Governor Perry Is Wrong About Texas Teacher Layoffs & Public School Staffing Ratios

Official Photo of  Texas Governor Rick Perry from
governor.state.tx.us/about/

Yesterday, I listened to a radio interview Texas Governor Rick Perry did with KRLD 1080 AM radio in Dallas via Scott Braddock's website.

Today, I am writing to say he is wrong about the extent of educator layoffs in Texas and that he is also wrong about the staffing ratio of teachers to administrators in the school districts in our state.

Below is a recording of the interview, and below it is a transcript of the relevant portions of the interview which I myself transcribed. To hear the portion of the interview related to this blog post, click the play button, and after the audio file streams down (you'll see the sound wave pattern fill up across the screen), drag the play bar to the 4:15 mark and listen through the 6:06 mark.

Governor Perry on Immigration, School Funding, and Texas Wildfires by Scott Braddock

The portions of the interview to which I am referring are found between time stamps 4:15 and 6:06. Any emphasis in the transcript below is my own for the purposes of my responses.

4:15 Question from Caller: I’m asking what happened to the financial stability that he campaigned that Texas had when now we’re having massive cuts in education and all other types of programs and he campaigned and touted about the fact that Texas had a surplus. What happened to that?

4:35 Host: What did happen to the surplus, Governor?

4:37 Governor Perry: Well what we said was that we had a rainy day fund of nine billion dollars. We knew there were going to be challenges from the standpoint of our current budget. Texas is still creating jobs. We’re still the strongest economy in this country. But the idea that we’re some island in these 50 states is…no one said that we weren’t going to be impacted by the national economy…

5:06 Host: What are we going to do with all these laid off teachers?

5:07 Governor Perry: Well first off I think you’re seeing a substantial misinformation campaign going on out there. There’s not some huge, “massive” as she used the terminology, number of laid off teachers. And here’s a more important question. In Texas now, we’ve hired a huge number of non teachers into our public schools. Administrators, etc.

5:34 Host (talking over Perry at first): Yeah. Do you stand by the number that you gave…Governor Perry I’m sorry…Do you stand by the number you gave previously…Do you stand by the number you gave previously that there was 1 to 1 ratio of administrators to teachers?

5:45 Governor Perry: That is absolutely correct. And the issue becomes the local school districts and the local administrators are the ones that are going to decide how to manage their personnel loads. And if they’re laying off teachers while they’re keeping administrators on, then I think you’ve got some real questions to ask of the school boards and the administrators at that particular point in time. 

There's not some huge, "massive"...number of laid off teachers...

In response to the Governor's statement that "There's not some huge, 'massive'...number of laid off teachers," I submit as a counterpoint a website I have been updating with published reports of confirmed school district layoffs. This is not "misinformation." These are published reports.

I will concede that not all of the 12,211 job eliminations and layoffs documented here (as of the writing of this post) are classroom teachers, but a major portion of them are. And all 12,211 of those positions represent people involved in the education of children in our Texas public schools. I am not sure what the Governor defines as "massive", but I think any industry that is experiencing layoffs in the tens of thousands might qualify as having large-scale layoffs. When it is also taken into consideration that only 66 of our 1,234 districts are represented on the site, it is quite possible that the 12,211 number is just the tip of the iceberg, and it is a predictor of more layoffs to come if the legislature cannot find better solutions to our current budget crisis. It is disingenuous under these circumstances to continue to deny that massive education layoffs are occurring.


There is a "1 to 1 ratio of teachers to administrators" in Texas public schools...

My second response is to the Governor's statement that it is "absolutely correct" that there is a "1 to 1 ratio of teachers to administrators" in Texas public schools. To make my point, I first need to define "administrator" the way most of us who work in public schools define "administrator". If you ask educators who the administrators in their school or district are, they will likely answer with the names of people whose titles are principal, assistant principal, superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent, chief financial officer, and director.

By this definition, and according to the Texas Education Agency's own statistics as represented in these charts, only 4% of Texas public school employees qualified as administrators in the 2009-2010 school year.

The breakdown for 2009-2010 is as follows:

• Teachers - 50%
• Professional Support* - 9%
• Campus Administration - 3%
• Central Administration - 1%
• Instructional Aides* - 10 %
• Auxiliary - 27%

*According to TEA, “Support staff are defined as therapists, psychologists, counselors, diagnosticians, physicians and nurses, librarians, department heads, and miscellaneous other support roles. This category does not include secretaries.”  Support staff often work directly with students during the school day. Instructional aides also work directly with students alongside teachers. (Information quoted from Texas Association of School Business Officials via Texas ISD.com)

With teachers comprising 50% of the employees of Texas public schools, and administrators only comprising 4%, it can hardly be argued that there is a 1 to 1 ratio of administrators to teachers in our schools. As a professional educator, I myself would be appalled if that were so.

