REAL WORLD NEEDS:

A press release on New Year's day from the Texas Education Agency appeared in the Houston Chronicle proclaiming that "more than 1,000 forums were held statewide in October and November" in 1993 and were attended by 'more than 25,500 Texans" who told state officials what they thought "students needed to know before they graduate and compete in the 'real world.' "

Although presented as fact, this proclamation fails to tell the entire story. Last Spring, Commissioner of Education, Lionel "Skip" Meno, suffering from criticism statewide for his outcome based initiatives, devised a plan to dupe the public into thinking they were coming up with education reform movements instead of their being initiated by the Commissioner who had been brought in from New York to reform Texas' public education.  Under the umbrella of the "Texas Education Agency, in cooperation with Governor Ann Richards, the Department of Commerce, the Texas Employment Commission and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board," he appointed a 75 member committee whose stated purpose was to "undertake an extensive public participation process to determine what students need to know and be able to do to succeed in the real world." [Of interest is the fact that the "headhunter" who brought us two of KISD's superintendents (Hugh Hayes and Leonard Merrell) was Bob Thompson who was the chairman of Meno's "75 member committee"!]

Sounds harmless on its face, but some interesting facts raise questions.  Although proclaiming massive (?) participation by the public, 1,000 meetings around the state would indicate that perhaps not all of the 1,062 school districts had even one meeting. A little application of pure math (problem solving variety) would tell us that twenty-five people per meeting from not all the school districts in Texas are telling the rest of us what we want!  But wait!  It is also notable that the Austin-Statesman reported on November 18, 1993, (quoting from Cynthia Levinson who was also quoted in the previously mentioned Chronicle article) that only 375 forums with about 9,000 participants had been held.  Leaving only November 19, (a Friday), November 22 and 23, (the two days before Thanksgiving vacation) and November 29 and 30 before the end of the designated November time period, one has to wonder when and where 675 forums with 16,500 participants were held in just five days, two of which are not usually used for public meetings!

Ms. Levinson is also quoted as saying that "more than half the participants were educators and another 15% were "representatives from business, industry and labor."  She also states that 40% were parents.  Either she is using new math or some of those "parents" were also educators and business people therefore lowering the percentage of plain parents to 35% or less.

Applied math then tells us that 24 participants at each of the meetings in only one-third of our school districts are actually having any input.  Continuing with Ms. Levinson's figures, at least 12 of the 24 were educators and four were business representatives, leaving maybe eight parents in 375 school districts deciding the thrust of public education in Texas. One can also imagine that in true facilitated, Delphied fashion, only the insiders at those meetings had a clue how they were being manipulated.

On the surface the commissioner would have the public believe they have had an opportunity for input into the process for setting educational goals for their children, but what has actually transpired is a scam, designed, orchestrated and contrived to foist the commissioner's Outcome Based educational directives on the public and let the public believe that they asked for this stuff! In some circles that kind of fraud might result in criminal charges.

It is also my belief, based upon information distributed at a KISD School Board Math Workshop on December 7, 1993 (five days after the deadline for holding the commissioner's forums, but long before any input could possibly have been tallied by the TEA whose report is not due until February) that the state's essential elements have already been revised! I was given a copy of the new math essential elements at a school board meeting! IF they had already been revised, such an action would further bear out the premise that all the forums, and the time, effort and money that was spent propagating the few that were held, were a huge waste of the taxpayer's money, done just for show, and were just another example of the way the public is being duped by the bureaucrats in Austin. 

I actually attended one of those 'Real World Forum" meetings.  The superintendent (Hugh Hayes) did not tell the Board members that the meeting was being held as he didn't want us to know about it or attend. I read about it in a back page article of the Chronicle and went on my own.  I played all the games that were played by the TEA rep.  Ken Burton showed up in the middle of the meeting, took one look at the materials, and said, "I know what this is" and walked out.  (Ken doesn't like to play games with them like I do.)  One of the things we were asked to do was to get in our facilitated groups and come up with a list of courses we thought all students should take.  I suggested that they all take Honors Physics.  Everyone looked at me incredulously, and so I explained, "I expect my OWN children to take this course, and I would be remiss if I didn't want everyone else's children to take it!"  No one could argue with that, and in fact some administrators from HISD thought it a great idea, so they put Honors Physics on the list.  It was too funny.