Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the trib
Speaker 1: Cast for December sixteenth. My name is Eleanor Klibanoff, as
Speaker 1: always law and politics reporter at the Texas Tribune. We
Speaker 1: are not joined today by Matthew Watkins, who had to
Speaker 1: go out of town, but we are joined by two
Speaker 1: very special guests from the Tribunes Education team. We are
Speaker 1: joined by Jaden Edison Jayden welcome.
Speaker 2: Back, thank you, glad to be here.
Speaker 1: And Snaejda Welcome. I think for the first time to
Speaker 1: the trip gust second. Second, Oh, did you.
Speaker 3: Do the episode on Star Test?
Speaker 1: I did, which, As we were just discussing before this,
Speaker 1: Matthew was always pushing to an episode on Star Test.
Speaker 1: And I've said this on this podcast before. I think
Speaker 1: every reporter, every person in this world should be allowed
Speaker 1: to choose a couple of topics that they don't care about.
Speaker 1: Otherwise there's too much to care about. And I decided
Speaker 1: a while ago for me that was gonna be Star Tests.
Speaker 1: I don't have children. I was like, I care about schools,
Speaker 1: I care about school takeovers, I care about all of
Speaker 1: this Star Test. I'm just gonna check out on And
Speaker 1: so Matthew did that episode while I was out of
Speaker 1: the country, and.
Speaker 2: Then thoughts pro yeah, you know, it is what it is.
Speaker 4: Schedule to get away, but apparently not for long enough.
Speaker 1: I come back and this is what I get, you know,
Speaker 1: four months later, penalized by having to talk about school
Speaker 1: ratings and is.
Speaker 2: A big part of the.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: We are here today to talk about school takeovers and
Speaker 1: sort of state intervention on school districts, which we had
Speaker 1: talked about as an episode of the Trip cast to
Speaker 1: do before the end of the year, and then we thought, well,
Speaker 1: there's so much news happening, we'll like put it off
Speaker 1: and do it early next year.
Speaker 3: And then the Text Education Agency said, not so fast.
Speaker 4: We're gonnd never mind, marry Christmas.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take over a couple more districts. We're going
Speaker 1: to put it back in the news. And so really
Speaker 1: glad you guys are able to join us to help
Speaker 1: us understand you know what this all means.
Speaker 2: Sure, glad to be here.
Speaker 1: So it's been a bumpy year for Texas school districts.
Speaker 1: You know, We've had a number of districts, particularly the
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks, facing state takeovers. We've got others
Speaker 1: that are, you know, dealing with sort of riple effects
Speaker 1: of still being under state scrutiny or being sort of
Speaker 1: on the precipice of it. The whole system of how
Speaker 1: we measure schools and how they're doing and how students
Speaker 1: are doing and testing and all of that has been
Speaker 1: under a lot of uncertainty. You know, most recently.
Speaker 3: People have read about this.
Speaker 1: It's probably because last week the text Education Agency announced
Speaker 1: they were taking over the Beaumont, Connolly and Lakeworth school districts.
Speaker 1: We throw this term around a lot, right, like state
Speaker 1: takeover of a school district, Jayden. What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, in simple terms, I would think of it as
Speaker 2: shifting control of a school district from local control, which
Speaker 2: we know a lot of people in Texas and nationally
Speaker 2: really care about, to state control. And so under the
Speaker 2: Texas context, a state takeover otherwise referred to by the
Speaker 2: Texas Education Agency as an intervention. Right, they'll actually pushed
Speaker 2: back on the term takeover, but it's a national term
Speaker 2: using education, so it's not exclusive to Texas. But nonetheless,
Speaker 2: you know, state law allows the Education Commissioner if there's
Speaker 2: a case where a school district has at least one
Speaker 2: campus that receives excuse me, five consecutive failing grades in
Speaker 2: the state's academic accountability system. It basically triggers, you know,
Speaker 2: a decision by the commissioner either close the campus or
Speaker 2: replace the local school district with what's known as a
Speaker 2: board of managers, which are basically state appointed, So those
Speaker 2: are going to be appointed by the commissioner, and many
Speaker 2: of these cases too, it's a new superintendent as well,
Speaker 2: and also what's as a conservator, which basically, you know,
Speaker 2: that role you know, has a lot of authority to
Speaker 2: really make sure that during the transition. Beyond that, you know,
Speaker 2: elected school board members and others are doing what they
Speaker 2: need to do to to basically comply with whatever the
Speaker 2: academic turn around plan is. So again, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: more nuanced than just quote unquote takeover. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, in simple terms, the shift from local control
Speaker 2: to state control, you know, of the governance of the district.
Speaker 4: I think what Jayden is saying is really key here
Speaker 4: because education for has so long been really decisions that
Speaker 4: have been made at a local level. It's primarily been
Speaker 4: driven by local decisions created by a local made by
Speaker 4: a local school board and that is elected by the
Speaker 4: community that they are meant to serve. And so what
Speaker 4: we're having is increasingly so the Texas Education Agency Commissioner
Speaker 4: come in and out that entire democratically elected school board
Speaker 4: and appoint his peace ball who are making then decisions
Speaker 4: about communities across the state. So we're seeing more of
Speaker 4: an influence of like this, the state coming in and
Speaker 4: making decisions about how classrooms are run and how how
Speaker 4: students are being taught.
Speaker 1: And I think if people feel like, well, this is
Speaker 1: like feels like this is happening a lot more recently,
Speaker 1: Like this certainly was like not something I knew about
Speaker 1: like growing up. I mean, this is some a relatively
Speaker 1: new phenomenon, right. The legislature empowered the Text Education Agency
Speaker 1: to take over districts or to sort of step in
Speaker 1: when a school is continually failing in twenty fifteen. Soon
Speaker 1: after that, Mike Marath became the Text Education Agency Commissioner.
Speaker 3: You know who is Marath?
Speaker 1: And like, what sort of role has he played in
Speaker 1: this these recent takeovers that we've seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple things too. I would note that
Speaker 2: you're right that in twenty fifteen, you know, a new
Speaker 2: state law kind of created the scenario that we're talking
Speaker 2: about now with you know, either closing the campus or
Speaker 2: you know, initiate a full you know scale takeover or
Speaker 2: I should know before that though, you know, the Education
Speaker 2: Agency actually you know, they provided data dating back as
Speaker 2: far as two thousand, right that that kind of tracks
Speaker 2: that you know, formerly a lot of these kind of
Speaker 2: interventions and takeovers, which is also the case nationally as well.
