PEYTON WOLCOTT - COMMENTARY - U.S. PUBLIC EDUCATION

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Conservative Commentary: The Four-Legged Stool (including how Texas school districts have embraced transparency faster than the other 49 states)

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Given the quick spread of this transparency movement ("like a wildfire" says the DC Examiner) -- a few
small Texas districts, plus 1 each in Pennsylvania, Utah, California, and New Jersey just 28 months ago,
to 422 districts in 28 states today -- plus the fact that so many of the districts posting are in Texas (302),
folks in other states have begun to take notice and are attempting to replicate our success. Encouraging,
but as many are stumbling, this seems a good time to share how we built the three fundamental legs of
our four-legged stool so that others can replicate our success.

So here, in this order, is the four-legged stool.

The first leg of the four-legged stool appeared when Governor Rick Perry signed Executive Order RP
47 in August 2005 requiring all Texas public school districts to move towards spending at least 65% of
their dollars in the classroom. If that percentage sounds familiar, it was inspired by Patrick Byrne's (the
Overstock.com guy) First Class Education. Although Gov. Perry had specified the National Center for
Education Statistics formula for spending, almost before the ink was dry on the executive order
then-Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley invited Texas superintendents to Austin to help
modify (read: dilute) the NCES formula, with the result that the bar for reaching 65% was significantly
lowered such that for a school district to not make the 65% target pickup trucks would almost have to be
leaving the district filled with either cash or copper tubing. How it worked: The Financial Integrity Rating
System of Texas (FIRST) plan called for a three-step implementation in as many years; any districts not
achieving 65% by 2008-09 could as a cure elect to post their check registers online the following year, in
2010. Economist Byron Schlomach, now at the Goldwater Institute, had recommended online check
registers, and Rich Oppel, then Austin American-Statesman editor, had proposed putting all school
district public records online as early as 2005.

The second leg is the grassroots movement. Why it happened at all is simple. I had been detained
by three armed school district police officers whose superintendent didn't want me taking pictures of the
misleading advertising signage on his district's front door and main lobby wall; this was part of my public
records requests at the district. It was sufficiently alarming an experience that I figured there had to be a
better way. Also, having observed for many years now our powerful state education lobbyists and their
way of working behind the scenes, I was concerned that by the time 2010 rolled around with two Leges in
the interim (2007 and 2009), the 65% rule and subsequent check register option would have been
sufficiently diluted such that few if any school districts would have failed to make the 65% mark and
therefore there would have been no online check registers in Texas and financial records in our local
school districts would have been just as inaccessible as before. Rather than risk this, on October 1,
2006 I compiled and published the nation's first check register roster on my website to encourage, honor
and recognize those districts voluntarily posting their check registers online well ahead of any state
requirements, reasoning that a national roster would give form, function and impetus to a grassroots
movement not only here in Texas but also the other 49 states. Although the roster was small at first,
consisting of exactly 2 small Texas districts, it grew quickly; what superintendent and school board exist
who would want to be perceived by their community as being opposed to transparency?

The third fundamental leg was then-Chief Deputy Commissioner of Education Robert Scott's
posting the Texas Education Agency's check register online in February 2007; after Robert was appointed
Commissioner by Governor Perry in October 2007, he started mentioning in speeches to Texas public
school administrators that more financial transparency was coming to Texas public education. This leg
was crucial because it told local school superintendents and trustees that Texas' executive branch was
serious about public school accountability and transparency.

The biggest, shiniest and mostly loudly promoted last leg -- and the one that has proven to be of the least
significance in either Texas or any of the other states -- arrived in two phases. First there were years and
years of parents and taxpayers filing public records requests in their home districts in order to learn more
about their districts, with the savvier of the parents cutting to the chase and asking to view
superintendents' expense reports. Too often this turned into an acrimonious exercise on both sides'
parts, worsened by some administrators' making it as difficult as possible for the public to view public
records. To cure this, proposed legislation (HB 2560) was written by the Texas Public Policy Foundation,
conservative think tank, for a member of the Texas House of Representatives sitting on the public ed
committee; unfortunately, both the state representative and the writer although no doubt experienced in
other areas were relatively new to the unique particularities of public education politics and therefore did
not have a significant history of working with or support from public ed lobbying elements. Further, rather
than being written in the language of RP 47, TPPF's original draft of the proposed bill was geared
towards their wants and needs and were considered by many in the public education community to be
over-broad and over-reaching, extending far beyond the requirements of RP 47; for example, the bill
asked for payroll checks** to be posted, which RP 47 did not.   They also requested as do many similar
groups in other states for searchable Excel spreadsheet data; many of us wonder why taxpayers should
have to pay for school districts to produce this type of information which the think tanks are the only ones
asking for. Although the bill in diluted form finally passed the Texas House after several tries, it failed on
the last possible day in the Senate (see photo above right), sunk by an 11th-hour letter from a Houston
banker representing the largest district in Texas, with the letter circulated by -- drum roll -- the district's
paid professional lobbyist. I know all this because I was there. I saw the letter being circulated by the
lobbyist, and, unlike the think tank folks who'd taken the weekend off, I was in the Senate gallery that
weekend, through the last late-night Senate session, until the last gavel.