One could still argue that more than 50% of public school employees should be teachers. After all, it is true that the majority of a school's mission is accomplished through teachers working in the classroom directly with students. I, and many other educators would point out, however, that without nurses, custodians, bus drivers, maintenance workers, computer technicians, special education diagnosticians and therapists, professional development specialists, human resources staff, secretaries, instructional aides, and people fulfilling other essential support roles, the mission of the teacher in the classroom would not be possible. Without these important people working to support teachers and students, teachers would have added responsibilities that would take away from their time focusing on student instruction.

An analogy I've heard several times is apt: Would you run a hospital staffed mostly with doctors? Fewer support staff means doctors would have to run all of the tests, process insurance, meet basic needs of patients, and so on. There would not be enough time to meet with patients to diagnose their ailments and plan treatments. Teachers would be in a similar position, not adequately supported to focus primarily on their students, if they had to attend to the tasks the support personnel in their schools and districts take care of every day.

The 1 to 1 ratio of teachers to administrators only works if you count all non-classroom teachers as administrators. Lumping maintenance staff in with principals is inaccurate at best and purposefully deceitful at its worst.

If you are interested in even more in depth analysis of the ratio of teachers to non-teachers in Texas school districts, I highly recommend the following links:

• Misperceptions About School District Staffing from Moak, Casey, & Associates
• Analysis of Educator Roles and Responsibilities in Texas: 1991-2011 by Dr. Ed Fuller
• Has the Percentage of Texas Public School District Staff Who Directly Impact Student Outcomes Changed Over the Last 20 Years? by Dr. Ed Fuller

Concluding Thoughts

I understand our state is in a financial crisis and that there is disagreement on how best to address it. What I would like to see, however, from anyone on any side of the budget and education debates, is accuracy and honesty. If we truly believe our approach is right, we should not have to twist the facts or leave out important details in order to persuade others to support our solution. If spin is necessary, then I am tempted to conclude there is more to the agenda than just balancing the state budget.

Note: On Wednesday, May 18th, I posted a brief follow-up to this blog post.

Moving from Web 2.No to Web 2.Go

I spent the week of February 7-11 attending the 2011 TCEA Convention and Exposition in Austin, Texas. The theme for this year's gathering was "No LimITs", and it was an appropriate theme for my biggest takeaways from the conference.

For years I have been hearing and reading about the need to open up Web 2.0 tools for student and teacher use in schools as well as moving toward 1:1 computer/device access for students. This year, these two themes converged at TCEA, and for the first time I heard from several schools and districts that have taken steps in these directions. I left the conference encouraged and energized to help my own district start making moves in this direction.

My conclusions:

• It is time to bring cloud computing into our schools. Google Apps for Education is one very logical way to do this. It provides a balance of schools being able to oversee what students and teachers are doing in the cloud while giving them access to authentic tools for learning through creation and collaboration. At a time when the budget crisis in Texas is promising severe cutbacks in public education funding, using a suite of free tools such as Google Apps is even more appealing.

• It is time to open up filters and bring more Web 2.0 applications into our schools. Instead of blocking everything that can be used inappropriately (in the end, what can't be used inappropriately?), it is time to teach digital responsibility and digital citizenship. We can't teach teachers and students how to successfully navigate and responsibly use the Internet which is now an integrated part of our lives if we continue to barricade the schoolhouse under the guise of protection. (One of my favorite quotes from the week was from Jamie Casap: "We teach kids how to cross the street. We do not ban cars.")
  
• It is time to allow students to bring personal computing devices to school and integrate their use into instruction. Most schools are never going to be able to afford sustainable 1:1 computing. Yet if we open up cloud computing and Web 2.0 applications, access to devices will be critical to leveraging those tools. The answer lies in taking advantage of the tools many students already have - cell phones, smart phones, app phones, MP3 players, tablets, and laptops. This means we need to remove barriers which are blocking the use of personal technology at school.

As much as I would love to do all of the above NOW, I know that is not wise or feasible. There are conversations to be had and issues to be addressed. For all of you in the education world who think change happens too slowly, you are right in most cases. That does not mean we should throw caution to the wind, however. We need to lay the groundwork for these initiatives and keep the ball rolling to get everything in place.

Some issues I know schools will need to address are:

• Bandwidth - Accessing the cloud, using Web 2.0 tools, and allowing students to connect personal devices to the network are going to take bandwidth - and lots of it. Many districts are not "up to speed" in this area, so investments must be made. Increasing bandwidth costs money, but hopefully that spending might be offset by not having to buy as much specialized software or as much hardware as students begin to use cloud applications and their own devices. A corollary to this problem is cell signal strength in some buildings. We have buildings in our district which are considered black holes when it comes to cellular access. Schools may need to invest in repeaters in some buildings to make student cell phone use viable. A second corollary is that schools will need a strong wireless infrastructure to support connecting personal devices to the Internet.
  