Speaker 2: So they've more so been related to like financial challenges,
Speaker 2: physical challenges, and so what we've seen, you know, since
Speaker 2: the twenty fifteen law is a shift to more of
Speaker 2: those takeovers being about academic academic poor academic performance, right,
Speaker 2: you know, by the district. And so we've seen that
Speaker 2: in places like Houston more recently obviously in Fort Worthing
Speaker 2: then obviously the three that we're talking about here. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean talk about Education Commissioner Mike Marath. You know,
Speaker 2: he's a really interesting guy. He's very you know, I
Speaker 2: always think he's very data centered, and he's a systems guy. Right,
Speaker 2: he's an entrepreneur, you know. Background, right, he was a
Speaker 2: member of the Dallas Sized d school Board before he
Speaker 2: became the Education Commissioner and so you have to almost
Speaker 2: look at it from his perspective. He looks at things
Speaker 2: through the lens of systems, right, and you know, when
Speaker 2: you're in the business world, you're thinking about, well, if
Speaker 2: something isn't happening, you know, what's the reason for that?
Speaker 2: And a lot of times, you know, the Commission's going
Speaker 2: to point the governments. Right, He's going to look at,
Speaker 2: you know, what are the trends that we're seeing in
Speaker 2: the district. You know, you know, maybe it is one
Speaker 2: campus that triggers the intervention. But if you actually if
Speaker 2: you read his letters, he kind of talks about some
Speaker 2: of the you know, longer term trends, like, for example,
Speaker 2: if you have a district that has multiple years of
Speaker 2: failing campuses or you know has seen you know, various
Speaker 2: struggles and whatnot. You know, he's been very clear in
Speaker 2: his letters and his messaging to the districts that he
Speaker 2: sees that as a failure of the school boards and
Speaker 2: leadership and so interesting dynamic there. And again there's a
Speaker 2: lot a lot of people don't necessarily see it the
Speaker 2: same way. There is new wants to that, but that
Speaker 2: is kind of who he is and how he how
Speaker 2: he's looking at it and how he's articulated his reasoning
Speaker 2: for feeling like these interventions are necessary.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think folks in Marat's camps, we think of
Speaker 4: them as like pro accountability. They'll say, you know, at
Speaker 4: a certain point, there needs to be a threshold for
Speaker 4: if a school is not if students are not performing
Speaker 4: well enough on tests, it means that they do not
Speaker 4: have the skills that they need to succeed later on
Speaker 4: in life, and so the school is not serving those
Speaker 4: students at least in that way. And so there needs
Speaker 4: to be a certain threshold where we decide, you know,
Speaker 4: a school is not doing a school district is not
Speaker 4: doing enough, or they need help, and the state is
Speaker 4: positioned with its resources to come in and provide that
Speaker 4: like extra support. But that threshold you mentioned the twenty
Speaker 4: fifteen law that really changed, and so now we've decided
Speaker 4: five five failing ratings at one campus is enough for
Speaker 4: a whole district to be taken over. I think some
Speaker 4: of the controversy is, you know, it is one it
Speaker 4: is one campus, and so when you have these giant
Speaker 4: school districts, we're seeing some of our biggest school districts
Speaker 4: in Texas being taken over Houston and Fort Worth. There's
Speaker 4: there's questions coming up about like should one school alone
Speaker 4: be enough for an entire district to lose all its
Speaker 4: local control?
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, you guys heard about this in as
Speaker 1: just like one example of like the Beaumont district which
Speaker 1: was recently now is facing takeover.
Speaker 3: I guess they have a chance to appeal. There's like
Speaker 3: a lot of steps yeah.
Speaker 1: There, yeah, you know, they have two school districts. I mean,
Speaker 1: Beaumont a decent sized city, They've got two schools. I
Speaker 1: should say that I had five years of failing grades.
Speaker 1: You know, the elementary school that they're looking at has
Speaker 1: never earned an acceptable rating. The middle school has gone
Speaker 1: eleven years without one. The president of the school board said,
Speaker 1: you know, they were working on it. They're trying to
Speaker 1: like improve this. It's a process they you know. He
Speaker 1: says sort of like, well, why are we taking over
Speaker 1: the whole school district instead of shutting down those two campuses.
Speaker 1: It does sound like, I mean, generally speaking, the board
Speaker 1: would have the authority to shut down that those campuses.
Speaker 1: They're sort of saying, well, we're working on it. We're
Speaker 1: trying to like fix these I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: is like under parents are like, I don't want my
Speaker 1: kid to go to a failing school. I don't want
Speaker 1: my kid to like you know, how how do people
Speaker 1: sort of talk about balancing this need for like like
Speaker 1: you said, we do need school to be performing with
Speaker 1: like the whole district needs to be taken over just
Speaker 1: sort of ameliorate maybe problems at a couple of schools.
Speaker 2: You know, I wouldn't know one thing, you know, I
Speaker 2: think this whole conversation, you know, I mentioned earlier that
Speaker 2: there is nuance to it because I think on the
Speaker 2: flip side of where the commissioner is coming from is
Speaker 2: you look at the reality of education and educating children.
Speaker 2: It's really hard, right. It's not like a business per se, right,
Speaker 2: where you know, kids are not a commodity, right, It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, you need time and investment in things of
Speaker 2: those nature, things of that nature. And if you look
Speaker 2: at the characteristics actually of the three schools that were
Speaker 2: taken over, and we've also seen this, you know, trend
Speaker 2: wise and also in Fort Worth and in Houston, these
Speaker 2: are districts with significantly high numbers of students who come
Speaker 2: from lower income households right free or reduced lunch, which
Speaker 2: is an indicator of poverty in the state. And you
Speaker 2: know at the federal level as well, these are districts
Speaker 2: that have a majority Black and Hispanic student populations as well.
Speaker 2: And so what that makes me think automatically as a reporter,
Speaker 2: I come in, I start thinking about, Okay, we know that,
Speaker 2: you know, poverty has an impact on how students perform. Right.
Speaker 2: You look at the remarks from the from the Beaumont
Speaker 2: you know school board member. He mentioned, for example, you
Speaker 2: know we need more family engagement, right, that could help
Speaker 2: us kind of fix this issue. Okay, you look at
Speaker 2: family engagement. Let's let's unpack that a little bit, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, if you have a family, for example, and
Speaker 2: we know these existing Texas families who work multiple jobs,
Speaker 2: right and may not have the ability to sit at
Speaker 2: home after school and read to their child or you know,
Speaker 2: to do the things that also have proven to boost
Speaker 2: academic performance. Then is that necessarily a failure of the
Speaker 2: school district or is it is it a collective kind
Speaker 2: of effort, you know, collaboration between family, the school, you know,
Speaker 2: community resources, things of that nature. And so that's why
Speaker 2: I say it's a little bit more nuanced I think
Speaker 2: when we talk about this, and this is why these
Speaker 2: are controversial nationally, right, I mean, look at I was
Speaker 2: actually before our conversation just refreshing myself on some of
Speaker 2: the national date on this, and it was really interesting
Speaker 2: because you know, there was a study I think it
Speaker 2: was looking at like thirty five takeovers between like sometime
Speaker 2: in the twenty tens, and it was shown on average
Speaker 2: to not really boost you know, academic achievement in math
Speaker 2: and reading, but also it had shown kind of harmful effects,
Speaker 2: particularly on majority black school districts. And it's not in
Speaker 2: the same thing when it comes to fiscal challenges for
Speaker 2: majority black school districts, not necessarily the same for other groups, right,
Speaker 2: And so it's just so much more nuance when we
Speaker 2: talk about education and say, how I let you chime in,
Speaker 2: but it's just interesting to me, like when we talk
Speaker 2: about these oftentimes it's about you hear people talk about
Speaker 2: governance and you know they try to compare districts of
Speaker 2: similar kind of demographic makeups. But again, education is just
Speaker 2: so nuanced, and every why a kid is not achieving,
Speaker 2: it's not always necessarily because of the district or a teacher.