What can we learn from this
I will state for the record that I am a staunch defender of the importance of the public's right to view public
records including what's on a district's front door, as with my experience in August 2006 I was detained
by three armed school district police officers at a San Antonio-area district because I thought the public
had the right to view photographs of that district's misleading signage, including prominent "TEA
Recognized" -- the second of our state's four tiers -- signs on their front door and in the main lobby of their
admin. building two days after the state had announced they'd sunk to "TEA Academically Unacceptable,"
the lowest of the four tiers. The officers all had real guns with real bullets; to provide greater context, the
same ISD police department had recently been written up in the local newspaper for having followed a
suspect several blocks off campus; after a scuffle the suspect was shot.

Play to play -- or play to win?
While fiscal transparency in the form of online check registers is a popular idea among conservatives,
including conservative think tanks and the folks funding them, attempting to get legislation written at the
state level is the wrong first step -- and it is the first step many conservative think tanks in many states are
taking or attempting to take. Further, based strictly on my own observation, the failed bill appeared to have
been one of many more or less thrown at the wall in hopes that some would stick. (None did, that I know
of.) Public education lobbyists on the other hand have a much bigger stake, again based on my
observation of legislative sessions here in Texas, and they play not to play but to win. Until now at least
many conservative think tanks appear have been more interested in going through the exercise, able in
that way to win points with their funders -- "We tried!" -- whether they succeeded or not.

While I will continue to champion public records rights so long as I continue to draw breath, I posit that for
parents and taxpayers to have any success in their communities -- for this bright and shiny fourth leg to
be strong enough to help support the stool -- public records by themselves, public records for the sake of
public records, change little or nothing in our local schools, and parents and taxpayers must learn to
share their findings immediately in a meaningful way with their communities on a website, with the
information presented in a clear and concise manner. As a practical matter, they also need to make clear
to their communities why this information is important and also organize their communities around this
information, using it as a springboard to political action such as placing more folks on the local school
board. I know this is possible because this is the approximate route my own community took on the rocky
road from a pricey school convention steak dinner receipt that led to our superintendent's conviction that
led to eventually our placing all five of our reform-platform candidates on the school board in a single
election. On the other hand, the couple who were named as the chief reason for our worsened public
records laws here in Texas filed well over a thousand public records requests, did not share their
findings with their community for several months, and then not until after the district's school board had
already voted to file a SLAPP*** suit against them; although the suit eventually failed, including the
district's appeal, the sheer numbers of the couple's requests were enough justification to the state Lege
to impose far stiffer fees on all parents and taxpayers in the form of HB 2564 during the 80th regular
called legislative session, the same session as the failed check register bill; the dad of the couple ran for
a spot on the local school board not as a slate but by himself and lost by a wide margin, which the
community and the school district's administration took as evidence that he did not have the full and clear
backing of his community. Yes, he had the right to file public records requests. Yes, he did not have
grassroots majority support. Yes, the superintendent continues to produce a winning football team.

School district politics are the purest form of local power and as such can be dirty, messy and
unpleasant. Addressing a local school board during an open meeting can be a daunting proposition for
even the most self-composed business executives and other professionals used to TV cameras and the
like. I've watched bank presidents stutter for the first time since junior high, and don't blame anyone for
not wanting to get involved, especially my cerebral think-tank friends whose reaction to suggestions that
they actually talk to their own local superintendents and boards has generally been to make a face and a
sound along the lines of "EW!" I can see the appeal of sidestepping the "EW" and hopscotching ahead to
proposing state legislation as it appears the tidier alternative.

Start small, start local, start simple
There must be evidence of widespread grassroots success at the local individual school district level in
terms of numbers of school districts who have already voluntarily posted their check registers online to
help legislators to feel secure enough to codify this by voting in the affirmative at the state level; the
pressures on our state senators and representatives by the public education lobby are strong, intense
and constant, and our conservative think tanks would do well to remember this and revise their strategies
accordingly.    Local success is also important because we cannot improve public education in our great
republic until we are able to track specific local dollars, and improve public education we must in order to
have a strong and independent populace able to think for itself.

Suppose you're not as fortunate in your state as we are here in Texas to have a conservative governor
and education commissioner blessed with both courage and vision. To be effective, you're going to have
to start building your sturdy stool with grassroots momentum, beginning with -- EW! -- asking your own
local school district to voluntarily post its check register online, then strengthening that leg by persuading
friends in other districts to do the same, and progress from there. When folks follow the steps as
suggested on my site they have met with 100% success.

Your state leadership will take notice and want to join a transparency movement
already vetted at the grassroots level.

