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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The purpose of this accounting as to how and why so much has happened so fast is simple: To 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.

Given the quick spread of this transparency movement ("like a wildfire" says the DC Examiner) -- 3 small
Texas districts and 1 in California 21 months ago to 250 districts in 14 states today -- plus the fact that so
many of the districts posting are in Texas (226), 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.

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)

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.

The second and perhaps for many the most improbable leg is the grassroots movement. Why it
happened at all is simple. 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 no school district 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 started The National School District Honor Roll 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 3
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 present tally: at least 164
districts in 14 states, with $46 billion in annual 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 to either the statewide or the national online check register transparency movement --
arrived in two phases. First there were years and years of Texas 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 a 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, the original draft of the proposed
bill was geared towards the wants and needs of the think tank and 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. Although the bill in
diluted form finally passed the Texas House after several tries, it failed on the last possible day in the
Senate, 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.

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. For instance, in August 2006 I was detained by three
armed school district police officers because I thought the public had the right to view photographs of that
district's misleading signage (it had 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 person several blocks off campus; after a
scuffle the person was shot.

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, going strictly on my own observation, the failed bill appeared to have
been one of many more or less thrown at the wall by that group 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 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.

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:
www.peytonwolcott.com/NationalSchoolDistrictHonorRoll_AskingYourDistrict.htm

Also useful:
www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/commissioner/adopted/0706/109-1002-ltradopt.html
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/tea/check/fy07/
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/tea/check/fy08/

1st: SPECIFIC ACTION BY THE GOVERNOR
Governor Rick Perry signed Executive Order RP 47.
(August 2005)

2nd: SPECIFIC ACTION AT THE LOCAL
GRASSROOTS LEVEL
I began compiling a national roster on my website, starting
with the names of 3 small Texas districts; eventually we
developed successful strategies in addition to working with
board members, superintendents, parents and taxpayers
across the nation. (October 2006)

3rd: SPECIFIC ACTION AT THE STATE DOE
Texas Commissioner of Education (then deputy
commissioner) Robert Scott put the Texas Education
Agency's check register. online (Feb. 2007)

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

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
Originally published in Education News Friday, March 21, 2008
Updated Saturday, July 19, 2008

Call me the Boswell* of the national online school district check register
transparency movement.

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

Edgewood ISD's PR guy Mario Rios (L) with two of the three
armed Edgewood ISD poliice officers who detained me (Aug. 3, 2008)

Lobbyists in gallery at Texas Lege
May 2007

Former Llano ISD supe Jack Patton (far left) negotiating
settlement with LISD board after he became Texas' first
Public Information Act conviction

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.

LTISD v. Lovelace SLAPP
Austin, Texas - Oct. 26, 2006

THE THREE IMPORTANT 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.