Speaker 2: Maybe it is, but it's just more nuanced than that.
Speaker 4: And just for context, we talked a little bit about Beaumont.
Speaker 4: So all of the four school districts that have been
Speaker 4: taken over this year, at the school, the one campus
Speaker 4: that triggered that takeover, the campuses that triggered those takeovers,
Speaker 4: we're all serving predominantly black and brown students, and we're
Speaker 4: in predominantly low income areas, and so it's you know,
Speaker 4: we if is it's a question of like is a
Speaker 4: takeover a one size fits all solution? Like can we
Speaker 4: really use that as a measure to go into communities,
Speaker 4: especially when we now have this pattern of these are
Speaker 4: communities that tend to have less resources, or maybe these
Speaker 4: are communities that are just are struggling to serve their
Speaker 4: students for different reasons. That all contribute that show up
Speaker 4: in the academic results, but there are bigger root.
Speaker 1: Causes, which I think goes to this broader question right
Speaker 1: that the state has been grappling with. I think nationally
Speaker 1: we've been grappling with this right for a long time,
Speaker 1: which is like, how do you measure how a school
Speaker 1: is performing? And often that comes to how do you
Speaker 1: measure how like a student is learning. But as we
Speaker 1: were choking aout before, like a big part of this
Speaker 1: is the Star test, right, Like how do we measure
Speaker 1: I don't know. I send my kid to first grade
Speaker 1: and I want them to be ready to go to
Speaker 1: second grade.
Speaker 3: How do I know if they're doing that?
Speaker 1: And then more importantly, I want to move to a
Speaker 1: school district where if my kid goes into first grade,
Speaker 1: they'll be leaving, you know, ready to do second grade.
Speaker 1: Like how do I assess if a district is good
Speaker 1: or performing? Which seems to your point, like on the
Speaker 1: system's front, like so straightforward, right, just like we'll test
Speaker 1: them all, tell us if they're if they're doing well
Speaker 1: or not. It is so much more complicated than that, snayha.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about like this
Speaker 1: battle over accountability ratings?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think when we talk about school accountability and
Speaker 4: the accountability system, it's really a question of how do
Speaker 4: we measure like whether schools are successful and serving as
Speaker 4: students and what does it mean to truly serve serve students?
Speaker 4: And I think to your point, alan Or like testing
Speaker 4: is kind of the easiest metric. You have a standardized test,
Speaker 4: you can apply it to all students, and I think
Speaker 4: there is legitimacy to that, and you want students to
Speaker 4: have those like math and reading skills that they need
Speaker 4: to go on to be ready for college, to get
Speaker 4: the jobs that they want to get that are high
Speaker 4: paying and will help them create the life that they
Speaker 4: want after they leave the school systems. But there's other
Speaker 4: metrics too, right, like things like social emotional well being,
Speaker 4: like how students are are like showing up to class mentally,
Speaker 4: like their mental health, how that's doing, and all that
Speaker 4: is way harder to measure, right there's no standardized metric
Speaker 4: for that, and so then it becomes this complicated thing.
Speaker 4: And so I think there's really been a push in
Speaker 4: Texas to think about other measures that go beyond testing
Speaker 4: in our accountability system, and the state is kind of
Speaker 4: right now. The legislature has directed them to sort of
Speaker 4: explore some of that, but we haven't seen that really
Speaker 4: fully implement implemented in the accountability system like as it
Speaker 4: stands right now, even with the legislation that passed this
Speaker 4: past legislative session, standardized testing is still the major major metric,
Speaker 4: and that was the standardized test, even though it is
Speaker 4: being overhauled.
Speaker 3: We have to see.
Speaker 4: It still remains to be seen in the effects that
Speaker 4: will have. But that is a widely unpopular test because
Speaker 4: of the pressure it puts on students, because some people
Speaker 4: don't feel like it's a good metric of how students
Speaker 4: are doing.
Speaker 2: And just to and also to add to that over
Speaker 2: the story earlier this year, looking at the fort Worth
Speaker 2: takeover specifically, and you know how the Star Test, you know,
Speaker 2: plays an outsize role and really determining you know, the
Speaker 2: academic accountabilit system plays it. It's a huge factor in it, right,
Speaker 2: and it was a testing I went back and looked
Speaker 2: at some of the statements from lawmakers, right, and there
Speaker 2: seem to be consensus, right, that belief that the Star
Speaker 2: test had set students up to fail. Right, not my words, right,
Speaker 2: the words of actual lawmakers who who voted to phase
Speaker 2: out this test by twenty twenty seven. And so I
Speaker 2: think a lot of that belief too. You mentioned the
Speaker 2: unpopularity of the test. It's not just so much the
Speaker 2: Start test as it is like the culture of you know,
Speaker 2: kind of high stakes testing right where it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: what is to your point, what is the goal of education? Right?
Speaker 2: Is it to teach students critical thinking skills or is
Speaker 2: it to you know, get them to achieve on tests, right,
Speaker 2: And some people may argue where those things are kind
Speaker 2: of you know, tied together, but there are other people
Speaker 2: who see it differently, and so it's just a but
Speaker 2: it goes back to talk about conversations between local and
Speaker 2: state control, right. It's going to vary about community. There
Speaker 2: are some communities who may think that, you know, standardized
Speaker 2: testing is the way they want student performance to be measured.
Speaker 2: And then you have other communities elsewhere who think it's
Speaker 2: more nuanced, right, like who they want to make sure
Speaker 2: that their kids are you know, well rounded people who
Speaker 2: are not just exceptional students, but exceptional people in the world.
Speaker 2: We hear that a lot too, And I remember that
Speaker 2: from a story I did some months ago, and so
Speaker 2: just more once. And I think locally, community by community
Speaker 2: is going to vary in terms of what values people
Speaker 2: hold about education.