Friends, I've described our four-legged stool's three most important legs so that you can build one just as
sturdy or better in your state. All things really are possible.

_______________________________________
*     James Boswell was the 18th century lawyer remembered as being Dr. Samuel Johnson's biographer; in addition to having written
"A Dictionary of the English Language," Johnson was also known for his aphorisms, including, "It matters not how a man dies, but how
he lives."

**    My suggestion is that when school districts finalize their annual budgets in July-August each year they simply post their
payroll/stipend schedule somewhere on the district's website as a one-time deal; it seems a bit silly to ask districts to post repetitive,
identical payroll checks month after month.

*** Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

LINKS:

How to ask your own local district

Also useful (copy and paste into your browser:
www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/commissioner/adopted/0706/109-1002-ltradopt.html

TEA's checks for FY 2007

TEA's checks for FY 2008

2nd: SPECIFIC ACTION
AT THE LOCAL
GRASSROOTS LEVEL
My national check register
roster (October 2006) gave
form, substance and energy to
the beginnings of a grassroots
movement; we developed
strategies which anyone
anywhere, no matter their
history, can replicate with
100% success, if followed as
written.

THE FOUR-LEGGED STOOL
How and why so many Texas public school districts have
voluntarily posted their check registers online so quickly
-- and how this grassroots movement's spreading nationally
By Peyton Wolcott
First published in Education News Friday, March 21, 2008
Most recent update Friday, January 9, 2009

The purpose of this accounting as to how and why so much has happened so
fast is simple: To sort out fact from fantasy and give folks in all 15,000 U.S. school
districts the tools to persuade their districts to voluntarily post their check registers
online as a big step towards transparency.

Dec. 2, 2008: Gov. Rick Perry
(L) swears in new Texas
Commissioner of Education
Robert Scott (R)

May 2007: Gallery at Texas Lege last day of check register bill
brought by Texas Public Policy Foundation. I was there as were
these lobbyists; TPPF employees had taken the weekend off.

2003/Llano: Former Llano ISD supe Jack Patton (far left)
negotiating settlement payout with LISD board after he became
Texas' first Public Information Act conviction; at one point he
handed papers to board which they later didn't recall seeing.

Oct. 26, 2006/Austin: Lake
Travis ISD v. Lovelace
(SLAPP suit)

THE THREE ESSENTIAL LEGS:
Here in Texas we've had a perfect storm, a coming-together
of three key elements, the first three listed below: action by
the governor, action at the grassroots level, and action at the
state DOE level.

1st: SPECIFIC ACTION BY THE GOVERNOR
Governor Rick Perry signed Executive Order RP 47 (August
2005) calling for 65% of all school dollars to be spent in the
classroom by 2008-09.

3rd: SPECIFIC ACTION BY THE
STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER
Texas Commissioner of Education (then
deputy commissioner) Robert Scott put the
Texas Education Agency's check register
online (Feb. 2007), the first and still only
state DOE to have all of its checks online;
Gov. Sarah Palin's Alaska DOE gets
honorable mention for posting everything
over $1,000.

Everybody knows you only need three
legs to have a sturdy stool; the fourth
unnecessary and distracting leg is proposed

Commissioner Robert Scott
speaking at Education
Commission of the States

Governor Rick Perry (R) greets Texas Air
National Guard last August as they arrived in
Austin with special needs evacuees from
Louisiana ahead of Hurricane Gustav.

legislation at the state level; it always fails or is so severely diluted
that the bills are useless because conservative think tanks have
thus far failed to sufficiently count the powerful administrators'
lobbyists with the strength which can only be demonstrated via
grassroots numbers, in this case, check registers online. In other
words, for foundations to call for legislation when they have not
themselves been willing to approach their own school districts
themselves, is an exercise in rhetoric and at the end of the day is
nothing more than an empty gesture.

GRASSROOTS JOURNEY TO
TEXAS TRANSPARENCY

Aug. 3, 2006/San Antonio: Edgewood
ISD's PR guy Mario Rios (L) with 2 of 3
armed EISD poliice officers at scene.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
There must be evidence of widespread grassroots success
at the local individual school district level in terms of numbers
of school districts who have already voluntarily posted their
check registers online to help legislators to feel secure enough
to codify this by voting in the affirmative at the state level.

The pressures on our state senators and represen-
tatives by the public education lobby are strong,
intense, generous to a fault and constant; our
conservative think tanks will do well to remember
this and revise their strategies accordingly.

PHOTO CREDITS

Stool, Harvest of History Museum

Right side of page

Top, Governor Perry

Middle, Education Commission of the States

Grassroots Journey - Peyton Wolcott

1. Governor - Rick Perry / Executive Order RP 47 (Aug. 2005)
2. Grassroots - Peyton Wolcott / National School District Honor Roll
(Oct. 2006)
3. Texas Education Agency Commissioner - Robert Scott / Check
register online (Feb. 2007)
4. Proposed legislation - HB 2560 (Spring 2007)