By Peyton Wolcott EdNews.org
- Copyright 2007
www.peytonwolcott.com
As I write this it's supposed to get down to sixteen tonight here in the Hill Country. It's mid-February and it seems it's been cold a very long time, and it also seems like winter will go on forever, the way we always feel come February.

Which is also how most of us feel about the messes our public schools have become. They're spending way too much of our money and failing to educate our students. And most people have a feeling of discouragement about the whole mess, like it's going to go on forever.

Except for a few hardy brave souls who have put their shoulders to the plow, souls who see signs of spring and hope before anyone else. And "plow's" the right word, because they've plowed their way through reams of public information act requests in an effort to observe the most rudimentary fiscal operations of their school districts, things like audits, and the districts' checkbooks.

At the same time, at the state and national level, things have been beginning to shake up a bit. The Overstocks guy in Arizona, Patrick Byrne, came up with his 65% solution, brilliant in its simplicity, and called his organization, "First Class Education"; put 65 cents of each edu-dollar into the classroom where it belongs, with the teachers and the kids, he said. Then in 2005 Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order requiring school districts to eventually post their check registers online if they couldn't manage to make the 65% goal, the first such gubernatorial opt-in in the nation. Then our state education czar enlisted local supes to help write the 65% formula and the final product was so generously written in favor of superintendents' wishes any district failing to make the 65% mark by 2008-09 would appear to have to be a district in which random persons would be driving away from school campuses with pick-ups filled with cash and/or copper tubing.

All the while the few, the brave, the hardy souls with hope in their hearts continued to file public records requests, with some little result. In my own district, Llano ISD, our supe became Texas' first Public Information Act conviction; he's now selling barbeque out of his convenience store. In Bremond ISD in northeast central Texas two moms persisted and eventually their supe wound up behind bars. And so on.

And a light bulb went off for me last fall that if school districts would simply post their check registers online now, most of our public records problems would simply disappear. We know our districts have the technology, because we've paid for it.

As a homely little example of why being able to see expenditures is so important, near here we'd had a superintendent who appeared to think nothing of charging the district for a $35 daily valet parking tab at edu-conferences while at the same time students were going without basics, with the district constantly chanting -- together now, in the key of M -- the Mo' Money Mantra. (Thank you, Roddy Stinson.) Simultaneously, because some of the worst elements of our present public school curriculums in the U.S. are vendor-driven, the idea was that once checks were posted online, parents and taxpayers would be able to see how much those programs that don't work are costing us. It's bad enough that these sham programs are expensive, but worse that they have produced kids who can't read and 20-and 30-year olds who can't tell you what six times nine is. (Next time you go to WalMart or the grocery store, ask your checker.) For our great republic to remain great and free, our populace must be able to think for themselves.

So began the National School District Honor Roll on October 1, comprised of high hopes for our nation's future and a sparse handful of small school districts, all here in Texas. Then came some more, then a large upscale district near Houston. People around the state began to take notice, but there were always the harrumps. You know, comments like, "Well, gee, this is a good idea, but you're going to need a Houston or a Dallas for this to be anything real." With the inflection of "Good luck," as in, "It'll never happen." Then Governor Perry came to this noble cause's rescue and required the Texas Education Agency to post its check registers online. This was late January. And there were still the harrumps. "You're going to need a Houston or a Dallas."

Well, guess what. We just learned this week that Houston ISD, the largest district in the state, is in the process of posting its check register online right now even as we speak. My immediate reaction was to call Dallas; surely this would be a shout-out to them. DISD's PR guy had an answer for me the next day: Dallas's check register had been online since November 2.

Reactions have been uniformly positive.

While there were no press releases from Dallas--perhaps they were busy with other matters up there--Dallas ISD has taken a huge step towards transparency, and superintendent Mike Hinojosa is to be heartily commended, and then some, just as is Abe Saavedra in Houston.
Governor Perry commented earlier today from Austin, "When I issued an executive order in 2005 to improve transparency in school budgets, I did so based on the belief that the taxpayers who pick up the tab should be able to look at the receipt. Online financial disclosure in the state's two largest districts is great news for local taxpayers and an important step for open government." State representative Rob Eissler, chair of the Public Education Committee, said by phone this afternoon from Austin, "This is a great start to a dialogue about school spending. It's the ultimate in checks and balances."

Kudos from Arizona

"Congratulations on this huge victory for parents and taxpayers," said Tim Mooney, director of First Class Education. "The ability to see how money is being spent (and misspent) is the first step towards fiscal sanity and placing the focus back on children and the learning experience."
I'm happy to report that we now have almost $5 billion annually at the local school district level more transparent than before, and almost $50 billion at the state level.

It's amazing the amount of good that can be accomplished when we put aside our hostilities and make room in our hearts for something wonderful to happen. Often it does, because spring really, always, does follow winter.

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Footnote: There's been some confusion in the press and elsewhere regarding what exactly a "check register" is. I bring this up because some school board members with whom I've spoken these past months haven't known, either; you've got one in your desk or purse--it's your checkbook. So when we say that school districts are posting their check registers, this means they're posting all of the checks they write. (The one exception is payroll checks as they're repetitive; come July or August when local school districts finalize their budgets for the coming year they can easily post their annual salary and stipend schedule at that time.)

Published February 16, 2007