Speaker 4: I spent some time in a neighborhood in Austin that
Speaker 4: was really like, it's a predominantly refugee immigrant community and
Speaker 4: they aren't Austin isn't facing it takeover yet. But this
Speaker 4: one school, this one middle school, along with a couple
Speaker 4: others in the Austin school district is close to that
Speaker 4: back threshold. They're at about FLOORA now, and the parents
Speaker 4: were devastated that, you know, the district was considering shutting
Speaker 4: them down. They were fighting to stay open. They knew
Speaker 4: that their kids weren't performing well on the standardized test,
Speaker 4: but they said they were telling me, hey, this is
Speaker 4: not a fair metric. Our kids. English is their first language.
Speaker 4: They can't even really like understand this test that they're taking.
Speaker 4: And also like we show up every day, we are
Speaker 4: really engaged in the teachers are serving our students in
Speaker 4: a way that is different than just a test. They
Speaker 4: feel well, the students feel welcome, they feel safe, they're
Speaker 4: older that graduated from that middle school went on to
Speaker 4: do be successful. And so it was this this disconnect
Speaker 4: where you know, they were feeling this this school district
Speaker 4: in the state, they were feeling this pressure coming down
Speaker 4: on them saying the school is not doing good enough.
Speaker 4: But it was the community that was saying, actually, we
Speaker 4: think they are doing a great job. We don't want
Speaker 4: leadership to change. So you do see these these tensions
Speaker 4: come into play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it makes sense, right, Like if you
Speaker 1: have a district or a specific school that's serving you know,
Speaker 1: children who you know, maybe are English language learners or
Speaker 1: their parents or English language learners. Like, you know, you're
Speaker 1: just dealing with a different set of challenges or you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, a district that is you know, children
Speaker 1: are showing up hungry, they're showing up, you know, like
Speaker 1: they're having housing instability, they're dealing with like all of
Speaker 1: these challenges to say, like, well, how do they perform
Speaker 1: on this test versus you know, these kids who are
Speaker 1: maybe like their parents are reading to them from a
Speaker 1: very young age, they you know, maybe are able to
Speaker 1: have you know, more robust sort of before they come
Speaker 1: to school, more robust education, Like they're shown up with
Speaker 1: all the best tools and everything, Like how do we
Speaker 1: put those next to each other and say, well, that's
Speaker 1: enough for us to take over. But then you know,
Speaker 1: it's like this is the sort of inherent tension the
Speaker 1: state certainly is grappling with. And to your point, like legislators,
Speaker 1: it seems like really are grappling with this, right Like
Speaker 1: there's I think we sometimes you know, give our legislators
Speaker 1: a hard time for like some times just like throwing
Speaker 1: up their hands at these complicated issues or not like
Speaker 1: digging in on them to find like a reasonable solution.
Speaker 1: It does sound like where we are now is everyone
Speaker 1: sort of agreeing at least with the testing, we need
Speaker 1: a better solution.
Speaker 3: We don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: I mean, are there any examples that either guys have
Speaker 1: encountered like nationally or things you're hearing from lawmakers and
Speaker 1: experts on like how should we be measuring schools?
Speaker 3: Is there any good model for this?
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting the first thing that comes to
Speaker 2: mind when you ask the question, aside from there's been
Speaker 2: really good reporting from places like Text Monthly and others
Speaker 2: that have kind of gone locally and looked at how
Speaker 2: you know, there's like coalitions of districts in the state
Speaker 2: that are kind of wrestling with this very issue and
Speaker 2: topic and really trying to find ways to be more innovative,
Speaker 2: innovative with their kind of local accountability you know, indicators
Speaker 2: and things of that nature. But you know, I would
Speaker 2: actually go to the state school voucher program because it's
Speaker 2: it's an interesting place to start. And the reason I
Speaker 2: say that is because nationally, right and we've seen this
Speaker 2: more as these programs have grown in side obviously Texas
Speaker 2: is you know, huge in this in this conversation now
Speaker 2: is we've seen more and more of a shift over
Speaker 2: the years from hey, we shouldn't be measuring the success
Speaker 2: of these programs by standardized testing. We should be looking
Speaker 2: at measures like parents satisfaction. You know, we should be
Speaker 2: looking at you know, at trip that's actually more recently.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the ed choice representatives, you know,
Speaker 2: huge you know, uh, you know, school valuer, school choice
Speaker 2: kind of supporter, you know, he he cited like high
Speaker 2: school graduation rates and things of that nature. Right, metrics
Speaker 2: that really go beyond kind of testing infrastructure and puts
Speaker 2: it more in the hands of like parents and families
Speaker 2: and what they feel is most important. You compare and
Speaker 2: contrast that, though, to the most recent legislative session, where
Speaker 2: you've had people to say, hey, when it comes to accountability,
Speaker 2: you've you've agreed through policy that we should be taking
Speaker 2: a more holistic view of this. Right, we should be
Speaker 2: considering more things like what do local communities feel about
Speaker 2: feel about their schools, because that's the way we're going
Speaker 2: to measure the success of this program in particular, right
Speaker 2: that we're investing at the start of one billion dollars
Speaker 2: and probably more to come after that, But we're not
Speaker 2: seeing the same with public schools. And the interesting part is, too,
Speaker 2: if you actually talk to vout your advocates ESA advocates,
Speaker 2: they'll actually tell you that they agree that public schools
Speaker 2: are held to a standard that they feel is unfair.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I've had that conversation with folks you know, in that
Speaker 2: camp before who said they agree with that, and so
Speaker 2: it's to me it's just really interesting because it just
Speaker 2: shows there may be a little bit of a contradiction there,
Speaker 2: at least in the odds of people who who think
Speaker 2: that again, the local control and accountability component is important,
Speaker 2: But then you look at you know, programs, you know elsewhere,
Speaker 2: almost like.
Speaker 1: If you're if we were to design a school accountability
Speaker 1: system from scratch, which in some ways we're doing with
Speaker 1: the voucher system, wouldn't look anything like how we hold
Speaker 1: public schools accountable. It sounds like you're sort of saying
Speaker 1: so far at least, yeah.
Speaker 2: And what lawmakers are saying is, hey, let parents decide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which works better for private education than public right, But.
Speaker 2: When you have I think the difference here is that
Speaker 2: now you know, the state is putting its own funding
Speaker 2: behind it, right, So there is a I think there's
Speaker 2: expectation of accountability from you know, advocates when you think about,
Speaker 2: you know, how do we know our return on investment?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, so I don't know if you had anything too.
Speaker 4: I think, I mean what we saw this legislative session
Speaker 4: is that tension came up, right, like why are we
Speaker 4: holding private schools to different standards than than our public schools?
