Central Texas District Spotlight: Austin ISD & Office of Innovation and Development

Shirley Heitzman, Executive Director of the Office of Innovation and Development for Austin Independent School District (AISD) was invited to contribute as a guest blogger to share highlights of February's CTEF meeting with Dr. Carstarphen. Heitzman leads AISD's partnership and resource development efforts to improve educational outcomes in a district of over 86,000 students.



Photo courtesy of AISD.

This last February, CTEF membership met with  Austin Independent School District’s Superintendent, Meria Carstarphen and Austin Corporate Investors Network members to discuss high interest topics including current successes and challenges in the District, as well as answer questions on topics of interest to the group. More information on the State of the District can be found here. 

Austin is an amazing city, topping the charts of the greatest place to live, run a business and to raise kids. How else can we become the top? We can be number one in education by increasing the number of students who graduate from our public schools through strengthening our student support systems and by increasing community support.



Image courtesy of AISD.



We all have a stake in public education. It is the most important investment that we can make as a community for the future health and prosperity of our city, state and nation. As a community, we need to determine the quality of education we demand for our kids. We need to ask ourselves whether we have the courage and community will to adequately invest in our school and in our children’s education for the future.



How can you contribute and invest in the future of our students and community to continue making Austin great and opportunities greater? Although AISD is currently on sound financial footing, the financial crisis in education remains and additional, tough cuts will have to be made in the coming years. AISD anticipates the need to secure an additional $30 million in private funding over the next three years to continue to provide new delivery models, improve the overall school and district climate for learning and develop academic achievement and support strategies for special populations through accelerated and differentiated instruction. AISD is humbly asking you to help support and fund these innovative strategies to increase student achievement in the areas such as the Arts, Pre-K, expanding Literacy, and High Dosage Tutoring.



While celebrating our diversity, AISD also embraces the challenges of providing excellent education to all of those students in our ever changing demographic. AISD wants to get operations, partnerships and innovations right for ALL of our students, so that AISD can be used as the standard against which urban public education are measured.

To learn more on how to strategically partner with AISD, visit The Office of Innovation and Development. Equally, visit AISD's webpage to learn more details on AISD programs. It is through vibrant, community collaborations that AISD is successful in preparing students for college, career and life.

Taking it to the Courts - A Mission for Fairness

The blog entry below is authored by September guest speaker on school finance, Lauren Cook, Director of Communications at Equity Center, a non-profit advocacy and research organization founded 30 years ago to represent school districts that are chronically underfunded by the Texas school finance system. As a product of Texas public schools from kindergarten through her undergraduate (English) and master's degree (Spanish) from UT Austin, she is a passionate supporter of public education.  

Like most people, school district administrators don't enjoy going to court. It's time-consuming, expensive, and stressful. But public schools in Texas have been backed into a corner and have no other option for seeking fair funding for their students and taxpayers. For that reason, groups of districts are currently organizing to sue the state based on the grounds that our current school finance system does not meet the requirements for public education established by the Texas Constitution.

Why do we have a system that treats Texas children and taxpayers so unfairly? Especially considering the fact that since 2000, the 181 members of our state legislature have met in 11 sessions in which public school finance was either a primary focus (six regular sessions) or the sole reason the session was called (five special sessions), one would think that we would finally have a system that is efficient, rational, and fair.

But we don't.

The current system is none of those things, and districts will file a lawsuit to claim that it is inequitable (both for students and taxpayers), inefficient, inadequate, and lacking in meaningful discretion for local district tax rates.

In other words, it's not fair. For example, the current system allows districts like Alamo Heights ISD to spend more than $1,000 more per weighted student than San Antonio ISD has access to (at the same tax rate!). It forces districts like Ysleta ISD to tax at the maximum rate allowable by law ($1.17 per $100 value), only to receive $500 less per student than what is spent in Frisco ISD at $1.04 tax rate. 

These inequities can't continue. Not only do they affect the educational opportunities available to students across the state, but they perpetuate an unfair system of taxation for residential and business property owners.

So what outcome are these soon-to-be plaintiff districts seeking? They are calling for a school finance system that is fair for all Texas taxpayers and students, and one that allows all children to have access to world class educational opportunities.

The legislature has had more than its fair share of opportunities to restructure our school funding system and address these critical flaws. During this past legislative session, instead of making the system more rational and fair,  members chose to cut public education spending by over $5 billion, and they chose to cut those districts that were already funded at the very bottom by approximately $300/student for the current school year.

By reducing overall funding to public education and by cutting those districts that didn't have any funds to spare, the legislature sent a clear message that it does not have the political will to make the hard choices and clean up the system.

So it's time for districts to seek a remedy from the other governmental body that is supposed to protect the constitutional rights of all Texans. Because that's really what the courts are for --checks and balances. Well we think it's high time for the legislature's inaction to be "checked" and for our school finance system to finally be "balanced."

Our Texas school children and taxpayers simply can't wait.