Sherry Sylvester - Texas Public Policy Foundation Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven fifty one. This hard time failure is not something
you want to hear about the public school your child
goes to, right or D. But one in five Texas
schools got a D or AN operating under the new
performance standards, and of course some of those schools didn't
want you to know about that, which is why they
were fighting the TEA in court from publishing the twenty
two to twenty three results. So already we're looking at

(00:24):
information that's several years old, but at least we're getting
it now. Cherry Silvester joins us at the Texas Public
Policy Foundation. I'm assuming I haven't put I haven't seen
the exact grades in compared it to the systems that
were schooling or suing the state rather, but I'm guessing
the schools that were suing were among those they got

(00:44):
a D or an F.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
There was some overlap, but some of the big systems
also sued just because the teachers' unions don't like this principle.
They don't like the principle of putting out any information
about how the schools perform. And you know, it's not
just the student performance, because that's the most important thing,

(01:08):
but it's also that what goes in that grades in
that grade or are they closing the gap between kids
that are economically disadvantaged and kids who aren't, kids that
are not English speakers. Are they closing that gap special education?
So that's a piece of it. And then in high school,

(01:29):
are we getting people ready? Are we getting kids ready
for college or we're getting them ready for the military.
What every parent expects a student to do. And as
you said, Jimmy, if they're not doing it, the parents
are picking up the tab.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, I'm gissing. So they should definitely know absolutely, And
I'm thinking too for some of these school systems that
were maybe close to a state takeover, you know, once
those things get published, some of them probably did qualify.
I think Fort Worth, for example, is now elgeib for
a state takeover for their district. I know the Midland,
Wichita Falls Beaumont school districts. They had like low grades

(02:06):
four years in a row. They're not eligible for a
state takeover yet, but they could be fairly soon. And
that's probably one of the worst one of the worst
nightmares for these school systems is the idea that the
state's going to take them over and they don't control
their own destiny.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Absolutely, and it's also providing a chance, as we've seen
in Houston, you can get improvements when you have people
come in and intervene. Why would you want to go
on and continue with programs that were not working. It's
just incredible. This was such an easy, this a thre
f system. Jimmy Day fought it for years. We tried,

(02:43):
beginning in twenty thirteen to make this law, and the
teachers' unions fought it until twenty seventeen, and then we
passed the law, and then they started going to court.
As you said, they kept it out. We actually just
in the last two or three days got the twenty
twenty four scores out too, for the last thirty three
schools that had sued for the release of twenty twenty four.

(03:07):
And this is just a essential piece of information for parents.
If your school's not performing, either get down there and
pound on the table, or now we've got school choice,
you can put your if you can find a better
school for your kid.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, I think that probably the school choice thing had
probably put it over the top for them, right because
when you have the ability to compare one school system
from another, if you do have the ability to switch schools.
You're going to take that information to use it absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
You know, one of the things that we found in
South Texas, down in the valley where there's a lot
of competitions, a lot of charter schools, so a lot
of private schools down there, none of those schools in
the first scoring Jimmy rated ranked below B. And that's
counterintuitive because you've got a lot of non English speakers,
you've got a lot of economically disadvantaged kids. But you've

(03:57):
also got a system where there's lots of competition, and
so the teacher, the teachers do well.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
So yeah, and they don't like the public schools do
not like the competition, that's for sure. All Right, Sherry,
that's good to hear. Thank you very much, Sherry Sylvester,
Texas Public Policy Foundation