Speaker 4: And but but there was discussion. But when it came
Speaker 4: to actually the legislation, lawmakers weren't in the end willing
Speaker 4: to really do an entire revision of the accountability system.
Speaker 4: They said, hey, Tea, you should look into different metrics.
Speaker 4: Some for example, we're like workforce training, like our students
Speaker 4: complaining CTE classes, that kind of thing, but like pre
Speaker 4: K participation, so they're exploring it, but it's not quite
Speaker 4: the same. We're not seeing those things really being weaved
Speaker 4: into the accountability system.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, say, how you do a lot
Speaker 1: of reporting on sort of and like pathways to employment
Speaker 1: that maybe are not like did you get a four
Speaker 1: point zero GPA, get a twenty four hundred on your
Speaker 1: SAT and get rolled at Harvard, right, It's like, we
Speaker 1: don't need that for every student. We need students to
Speaker 1: learn to become airplane mechanics, We need them to learn
Speaker 1: to become you know, all kinds of things like does
Speaker 1: the current accountability system take into account schools that are
Speaker 1: doing good job preparing students for the workforce that maybe
Speaker 1: doesn't need like the same metric that show up on testing.
Speaker 4: In short, no, because it is so depends on this
Speaker 4: standardized testing system. And I think you could argue that
Speaker 4: those like stem jobs that don't require a college degree,
Speaker 4: they still need you to be have those like critical
Speaker 4: math skills or science skills to really succeed in those roles.
Speaker 4: But we're not really thinking deeply about beyond the standardized test,
Speaker 4: and so we're for as long as we're not doing that,
Speaker 4: we're not really thinking about the student in a in
Speaker 4: a real holistic way and education issue.
Speaker 2: And then they'll probably they'll probably say, well, you know,
Speaker 2: if you look at ourccountability system, we also look at
Speaker 2: things like colleging, career, you know, military rats, things that
Speaker 2: don't nature. But again back to sney House point, you
Speaker 2: know star test is king, right, the standardized test is King.
Speaker 2: When you look at the system, right and kind of
Speaker 2: what's what's the what's the measure the most heavily? If
Speaker 2: that makes sense, and.
Speaker 1: It does make sense, just like human nature wise it
Speaker 1: until we have something better. You know, everyone can say
Speaker 1: all the livelong day that they don't think this our
Speaker 1: test is a good metric, but those results come out,
Speaker 1: you know, it's business as usual, right, Well, if we
Speaker 1: do have this, and what are we gonna not look
Speaker 1: at it? You know, like and so I think as
Speaker 1: long as that is there, it's like becomes the metric,
Speaker 1: even if everyone is saying, what we don't think it's
Speaker 1: a great metric, but it's a metric that we have.
Speaker 4: I also Jenden mentioned there is a metric in the
Speaker 4: accountability system that is smaller. The call it what we
Speaker 4: call the college and career readiness benchmark. But when I
Speaker 4: talk to school leaders, they're saying it's become sort of
Speaker 4: cared and sticks. So in order to meet that benchmark,
Speaker 4: maybe you need students, a certain number of students or
Speaker 4: a percentage of your students to be enrolled in like
Speaker 4: career readiness classes. But that's sort of like once you
Speaker 4: have that incentive, you can just funnel students into like
Speaker 4: a word document class where you master word documents. But
Speaker 4: it's not actually the same thing as making sure that
Speaker 4: they're successful or have options for them for our career.
Speaker 4: That's not college, right.
Speaker 1: I mean it almost seems again human nature that if
Speaker 1: you create a metric, people will go to great lengths
Speaker 1: to meet that metric, even if it's sort of you know,
Speaker 1: like and also we'll teach them what they need to know,
Speaker 1: but also like we need this many.
Speaker 3: Kids to apply for college, like we uh.
Speaker 1: When I was in high school, my high school had
Speaker 1: a one hundred percent college acceptance rate that they were
Speaker 1: like very dedicated to keeping, which meant every student had to,
Speaker 1: in addition to applying to all the colleges that they
Speaker 1: wanted to apply to, had to apply to like a
Speaker 1: safety school they absolutely could get into, so that like
Speaker 1: nobody was going to sort of slip through the cracks
Speaker 1: of like, oh I just didn't end up getting in anywhere.
Speaker 1: And it's like I remember a kid wanted to go
Speaker 1: to culinary school and they were like, all good, you
Speaker 1: also have to be accepted to a four year college
Speaker 1: because we need to maintain this one hundred percent four
Speaker 1: year college acceptance rate and it's like, you know, inevitable
Speaker 1: that if you create a metric, people will schools will
Speaker 1: go to great odds, great lengths to meet that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it reminds me to we were talking
Speaker 2: about this, and I kind of hinted at earlier, right
Speaker 2: when we were talking about some of the demographic makeups
Speaker 2: of like the schools and things of that nature. Right,
Speaker 2: these are this whole conversation keeps me up at night.
Speaker 2: But you know, I've thought about this a lot recently.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, the commissioner, you know, commission of
Speaker 2: Marath has often talked about, yeah, like he sees these
Speaker 2: systemic failures that are obviously disapportionately affecting you know, black
Speaker 2: and brown students, right. And to me, you know, the
Speaker 2: interesting kind of nuance to that is like if you look,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously we know that academic achievement like nationally
Speaker 2: and gap and academic achievement gaps, things of that nature, Right,
Speaker 2: we understand kind of what that looks like and how
Speaker 2: it again disproportionately you know, harms or you know, more
Speaker 2: negative results for our black and brown students. But where
Speaker 2: the commissioner maybe does have a point when you talk
Speaker 2: about systemic you know issues. Right, If you look at
Speaker 2: discipline data, right, which I've done more recently, like dating
Speaker 2: back to maybe maybe like seven, eight, eight or nine,
Speaker 2: something like that, every single year you have black and
Speaker 2: brown students, who are particularly black students, right, are overrepresented
Speaker 2: and out of school suspensions and in school suspensions any
Speaker 2: discipline category of metric you can think of, they're overrepresented
Speaker 2: in those things.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You read anecdotally stories like in barbaracill I ISD. You
Speaker 2: know there was a student the huge kind of court
Speaker 2: battle where you know, basically you know he had his
Speaker 2: hair a certain way and you know the district wasn't
Speaker 2: favorable for that violated their dress code, and you know
Speaker 2: he wasn't able to go to school. Right, The question
Speaker 2: I often have, Right, those things have legitimate effects on
Speaker 2: you know, how students see themselves in school, right, which
Speaker 2: also has a trickle down effect to academic achievement and
Speaker 2: like how students perform. And so certainly there's a conversation
Speaker 2: that we had, right. It's like, certainly, you know, you
Speaker 2: can talk all day and debate, you know, should we
Speaker 2: be looking at academic achievement and things of those nature?