• Equal Access - Not every student has a cell phone with unlimited data or text plans, nor do they all have laptops they can bring to school. What do we do for students in these situations? It really isn't fair to expect students with devices to share expensive equipment. Schools will need to invest in some devices, such as iPod Touches, tablets, or laptops/netbooks to provide equivalent access during the school day. Access at home then becomes another matter as well.
  
• Policy - While moving into these realms opens up whole new areas of opportunity for digital citizenship education, it also opens up whole new areas of opportunity for kids to push boundaries. Obviously, new acceptable use policies need to be implemented. One of the policies I came across in a session was White Oak ISD, and what I like about it is it is applied both to the use of personal and district owned equipment. I believe a consistent set of consequences for violating acceptable use should also be established. Schools will also not be able to ignore CIPA and FERPA as they venture into these realms.
  
• Administrator/Teacher Buy In and Professional Development - New opportunities for instructional integration will abound, but many teachers and administrators will be way out of their comfort zones in this new environment. Professional development will be needed to build the capacity of administrators and teachers to manage and leverage environments with much more open access to technology. Some will be reluctant to venture into this realm, so showing them the possibilities will be very important. While others might be ready to run with this opportunity, they, too, will need workshops in safe practices and quality integration strategies. Quite frankly, teaching in a technology infused environment requires new pedagogy which is not instinctive to most of us. As much as I try to keep up with what's going on in the educational technology field, I know even I will need training to help teachers make this transition.
  
  I was quite surprised at the number of schools and districts who threw the door open for students to use personal devices in school without first providing their staff with professional development. To me that's putting the cart way before the horse. Most admitted to experiencing some issues by implementing without appropriate training for staff. I would hope districts on the cusp of these implementations will learn from others' experience and provide the necessary training ahead of time, as well as in a continuing manner, to maximize the impact of these new technologies on student learning.

If the purpose of public education is to prepare students to be productive members of society, we can no longer claim to be meeting our purpose if we are locking the most modern of society's tools outside of the schoolhouse door.

It is obviously going to take a time and collaboration to move from the realm of Web 2.No to Web 2.Go. Almost every one of the sessions I attended at TCEA 2011 (you can read my session live-blogs) contributed in some way to convicting me of the importance of starting NOW to make these moves.

Although we can't flip the switch overnight, we can start the conversation on Monday morning and make the case for technology to finally be in a position to transform education as it has transformed business and society.

Please share your thoughts: What am I leaving out as I think about this transition for schools? Is your school or district already doing this and do you have insights to share? What questions/suggestions do you have? Do you have links to stories of places who have successfully made these transitions? Please post in the comments. With Web 2.0 at our fingertips, there is no sense in each of us trying to figure this out alone!

Back to School Food for Thought (AKA Anytime Resources for Tech Integration and Your Digital Footprint)

I don't know when the new school year or term starts for you, but in our little corner of the planet known as Texas, most public K-12 schools start up in late August. The closer that start date gets, the more we educators start thinking of plans and goals for the new year. Over the past couple of weeks, several links have come my way via Twitter which I think would be valuable for educators to visit as the summer begins to wind down and preparation for the new school year gears up.

Technology Integration

The links below are excellent resources for anyone aspiring to integrate more Web 2.0 technologies into their instruction. Those just dipping their toe in for the first time as well as experienced integrators will get ideas from these sites. As someone who provides professional development to teachers, I found some ideas I'd like to share in the upcoming school year.

• Reflection: A Year of Implementing Web 2.0 Tools in My Classroom - Kim Munoz (@techmunoz on Twitter) shares her successes and challenges after her first year of delving deep into Web 2.0 technologies with her middle school students. Visit Kim's post for examples of how she used specific Web 2.0 tools with her students. My favorite parts of this blog are Kim's transparency when it comes to the parts that didn't work, and her final conclusion that "...it’s not all about the tool, but the content you have to work with to teach the tool."

• How to Use New Media Tools in Your Classroom - Seven short videos from bloggers and contributors at Edutopia which give you tips on using Twitter, Facebook, wikis, digital cameras, YouTube, Nintendo Wii, and GPS devices in instruction. Even if you do not have access to all of these resources in your school, just watching the videos might encourage you to think outside of the box and investigate ways to integrate these technologies into your instruction.

• Getting Started With Technology Integration in Your Classroom - Mary Beth Hertz (@mbteach on Twitter) reminds us that there are standards out there to help guide us in technology integration. Her brief explanation of the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) serves as a good starting place for thinking about the types of skills we should be exposing our students (and ourselves) to in the realm of educational technology.

