testing; Impose Diagnostic Testing

By George Scott * 281-818-7872

Project Director, Academic Equity Advocates * ghscott2050@aol.com

Let’s cut to the bottom-line chase. There are SIX things that must happen soon if the institution of public education whose mandate is to serve the vast majority of students can be saved going forward in Texas.

1. The institutionally corrupt Texas Education Agency should be confronted with a federal judicial takeover for at least two years to stop the Agency’s statutory and constitutional abuse of at-risk, economically disadvantaged students statistically dominated by children of color. It would be restructured with definitive legal and constitutional standards the State could not manipulate going forward as it has for the past three decades. The takeover would explicitly target student testing and accountability programs.
   • The current political structure of Texas which has used the TEA has its administrative enforcer of constitutional abuse of students will not reform itself.
2. The overall corrupt student testing program now known as STAAR must be judicially abolished as a component of that judicial takeover. It should be replaced with credible, national-standard grade-level diagnostic assessments that provide a credible framework of delivering academic instruction for students as appropriate levels to actually achieve honest closure of academic achievement gaps.
   • The current testing scheme sabotages effective instruction through gravely compromised testing standards that impose arbitrary chronological testing as part of an accountability system rather than genuine academic growth on a student-by-student basis. Translated as an example, Texas’ testing scheme – among other things – mandates that every student take what is generally a 9th grade end of course Algebra test when the harsh reality is that tens and tens of thousands students reach that chronological threshold with massive academic skill gaps from the 5th through 8th grades. Academic achievement gaps cannot be closed at any grade level in any subject when the testing scheme is rigged against a student’s actual academic level.
3. The Texas political structure’s current goal to publicly fund private voucher programs must be judicially blocked.
   • In fact, the federal courthouse is the only viable path to present the overwhelming factual documentation necessary to expose the State’s three decades of academic deception regarding grade-level integrity and compliance with closing achievement gaps pursuant to prior state and federal court rulings. The harm done to at-risk, disadvantaged students because of the State’s willingness to gross misrepresent academic integrity will ‘explode’ the magnitude of damage if any voucher program is unrestrained from oversight independent of judicial review.
   • A powerful way to advance this cause legally would be to include in any judicial mandate that the TEA or the State may NOT enter into any contract with a non-public education provider in any voucher format that does not judicially restrict student participants in such programs to:
     • Students who are demonstrably below grade-level by the State’s own assessment instruments or by independent, nationally credible grade-level standard, and,
     • Providers who are contractually bound to make defined and explicit levels of academic improvement each semester for each student towards achieving grade-level as measured by nationally credible assessment instruments NOT under the control of the TEA or any of its contractors.
     • Such voucher providers who fail to achieve contractually bound improvements for students in such voucher programs will be disqualified from future participation as a provider.
     • The bottom line of this ‘voucher manifesto’ – if there are to be vouchers – would require the State and providers to achieve demonstrable and defined progress by students pursuant to existing statutory and judicial requirements that achievements gaps shall be closed for such students.
4.  Civil rights attorneys and groups need to stop playing ‘pat-a-cake’ or ‘hide-in-seek’ with the TEA and individual school districts.
   • The first step in the evolution from 30 years of their professional acquiescence and judicial acquiescence is to actually understand the magnitude, the “how they did it”, the “why they did it” (yes, the State was politically motivated), and the nuances and actual strategies that were used to misrepresent academic integrity to past state and federal courts AND parents and taxpayers today. The most effective way to accomplish this is to actually read the full monograph published here that tracks the State’s three decades of deception review the overwhelming data and official public record documents presented at AEA. It will take some time and discipline, but I’m willing to walk you through it. It will take about a 5-hour seminar to get the full picture.
5. Local, state, and national media should re-read what is suggested above for civil rights attorneys and groups. The brutal truth is that the vast majority of news media today have NOT made the effort to conduct serious, investigative journalism on the State’s malfeasance and deception. Too many media outlets have focused upon low hanging fruit political issues or controversies of education and not the academic deception that is the foundation of the public education system under current TEA authority.
   • • The truth is that over the years I have made enemies – not friends – in the media world involving this issue because I have not and will not compromise on the grave damage the State of Texas has done to minority children in particular. Those media outlets that want my help and my DOCUMENTATION FROM THE PUBLIC RECORD to understand the points I am making on this website can have it as a pro bono source.
6. Civil Rights Attorneys, Groups, & Media – Consider: Use your strength, resources, and influence to force pursuant to the public information act of Texas an individual school district to produce student academic performance data which could be the evidentiary framework of (for attorneys – a lawsuit) (for journalists – a Pulitzer Prize) genuinely exposing in exquisite detail the gross dishonesty and the grave harm that has been done to students in Texas – particularly minority, at-risk, economically disadvantaged students.
7. • • In the 7th post down on today’s home page, I have published the details of what I have asked the superintendent and seven school board members of Katy I.S.D. to VOLUNTARILY PRODUCE for the parents and taxpayers of that district. There’s likely not a snowball’s chance in hell these officials will do it, and there’s been stone silence since the request was made. In truth, I would not expect any of you to fully understand how explosive this data, if produced, would be in exposing the scope of the TEA’s deception. But, I can walk you through it. Here are some basics:
       • This student-by-student data is absolutely protective of FERPA protections for student privacy. The TEA, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Katy I.S.D. itself, and numerous other districts around Texas including Houston I.S.D. have provided me with similar student-by-student data in this exact format.
       • While the data sought is intricate and extensive, it is actually fairly easy to retrieve and organize for precise and accurate statistical analysis that would be essential as the framework for any lawsuit or investigative stories that could lead to statewide analysis.
       • Katy I.S.D. is an absolutely perfect ‘template’ district that has the full range of student ethnicity and demographic profiles along with genuinely high academic performance on academic standards not controlled by the TEA and genuinely poor performance on state metrics AND independent metrics.
       • Every constitutional issue that could be advanced in a broad-based lawsuit against the TEA could be ‘war-gamed’ using extensive Katy I.S.D. data which would be very cost effective in relative terms to produce and analyze.
       • Despite its historical reputation of extraordinary excellence (there is genuine excellence), Katy I.S.D. has significant student populations that face extraordinary achievement gaps similar in many situations and specific circumstances as Houston I.S.D. which the State of Texas ‘took over.’
       • I have asked Katy I.S.D. to voluntarily produce the information; it won’t; and I cannot personally afford as a retired individual to assume the costs IF civil rights attorneys and the news media will not step up to their roles of judicial and journalistic responsibility.
       • I will help explain in detail how the data the data requested is integral to judicial equity and journalistic investigation for students AND how the cost-effective analysis of this one ‘template’ district can be extrapolated to a statewide effort.

Bottom lines here?

• Civil rights attorneys and groups and the news media need to be vastly more aggressive in confronting of reporting on the tragic reality of the TEA’s current system and the ravages that unstructured, politically manipulated vouchers will do to the public education system and its continuing harm particularly felt by student of color.
• Take a look at the dramatic examples of grave academic achievement gaps among student populations in one of the State’s BEST school districts in the data links provided for 2022-23 STAAR results at elementary, junior high and high school grades and subjects.

The time has come to put a stop to the TEA’s abuse of minority students.

It won’t happen unless civil rights attorneys and groups and the media start doing their jobs.