Speaker 2: You know, excuse me not not looking at academic achievement,
Speaker 2: but looking at like standardized testing and things that nature
Speaker 2: to measure student performance. But to be fair, there are
Speaker 2: things that school districts systemically when it comes to educating
Speaker 2: the most vulnerable kids, right, obstacles that, to be honest
Speaker 2: with you, when you look at the data, they certainly
Speaker 2: have to overcome because I don't know if you can come,
Speaker 2: you know, to any you know, to the commissioner, to
Speaker 2: the reporter and say inherently that if you look at discipline,
Speaker 2: you know, individually, these sets of students are just more
Speaker 2: problem that. It's just not that's just not how it works.
Speaker 2: And so certainly there are systemic issues when it comes
Speaker 2: to creating an educational environment where these kids can thrive,
Speaker 2: and that's something that between the state, local communities, and
Speaker 2: at the district level are going to have to figure out.
Speaker 4: And I think it's also a question of resources. And
Speaker 4: the way our educational system is set up is schools
Speaker 4: that are in poor communities are working with fewer resources,
Speaker 4: and so that is a challenge when you're trying to
Speaker 4: get students who are like high need, maybe aren't getting
Speaker 4: don't have food at home, and are coming to school
Speaker 4: with more needs that they need the school to then meet,
Speaker 4: but the school is working with fewer resources. And then
Speaker 4: you want them to go and show up to the
Speaker 4: test and passed with fine colors. That's complicated. And I
Speaker 4: someone like Commissioner Marath will say, you know, there are
Speaker 4: bright spots. He'll point to specific places in south districts
Speaker 4: in South Texas that have maybe limited resources or it
Speaker 4: is like a high percentage of students who are economically
Speaker 4: disadvantaged and they're still able to perform well. And so
Speaker 4: I mean we need to look into why exactly that is.
Speaker 4: But on a whole, those are those are bright spots,
Speaker 4: those are outliers. On a whole, we are seeing still
Speaker 4: seeing this trend of you know, when you have fewer resources,
Speaker 4: when you are in poor communities, it's students are performing
Speaker 4: performing worse on these tests. And you can imagine for
Speaker 4: all the all the reasons that we've talked about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it definitely seems like it's all like
Speaker 1: so intertwined that it's you know, I don't envy the
Speaker 1: people who do have to create policy around this, because
Speaker 1: it's like very hard to fix one piece without sort
Speaker 1: of fixing the whole thing. For these districts that are
Speaker 1: sort of staring down either potentially a takeover they've been
Speaker 1: sort of informed about this, or the ones, like you
Speaker 1: said Austin, some others that are really on the precipice here.
Speaker 1: I want to sort of look back at Houston ID,
Speaker 1: which has been under over for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and what has been.
Speaker 3: The impact of that. I mean, how have we seen
Speaker 3: that play out?
Speaker 1: Like what do these districts sort of have to look
Speaker 1: forward to in terms of how that might go.
Speaker 4: Houston ICY is fascinating. I mean it is such a
Speaker 4: The way the takeover has played out is has been
Speaker 4: incredibly controversial. On one hand, I mean, you have a
Speaker 4: whole coalition of community members that have come in just
Speaker 4: kind of formulated and organized just around fighting back against
Speaker 4: Mike Marath, which is Mike Miles. Excuse me, which.
Speaker 3: Is the why do they have such a.
Speaker 1: Miles is the state appointed superintendent, like Marath the commissioner.
Speaker 4: But Mike Miles the commissioner that Marath appointed.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's.
Speaker 4: Just a word tongue tis straight there.
Speaker 1: But if we're facing we're going to get other state
Speaker 1: appointed superintendents, Let's try to use some different one request.
Speaker 4: But yes, let me try it. But Mike Miles is
Speaker 4: the superintendent that the commissioner appointed, and so he's just
Speaker 4: had a really controversial approach. On one hand, you have
Speaker 4: this coalition of community members that have really fought against this,
Speaker 4: but then you also have these state lawmakers that have
Speaker 4: really lauded him and applauded him and said, you know,
Speaker 4: what Superintendent Miles is doing should be emulated across the state.
Speaker 4: So I really think because of that those tensions, we
Speaker 4: really need to be paying attention to what is happening
Speaker 4: in Houston as really a possible forecast for what could
Speaker 4: be happening what we could see having a ripple effect
Speaker 4: across Texas. And so you know there has been to
Speaker 4: answer your question, Elner, there has been a big jump
Speaker 4: in improvement in test course right, Like we had no
Speaker 4: f ratings this fifty host in Houston, ID I mean
Speaker 4: to go from fifty six underperforming to zero that is
Speaker 4: no one can argue with what a jump an improvement
Speaker 4: that is on the metrics, right, And so we're seeing
Speaker 4: test scores improve across every subject. But I think the
Speaker 4: question community members are asking is that what costs?
Speaker 3: Right, Like we've.
Speaker 4: Seen teachers leave and droves. We've seen students pull enroll
Speaker 4: in droves. There's been a question of like how much
Speaker 4: can we really gain from or gather from these improvements
Speaker 4: and test scores when we know some students are being
Speaker 4: held backgrades in math and science. So it's really this
Speaker 4: tension that's happening right now. It's like, Okay, we are
Speaker 4: seeing test test gains, but is testing to come back
Speaker 4: to really is it the end all be all?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And what what state of point is? Superintendent Mike
Speaker 2: Miles has implemented the I'm glad I got there, right, Sure,
Speaker 2: Mike Miles, as you know, so basically, you know the
Speaker 2: basis of what he's doing there is through this reform
Speaker 2: system on the new new education system, right, they refer
Speaker 2: to it as as locally right and so so some
Speaker 2: of the features of that which people maybe have read about, right,
Speaker 2: like you know, daily quizzes, you know, kind of scripted
Speaker 2: you know, curriculum where teachers are you know, are held
Speaker 2: to that and make sure that everybody's kind of aligned
Speaker 2: across the board, you know, creating kind of team centers
Speaker 2: in part for discipline, but also for you know, if
Speaker 2: you need to pull you know, kids out of class
Speaker 2: because they're not caught up on a certain lesson. You know,
Speaker 2: the class moves on, will pull the kid out and
Speaker 2: try to get them caught up right, some of those features.
