One time in the early 1980s when the Texas Lege decided to do a major overhaul of the state’s public school system, the elected officials zeroed in on the teachers. See, back then the whole country was in an uproar about kids graduating who could not read. How could that be? This sort of thing doesn’t happen in other modernized nations, just in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Obviously, kids were being passed on from grade to grade until handed a diploma and good riddance from our high schools. It was indeed a national disgrace. So the Texas Lege decided to do something about it once and for all.
Teachers were the only suspects. Every week, they were with the state’s kids more than their parents, supposedly teaching them subjects like literature, grammar, math, science, history, social studies. Texas was out to brand teachers with the letter F, I guess, for Failure. Anyway, teachers found themselves in the embarrassing position of having to pass a competency test or lose their jobs. Yes, teachers, every single one of them, including anyone like college professors who also wanted to maintain their Texas Teacher Certificates, had to take the test. Anyone who failed the reading and writing teacher tests would lose their certification and subsequently be fired and not allowed to teach without returning to college and acquiring proper certification again.
It was a certifiable Texas-size mess. Public school teachers, young or seasoned—teachers of kindergarten to high school, football coach to band director to elementary classroom—had to take the one-time teacher competency test. Many probably retired and scoffed at the idea, but most who wanted their jobs (paying around $17,000 in those days, and that was after Gov. Mark White increased teacher annual salaries by $5,000) studied up on their writing and reading comprehension and vocabulary skills. Who knew what the State was going to put on a teacher competency test?
But I am happy to report, at that time practically every single teacher in Texas passed the competency test, around 98 percent. Woo doggies! However, there were some who failed. A coach and a shop teacher come to mind as they spoke to the media about it, poor guys.
Among aspiring teachers in college in the 1980s, we thought this pathetic attempt to force teachers to take a ‘competency’ test had racist undertones. Regardless, our turn was coming for our set of competency tests in writing, reading and even math. And the pre-professional skills tests remained to test Texas college students who want to be certified teachers. Supposedly they had to pass all three tests before they could continue with the education coursework required for a certified Texas teacher.
One other thing the Texas Lege did in the 1980s to overhaul public education was to write into law exactly what teachers shall teach (‘shall’ a legal term meaning ‘must’). There’s even an app for it now. Each subject for every grade level had all its concepts divided into legalese like 5.1, 5.2, etc. And the breakdown goes further and more precise, like 5.1.a, 5.1.b, etc. Each line is a specific concept that teachers shall teach, document as having taught, and mark as student mastered.
While I was in college, older students took required courses for a degree and teacher certification. Then that route was changed. The tests came along and then state law called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, first published as a manuscript in the mid 1980s. Fortunately for me, everything I was taught to teach was in there, the new law. But before then, teachers were free to teach or concentrate on anything they wanted, any set of skills they felt were of more importance than others.
Also, new teachers of the 1980s were told the State considers every teacher a reading teacher. So if any student graduates who cannot read, we all are responsible and could face legal consequences along with our schools and districts. Read: lawsuit. Got it. Make sure every student can read, and do something about it if a student cannot read. Gladly.
Tinkering with Texas’ past, present & future
As this is an odd-number year, the Texas Lege is convening in Austin with a publicized priority to do something about the state’s public schools. The mass shootings, the trans students, the Black history, the Mexican history—this is just all too much for our aging Legislators and Governor. Their gray heads are ’bout to burst. And aren’t most of them still white men unwilling to see other perspectives in this shared experience called life?
According to The Texas Tribune article (link below), the good news is legislators from both sides of the aisle agree the big state surplus should be used to increase school safety, increase teacher salaries, change school finance, and require a mental health course for every student prior to graduation. The state has been losing teachers big time for decades. There are school districts where the majority of teachers aren’t certified. A lot of people don’t want to go to college to learn to be a teacher only to be scrutinized from the get-go with competency tests. Then there’s the salary compared to other careers requiring a college degree. And an assortment of newfangled education philosophies out there, like no one should make a career out of teaching, do it a few years and get out (forget the pension; the state would love for teachers to forget about it), or just get a degree and go teach ten years to have the college cost reduced or paid off. No education background necessary. Texas started allowing anyone, with any college degree, to be a teacher. And for a few, that career path turns out to be a lifelong worthwhile enjoyable challenge. But as everyone knows, especially Texas legislators, not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. That has always been true—why most teachers quit within five years.
But the Texas Lege this year also wants to tinker with students’ expressed sexual identity and mute talk about racism in the classroom. These are the hot-button issues of our time, as the Texas Lege sees it. No, they really aren’t. Families have been dealing with sexual identity issues forever; this is their private issue, not one the State of Texas insists being involved.
As for race discussions in the classrooms of subjects like history, today’s white students are way ahead of our Texas legislators when it comes to our state’s and country’s racial history. They get it. Black lives do matter to today’s white students. Whites do have privileges and advantages just because they’re white. Texas history and American history cannot be taught correctly and thoroughly without acknowledging how a bunch of white people got control of all this land, from sea to shining sea. Where are the Native people of this land, this state? Why were they kicked out of this territory and pushed all the way to southeast Oklahoma? Why did plantation owners have to have slave labor, every single one of them from Africa? How can any human being, so-called God-fearing Christians, own another human being?
Kids today want to know the answers to our history. But the good old boys in the Texas Legislature aren’t about to spill the beans. Too late! By now the truth of our collective multicultural history is very well known—every disgusting detail. Today’s students are the Texans who don’t have a problem with truth setting us free. They have what it takes to make the future better for everyone not just some.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/02/texas-legislature-public-education/