ARTICLE FROM INTERCOM REGARDING BOB THOMPSON AND LIONEL R. MENO:
When Governor Richards appointed Skip Meno to be the Texas Commissioner of Education, she knew exactly what she was doing. She was bringing the liberal school-to-work agenda to Texas. Skip Meno and Bob Thompson hailed from the same liberal culture in the upstate area of New York and were probably already buddies. Thompson had already come to Texas and ensconced himself in an education professorship at Lamar Tech in Beaumont. When Meno got here, amazingly he named Bob Thompson to head up his committee on restructuring Texas' public schools.
Never mind that there was nothing wrong at the time with public education in Texas--except for, of course, inner-city black student populated schools, and it was politically incorrect to fix those. Texas up until these outsiders descended on us had been chugging along for a hundred years producing excellently educated academic scholars who attended prestigious universities within the state as well as all over America. Notice that I didn't say anything about poor inner-city Hispanic public schools. THOSE schools were chugging along producing well-educated students as well. If their parents would let them go (and many would not), those students as well attended prestigious universities and did well.
I know that because I grew up in El Paso where the population was 85% Hispanic, and I had been a cross-over teacher at a black school in Houston (Booker T. Washington High School) in 1970-71. My Hispanic friends and students did as well or better than my Anglo friends and students. And for the record, there wasn't a thing wrong with the students' intellectual abilities at BTW; what was wrong was the education they had been receiving from poorly educated black teachers that they had endured. None of it was anyone's fault except for the prejudice that had existed against blacks in America. Once those students had well educated teachers, they did just fine, if those teachers were allowed to teach. Unfortunately, the prejudice was turned around on those of us who were not black, and for the most part, being a white teacher in a black school was of no value to anyone.
The principal at Booker T. Washington, Franklyn D. Wesley, was the most prejudiced man I ever met--and not, ironically, prejudiced against whites, but against the black students at his school in north Houston. He did everything he could to keep them "in their place." It didn't take long to figure out his scheme. And there wasn't one thing I could do about it (and believe me, I tried) except do the best I could to educate my students and tell them about the world outside their neighborhood. If I reached even a few of them, that was success! MM
****************************************************************************************************************************************
Committee Seeks Ways to Improve TEA, Will Advise Commissioner on Restructuring
Article from early 1990's regarding Lionel R. Meno's Efforts to Reform Texas Education
from INTERCOM
Commissioner of Education Lionel R. Meno has appointed an eight-member committee to advise him on how the Texas Education Agency should be organized to help local school districts improve student achievement.
The committee, which includes educators and business professionals, is conducting a series of public hearings throughout the state to receive suggestions from local school administrators, educators, and the public as part of its effort to develop suggested criteria which Meno can use to develop an organizational structure for the Agency.
Bob Thompson, professor of educational administration, chairman of the Educational Leadership Department and director of the Institute for Educational Leadership at Lamar University, heads the advisory committee. Other committee members are Bob Digneo, division manager-external affairs. Southwestern Bell Telephone, Austin; John Jones, marketing manager, IBM Corporation, Austin; Douglas Day, manager J. C. Penney Co. Highland Mall store, Austin; Victor Rodriquez, superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District, San Antonio; Lynn Hale, superintendent of the Deer Park ISD; Ray Kinnison, superintendent of the Seagraves ISD, Seagraves; and Mercedes Bonner, the 1990 Texas Secondary Teacher of the Year from Hodges Bend Middle School in the Fort Bend ISD, Sugar Land.
The committee conducted its first hearing August 7 at the Region XX Education Service Center in San Antonio. Other hearings will be held in Richardson, Lubbock, Houston, Mercedes and El Paso.
At each hearing site, committee members are interviewing selected school district personnel in morning sessions before conducting public hearings in the afternoon for other individuals who wish to address the committee.
A hearing at which Agency employees will have the opportunity to address the committee has been tentatively scheduled for August 20. Additional information concerning the time and location of the hearing will be sent to employees prior to the hearing date.
Committee members are seeking responses to four basic questions concerning Agency...
[The rest of the article is lost--but I don't think it contained anything important. What I want the reader to notice is that Commissioner Meno thought that two businessmen, three superintendents from three mediocre Texas school districts, and a token teacher were who should be in charge of the effort to "improve student achievement!" It's almost laughable if it weren't so serious. The fix was on, and this ringer was here to wipe out academic public education in Texas as quickly as he could, and unfortunately, he was good at doing just that. The article is accompanied by a photo of five of the six committee members, Bob Thompson and Skip Meno. MM]