Social Media and our Digital Footprints

If you are reading this blog, then you participate in social media on at least a very basic level. If you also have a blog of your own or an account on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flikr, or add any online posting/commenting you do here, you're leaving traces of yourself all over the Internet all of the time. Multiply what you are doing by at least ten and that's how much evidence your tween and teen students are leaving. It behoves us as professionals to keep ourselves up to date on the implications of the evidence we are leaving behind - both for our own benefit and for the benefit of the young people we have the responsibility to educate.

• The Web Means the End of Forgetting - If you click no other link in this blog post, I hope you'll click this one. The story from the New York Times is lengthy, but packed with important cautions regarding what we post online and what is posted about us and the future consequences of that information. As much as I try to stay current in this area, I learned several new things in this story. Here's a teaser paragraph to draw you in:
  
  It’s often said that we live in a permissive era, one with infinite second chances. But the truth is that for a great many people, the permanent memory bank of the Web increasingly means there are no second chances — no opportunities to escape a scarlet letter in your digital past. Now the worst thing you’ve done is often the first thing everyone knows about you.
  
  How can you resist reading it now?

• 12 Healthy Habits to Grow Your Online Presence and Keep Balance in Your Life - Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher on Twitter) has grown a tremendous online presence in the education and educational technology world over the last five years. She shares a great deal of wisdom in this post based on her experiences. The one which spoke to me the most was Beware of Flattery because I'm a sucker for positive reinforcement! All of her tips are helpful for those of us who want to contribute positively to our profession. As an added bonus, Vicki has recently started a Facebook page. If you have a Facebook account and become a fan of hers, you will receive helpful tips for being more productive in your professional environment.

• Think Before You Tweet - Beth Still (@bethstill on Twitter) wrote this guest post at Wes Fryer's Moving at the Speed of Creativity blog. In it Beth reminds us that anything we say online can be seen by anyone at any time. She is honest about some tweets she posted that came back to haunt her and she shares thoughts on the dynamics of online and offline relationships and how they intersect. I also find the comments on this blog post a fascinating read. I think Beth might make a fortune if she reproduces and sells the sign her husband made for her after her indiscreet tweet incident - I Just Wish My Mouth Had a Backspace Key! The good news is, our keyboards do have one. Do we use them often enough?

As you begin thinking about the new school year ahead, or just improving your instructional and professional practices at any time during the school year, I hope these links will help you and lead you to other resources as well. If you have sites you think are valuable in similar ways, please make a comment on this post and help us all add to our toolboxes!


"Welcome back to school" image provided by Kevin Connors via http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/610877. Used with permission.

Student Cell Phone Etiquette

Recently one of the K-5 campus technology facilitators in my district contacted me to see if I had any resources regarding cell phone etiquette for elementary students. It seems that some students from her campus were passing along spam text messages along the lines of "forward this or something bad will happen to you".

I looked through my digital citizenship and cell phone bookmarks and didn't see anything specific to "spam texting". Googling "spam texting" brought back tons of results, if what I wanted were suggested lists of spam texts to send. Nice.

So, I brainstormed some ideas and sent them back to my colleague. She added some other ideas of her own. Between the two of us, we came up with the list of cell phone etiquette ideas for students that you see below. I share them with permission of my colleague, who did not ask for name attribution, but I must say I enjoyed working with ML on this. :-) The campus also sent this list out to parents via their parent E-News listserv.

Hopefully this will help the next person looking for student cell phone etiquette ideas. Really some of these ideas would be helpful with some adults I know! Please feel free to use and adapt. I would appreciate a citation of this blog if you do so.

Does your student have a cell phone?


Many students have or have access to cell phones. Please review the suggestions below, and take this opportunity to discuss responsible cell phone usage with your child.

• Phones should remain off and in backpacks while at school.

• Avoid musical ringtones and turn your phone to vibrate in public settings.

• Phone conversations should be conducted quietly and in private, not in front of friends or during interaction with others.

• Students should understand that it is inappropriate to take or forward embarrassing pictures of others.

• Compulsive checking for text messages is disruptive to your child’s focus, as well as their friends and family.

• Any messages that are threatening, scary, or contain inappropriate language or pictures should be discussed with a trusted adult or parent.

• If your child is receiving inappropriate texts or pictures from another child, it might be helpful to contact the sender’s parents.

• Chain texts, like chain emails, are considered spam, and generally bad manners to forward.

• Children should understand that not everyone has unlimited texting plans. When sending an unnecessary text, such as a chain message, it might be costing your family or friend’s family extra money…even if they are not read.

Parents, you are in charge. Monitor what your child is sending and receiving. This is your phone, your money, and most importantly your child. Letting your child know what your expectations are will help them avoid pitfalls.

Do you have any similar lists that you have shared with students of any age? If so, please share a link to them in the comments.