HISD leader wants public education considered ‘investment, not expense’
Superintendent: Lawmakers must address funding
At his first State of the Schools address since becoming Houston ISD’s superintendent in September, Richard Carranza told stories of students who overcame significant odds to achieve success.
There was Nataly Degollado, who was accepted to Texas Southern University and the University of Houston-Downtown two years after having a baby. He mentioned Nhedrick Jabier, the fourth-grader from Crespo Elementary who won this year’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Oratory competition after moving to Houston from Puerto Rico.
But he said such outcomes will become more difficult to repeat if the state continues to inadequately fund public education and if the district must surrender millions to Texas through a controversial funding allocation process called “recapture.”
“I ask the Legislature to look at public education as an investment, not an expense,” Carranza said Wednesday. “It’s an investment in children, an investment in the future for our city and state and nation.”
More than 2,000 people
“It’s hard to imagine how a child can be motivated or focus on school when their social, medical and basic needs are not being met — no matter what amount of resources or money you throw at a school.” Richard Carranza, HISD superintendent
crowded the Hilton Americas Hotel ballroom in downtown Houston to hear Carranza and others address the successes and challenges that the district faces. The event, hosted by the HISD Foundation, also recognized distinguished alumni with awards. Recipients included Roland Martin, a journalist and former CNN analyst who graduated from Yates High School, and Aleida Rios, a Milby High graduate who is now BP’s vice president of operations for the Gulf of Mexico.
But the focus of the luncheon was Carranza’s assessment of the district and his plans.
Among the biggest issues facing the district, Carranza said, is state funding and specifically “recapture,” under which districts with higher property values give money to the state to help fund property-poor districts.
Houston ISD fell into that property-rich category for the first time this school year, but in November about 60 percent of Houston voters decided against paying the then-$162 million in recapture fees. After the vote, the Texas Education Agency said it would detach about $8 billion worth of commercial property from Houston ISD so that it could use the tax revenue from it instead.
‘Band-Aid after Band-Aid’
Since the vote, the Texas Senate has formed a work-study group to look into overhauling the state’s finance system. The TEA also reduced HISD’s recapture fee to $77.5 million after it recognized half of the local homestead exemption, along with adjustments made to student enrollment and property value figures. Carranza cited those actions as triumphs.
“With that ‘no,’ we helped force a conversation in Austin that has long needed to happen,” Carranza said. “You helped to create a movement, and now because of that, there is the slightest glimmer of potential movement on the capital.”
A second referendum will be put to Houston voters in May asking again whether or not the district should back “recapture.” But Carranza said that regardless of the second referendum’s outcome, he will keep pushing for an improved school-funding system to replace the current one held together by “Band-Aid after Band-Aid.”
He again called for more centralization in the district by moving from “a confederation of independent schools to an independent school district.”
“Now, I don’t want you all to think that a one-size-fits-all approach is what I want or what our schools, our students, and our communities need,” Carranza said. “That notion couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
He cited the district’s Literacy by 3 program, a district-wide literacy initiative aimed at getting students reading and writing on grade level by third grade. The district is also implementing a similar districtwide program for middle school students, about 60 percent of whom are currently reading below grade level. The push trained all middle-school teachers on best practices for literacy and emphasizes reading and vocabulary in classes such as science and math, and provided all middle schools with more books.
Similar districtwide changes are coming to computer sciences, said Carranza, who pledged to double the district’s number of computer teachers in the next two years and to expand computer classes to all district high schools by the end of 2017.
Resources plan revealed
Carranza also announced a plan to better provide students and their families with government, nonprofit and other resources through what he called “Community in Schools.”
“Almost 80 percent of our students are living in poverty, many in decaying neighborhoods. Many are homeless. Many move from school to school each year based on the cheapest apartment their family can find,” Carranza said. “It’s hard to imagine how a child can be motivated or focus on school when their social, medical and basic needs are not being met — no matter what amount of resources or money you throw at a school.”
He proposed creating an “umbrella of supports” by partnering with local nonprofits and agencies to help identify students in need and steer them and their families toward the right resources. For example, if a school learns that a student is homeless, it cannot do much itself because it likely does not employ a housing services coordinator on campus. But if a district coordinator could work with other nonprofits to get that student and his family the services they need, schools could help resolve many out-of-classroom issues faced by students.
Said Carranza: “I’ve never seen a community that is better positioned to do that kind of collective impact work than Houston.”