Speaker 2: And I think the way people have described it locally
Speaker 2: is more of kind of a what I've seen, right
Speaker 2: is more of like a people say, like a militaristic
Speaker 2: approach to education, right, and so some of the trade off,
Speaker 2: and we talk to people locally, it's like, Okay, we're
Speaker 2: seeing these gains, but to same house point, you know,
Speaker 2: at what costs? And some researchers too, you know, more recently,
Speaker 2: I was speaking with a researcher in North Texas. You know,
Speaker 2: they're also thinking about to what extent, you know, and
Speaker 2: just for background in the enrollment losses that we're seeing,
Speaker 2: So enrollments technically up across the state, but every community
Speaker 2: is like different, and so Houston, you know, it's seeing,
Speaker 2: you know, dramatic drops in enrollment. But what's kind of
Speaker 2: raised the alarm of local reporters and researchers is that
Speaker 2: the enrollment drops are more profound in the schools where
Speaker 2: those reforms are most targeted. And so the question becomes
Speaker 2: to what extent. You know, we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 2: teacher and student turnover. From a student turnover standpoint, you
Speaker 2: know how much of that factors into some of the changes,
Speaker 2: significant gains and the outcomes that we're seeing, right, you know,
Speaker 2: historically if you look at some of these, you know,
Speaker 2: some of these, you know, similar scenarios. I remember reading
Speaker 2: a book a while back and the author was talking
Speaker 2: about how maybe it was in New York, California, one
Speaker 2: major school is nonethelesson. They were talking about how the
Speaker 2: local community was concerned that demography right change, the significant
Speaker 2: changes in enrollment, changes in student populations to what are
Speaker 2: you testing the same children who maybe before have been
Speaker 2: struggling and therefore were you know, you know, maybe part
Speaker 2: of why test scores have been lower. Again, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that that's the case, but I'm just saying that
Speaker 2: Houston is a very fascinating case that because there's just
Speaker 2: so much nuance, and there's a lot of information and
Speaker 2: things that we honestly probably won't even know until years
Speaker 2: from now, when when it's all said and done and
Speaker 2: we can look back and say, Okay, what actually happened,
Speaker 2: what worked and what didn't?
Speaker 1: What do we know about where those I mean, the
Speaker 1: kids were disenrolling, where are they going?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question, you know locally, and I
Speaker 2: want to give a hug shout out to the local
Speaker 2: reporters that the Houston Chronicles, they've done some really good
Speaker 2: stuff on this, you know, anecdotally speaking, we know through
Speaker 2: local reporting, right that there have been families that have
Speaker 2: just pulled their kids out of those schools because they
Speaker 2: didn't like the takeover and enrolled them in other places.
Speaker 2: But that's also a big question more right, Like you
Speaker 2: know saying and I've talked about this before too, it's
Speaker 2: like where are you have to assume, right if you're
Speaker 2: seeing se have some of those kids dropped out of
Speaker 2: school all together? Like where? So there is a lot
Speaker 2: of nuances that the commissioner has been asked about that
Speaker 2: I know by none other than Evan Smith, right. I
Speaker 2: was at a recent a recent deal there, and he
Speaker 2: was asked about the teacher turnover and you know, drops
Speaker 2: and enrollment, and it really didn't seem to be kind
Speaker 2: of a clear cohesive understanding to like what actually is
Speaker 2: happening there as it pertains to those particular changes in
Speaker 2: you know, change at the district level, But certainly things
Speaker 2: that I think the local reporters, you know, everybody's kind
Speaker 2: of thinking about, and as we kind of move forward
Speaker 2: and continue to kind of measure, you know, what the
Speaker 2: success or lack there of, or wherever people look at it,
Speaker 2: what that looks like.
Speaker 4: I especially wonder about that, given that the cuts that
Speaker 4: have been made is too services like wrap around services
Speaker 4: like supporting students experiencing homelessness. So then all these things
Speaker 4: you can imagine are sort of coming together. So it's
Speaker 4: just a it's a good question, I think all the
Speaker 4: reporters folks are asking right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, certainly, it doesn't tell like these are
Speaker 1: families that are like necessarily in a position to say like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's move to a wealthier district to get our kid
Speaker 1: into a better school, or let's you know, get our
Speaker 1: kiden rolled in a private school.
Speaker 3: Maybe. I mean it sounds like maybe some of them are.
Speaker 2: But that's a privilege too, right, to be able to
Speaker 2: just say say like, oh, yeah, so.
Speaker 1: That's really really interesting. And I mean I think, like
Speaker 1: you said, it'll be years of sort of unpacking you
Speaker 1: know what worked, And doesn't it sound like we'll ever
Speaker 1: get a definitive like that was right or wrong.
Speaker 3: It's just sort of like there were probably some gains
Speaker 3: and probably at some costs.
Speaker 2: And it'll depend yeah, it'll depend on kind of local values, right,
Speaker 2: because you have a lot of parents there locally who
Speaker 2: for like, takeover isn't what's best for them. But if
Speaker 2: you look at a place like Fort Worth, you have
Speaker 2: families who are kind of welcome and get a little
Speaker 2: bit not saying that's the consensus or anything, but you've seen,
Speaker 2: you know, families who say, hey, maybe this is what's
Speaker 2: best for the district. And so, you know, really fascinating there.
Speaker 2: But again let's go back to that local kind of
Speaker 2: community component.
Speaker 1: And it is interesting, I mean that Houston is the
Speaker 1: sort of best example we have so far because like
Speaker 1: what a behemoth like. It's like, you know, if we
Speaker 1: had like a small rural district where you could say,
Speaker 1: like this is our laboratory for seeing it like Houston
Speaker 1: just a larger school district I assume than many states
Speaker 1: have in terms of enrollment in uh just one of
Speaker 1: the biggest in the countries. Just what what a place
Speaker 1: to start this, you know, this effort.
Speaker 2: And one last thought too, I wonder if you I
Speaker 2: don't know if you have thoughts on this, but like, if
Speaker 2: the goal list systemic reform, but ultimately what's going to
Speaker 2: happen wants to take over, it ultimately ends because they
Speaker 2: will end at some point you shift back to local control,
Speaker 2: you know, elected school board members and the superintendent. You know,
Speaker 2: is it that they're going to just continue what Mike
Speaker 2: Miles or these other stated pointed superintendents are doing or
Speaker 2: there are there going to implement their own vision? And like,
Speaker 2: if the goal systemic reform long term, how do you
Speaker 2: ensure if there are changes made by this administration, that
Speaker 2: it's going to carry on to the next There's no
Speaker 2: way you can guarantee.
Speaker 4: That, especially if the community is sort of throwing their
Speaker 4: hands in saying I don't we don't agree with this. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So it is really fascinating. And I also think about,
Speaker 4: you know, the process of the state takeover. The TEA
Speaker 4: will say, you know, the school districts have a chance
Speaker 4: to fight it, to preempt it. But when you reach
Speaker 4: this like four failing grades, five failing grades, threshore, I really,
Speaker 4: I really wonder do schools really have a fighting chance
Speaker 4: to stave off control? They have an option where they
Speaker 4: can enter a partnership with their charter school and that
Speaker 4: buys them a little bit more time. But Beaumat did
Speaker 4: do that, and a number of the schools did do that.
