Hutto playing politics with education (Houston, Orange: sale, construction, school district)

[centralaustinite]

I think that the underlying problem is the housing crisis. There was too much money sloshing around the system and it was easy to put up inexpensive housing in outlying areas and even easier to buy such homes. The school district had to respond to the growth by building new schools and expanding. But when credit tightened too many homes were no longer worth as much as the underlying mortgage. Property taxes take a hit, economic growth slows and the schools have less money to spend. Painful.

[hoffdano]

HISD's tax rate for repayment of bonds is near the $.50 limit. That probably reflects the cost of bonds issued for construction that has occurred in recent history. Hopefully as the bonds are paid off, that portion of property taxes drops.

[ScoPro]

One way to cut office administration would be to have a set ratio of administrators to students.

And to set that ratio, return to what it was in public schools 50 years ago.

I don't know what the Hutto ISD administration numbers are, but Austin ISD and RRISD administration personnel have bloomed at a much higher growth rate than the student population. In both those districts, teachers are outnumbered by staff 2-1.

It got so bad years ago in the RRISD that lots of central administrators were farmed out to school campuses to "hide" them.

Incredible, IMO.

[hoffdano]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

One way to cut office administration would be to have a set ratio of administrators to students.

And to set that ratio, return to what it was in public schools 50 years ago.

I don't know what the Hutto ISD administration numbers are, but Austin ISD and RRISD administration personnel have bloomed at a much higher growth rate than the student population. In both those districts, teachers are outnumbered by staff 2-1.

It got so bad years ago in the RRISD that lots of central administrators were farmed out to school campuses to "hide" them.

Incredible, IMO.

I think it is too simple to just compare the # of teachers to the # of "staff" without looking at the specific positions in the "staff" category.

If you look at the HISD numbers in the link I provided above, they have 460 professional employees. Of those, 365 are teachers.

They have 720 total employees, but 213 are in the category "Auxiliary" at an average annual pay of just $20K. They also have about 47 educational aides (not a professional position) and they earn less the $19K per year.

Note that I have no idea if HISD's numbers are appropriate or not.

I don't know what the equivalent numbers are for AISD or RRISD. But before I made any sweeping statements about ratios I want to know where the positions are and what these people do.

[centralaustinite]

Frankly there are many more state and federal requirements to meet now than there were 50 years ago. I completely agree that administrative bloat is a horror but you are comparing apples to oranges. Recordkeeping, testing, test data compiling, tracking student achievement, tracking teacher achievement (accreditation, subject test requirements, etc), schools generate enormous amounts of data to meet state and federal mandate. By necessity, there is more administrative staff now than 50 years ago . . . how to determine what is really necessary? Umm . . . maybe a study or some consultants.

(duck!)

[ScoPro]

Dump half the intrusive & useless bureaucratic requirements.

But I know that's not going to happen, given the direction our federal & state governments are going (and have been for 40+ years). Getting rid of the excess of bureaucracy is tougher than exterminating cockroaches.

We are so bound up in central directives & mandates that it's a miracle schools can function at all. No wonder education is failing in this country (not everywhere of course).

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

Dump half the intrusive & useless bureaucratic requirements.

But I know that's not going to happen, given the direction our federal & state governments are going (and have been for 40+ years). Getting rid of the excess of bureaucracy is tougher than exterminating cockroaches.

We are so bound up in central directives & mandates that it's a miracle schools can function at all. No wonder education is failing in this country (not everywhere of course).

Some of the mandates come from the Federal level and cannot be cut.
The area of SPED education is one of them. Cannot cut this area at all so other areas must be cut.

And it's not just HISD feeling the pain; this is going on in other school districts as well. Bonds issued a few years ago are a big part of it.

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Some of the mandates come from the Federal level and cannot be cut.
The area of SPED education is one of them. Cannot cut this area at all so other areas must be cut.

And it's not just HISD feeling the pain; this is going on in other school districts as well. Bonds issued a few years ago are a big part of it.

I included the feds who btw are in the process of dumping the No Child Left Behind Act.
Never say never.

What has ticked me off over the years are the dishonest political & administrative demagogues who, when faced with budget cuts, always feed the public the alarmist pap that the first to go have to be the frontline "troops" - teachers, policemen, firemen, etc. - before any mention is made about the legions of central administrators and numerous superfluous programs. The ones who use that despicable tactic should be the first ones fired, IMO. They rarely are because they have learned to protect their little power fiefdoms so well.

I notice after all the wailing in 2011 about the deep budget cuts for the current school year in RRISD and AISD, both districts found a substantial amount of $$ to rehire laid off teachers and to hire new personnel.

Having considerable personal and family experience with both districts for 45 years, some of us know that those in charge will literally lie to the public to CYA.

There's a reason AISD is the only school district in Texas History to be indicted on felony criminal charges.

Again, just personal observations & opinion.

But I apologize if I got off topic from Hutto's problems. I'm just hoping their leaders do not mimic those of RR or Austin.

[love roses]

I'm sure there's administrative bloat in our district somewhere.

[centralaustinite]

The Texas Observer recently had an article that talked about the fact that right now it is the districts who have learned to run lean who are being punished -- I think state funding is frozen at the moment at 2008 levels. So districts who were doing more with less in 2008 are punished as the funding level fails to rise, while those with more bloat, now have more fat to cut and aren't down to the bone.

So Hutto could have been doing everything right and running a lean, efficient, administrator-lite district and they will still feel pain. More pain than a less efficient district!

Here's the link: http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-s...-gonna-take-it