Speaker 4: But then and then you also have this option to
Speaker 4: maybe you shut down the school before before the tea
Speaker 4: comes in. But then in a lot of these instances,
Speaker 4: Fort Worth and a bunch of these school districts that
Speaker 4: are being taken over, they did shut down to school
Speaker 4: and TA came and said, hey, that actually still wasn't enough.
Speaker 4: You hit the threshold. So it doesn't matter if the
Speaker 4: school is shut down, We're still going to come over
Speaker 4: and take over the entire district. So you really wonder,
Speaker 4: like how much like how much of the local say
Speaker 4: is really coming to play here?
Speaker 1: I mean junior connentsort brings me to my final question,
Speaker 1: which is like, how does a district get out of
Speaker 1: state takeover.
Speaker 2: We've seen that happen, yeah, so it's super interesting. So
Speaker 2: basically what we know is is we can look at
Speaker 2: the case of Houston. Right, the commissioners set wasn't maybe
Speaker 2: a handful of say three maybe I'm missing a couple,
Speaker 2: but generally speaking, a handful of kind of parameters that
Speaker 2: the district needs to meet to begin a transition, but ultimately,
Speaker 2: like there is kind of a you know, a cutoff
Speaker 2: so far in the Houston's case, for example, we know
Speaker 2: that it will extend at least through twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 2: and at that point, and it started in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: so twenty twenty seven, and at that point the commission
Speaker 2: actually has to begin the transition back to local control,
Speaker 2: which is also a very incremental process. Right, It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, only a certain you know, maybe a certain
Speaker 2: number of school board members come back at first, and
Speaker 2: like it's very so it's not like it's going to
Speaker 2: end in twenty twenty seven, So it's going to be
Speaker 2: gradually kind of phased out back into the hands of
Speaker 2: kind of the local school board. And obviously they could
Speaker 2: choose one thing that's interesting. I don't again, we don't
Speaker 2: know if this is going to happen. A local school
Speaker 2: board could decide to say, hey, we like the stateing
Speaker 2: point of superintendent, we can keep them around. That's also
Speaker 2: a possibility. I don't know how likely that is, but
Speaker 2: certainly something that could happen as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just an interesting sort of I mean, and Obviously,
Speaker 1: as we alluded to at the beginning, there's so much
Speaker 1: like tension between state and local control that has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with school performance and has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with you know, cities and particularly like these more
Speaker 1: politically blue leaning cities feeling you know, the sort of
Speaker 1: pressure of the red leaning state government that like underpins
Speaker 1: a lot of this, and also like this is a
Speaker 1: thing that people really really care about, right, Like it
Speaker 1: We've we talked about this a lot of the Tribune.
Speaker 1: We have like a school Explorer's page on our website
Speaker 1: that is like consistently our most clicked.
Speaker 3: Page and probably refresh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's like people is probably the thing people
Speaker 1: care about the most, right is like where what schools
Speaker 1: are performing, is how they make decisions about where they live,
Speaker 1: It's how they make decisions about how they want to
Speaker 1: spend their money, what they want to invest in, you know,
Speaker 1: all those kind of things.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, the.
Speaker 1: State obviously feels that pressure, these local communities feel that press. Sure,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like this is just like the tool
Speaker 1: they've settled on for now to sort of execute on
Speaker 1: the state's vision at least of how to improve that.
Speaker 2: And to be clear. Right. This is also one of
Speaker 2: those issues that really doesn't isn't divided neatly along like
Speaker 2: partisan lines, like when you talk about like takeovers like nationally,
Speaker 2: and if you look at twenty fifteen law, it was
Speaker 2: Harold Dunnen who's the one who who basically was responsible
Speaker 2: for the trigger. You know that that came into it,
Speaker 2: and you know, a lot of his frustration have been
Speaker 2: with you know, looking at he's predominantly black and brown
Speaker 2: schools in his community in Houston. He's like, you know,
Speaker 2: even if you give districts, you know, resources, from his standpoint,
Speaker 2: he's like, we're still not seeing what we need to see. Right,
Speaker 2: you look at you can look at discipline, right, you can,
Speaker 2: you know, we know what impact for example, something that's
Speaker 2: simple term wise, like as teacher diversity is and how
Speaker 2: that how students who have teachers who look like them
Speaker 2: and reflect their experiences like that actually has shown to
Speaker 2: also have positive effects on academic outcomes. Right. His question
Speaker 2: was is like, what are districts doing with the controllables? Right, Like,
Speaker 2: no circumstance is going to be perfect, but when you
Speaker 2: do have certain resources in the power to do things,
Speaker 2: what are you changing? And so I'm only bringing that
Speaker 2: up as an example of the show. It's not just
Speaker 2: a Republican thing, right, And just to.
Speaker 4: Add, like a conservative value along conservative value has been
Speaker 4: less governance, right and central and local control and so shift.
Speaker 1: A little bit in recent years with the in Texas specificity, yes,
Speaker 1: but certainly like local control and less government. And yeah,
Speaker 1: just I think a lot of people are concerned about,
Speaker 1: you know, are we doing enough for black and brown students?
Speaker 1: And like you said, that doesn't necessarily cut across it
Speaker 1: cuts across party lines in interesting ways.
Speaker 2: And the commissioners acknowledged to these debates as well. During
Speaker 2: his discussion with Evan, you know, he he kind of
Speaker 2: acknowledged that, you know, some of the opposition maybe the
Speaker 2: fort work and things of the nature. He talked about how,
Speaker 2: you know, hey, those are valid points and those are
Speaker 2: things that I have to consider ultimately. You know, he
Speaker 2: articulates that he feels like he's doing what was best
Speaker 2: for students, and that's going to depend on the person
Speaker 2: their background, with their values are how they look at education.
Speaker 4: Right, It's a little bit like who is best possession
Speaker 4: to really do what's best and meet these needs of
Speaker 4: the students and you're seeing that in local folks saying, hey,
Speaker 4: this is our community, we know these students, we know
Speaker 4: these families. And then the state saying, while we have
Speaker 4: the resources, we have the tools and the academic knowledge
Speaker 4: that we can come in and really a point who
Speaker 4: we need to to really meet these like very specific needs.
Speaker 1: So well, I mean it's a very complicated thing, but
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys sort of breaking that down and
Speaker 1: your ongoing coverage on you know what does seem to
Speaker 1: at least be a recent uptick in you know takeovers.
Speaker 1: That was Snaeja Day and Jaden Edison. You can find
Speaker 1: their work at the Texas Tribune or at Texastribune dot org.
Speaker 3: Drop the Cleaner. That is this?
Speaker 1: That is it for this week's episode of The Trip
Speaker 1: Cast for December sixteenth. You can find our podcast anywhere
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or you can watch us on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Our producers are Rob and Chris.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is composed by Rob and we will
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