Opponents Blast Perry Ad Touting Education Boosts

Press Release

They say state contributed little to funding increase for public schools, By Gary Scharrer, Houston Chronicle
September 19, 2006

Gov. Rick Perry's new TV ad touting accomplishments in public schools gets a failing grade from opponents aiming for his job.

In it, the governor brags about higher student achievement, more education funding and higher classroom standards.

"Since I became governor, education funding has increased $9 billion, we passed a $2,000 teacher pay raise and the nation's largest merit-pay program," Perry says in the TV spot.

But Perry and the state had little to do with the funding increase, his critics said.
"When it comes to dropouts, Rick Perry can't even admit that we have a problem," Bell said. "We are losing almost four of every 10 kids because of our dropout crisis, and it's only getting worse."

More than $7 billion of the increased public education spending over the past six years came from local property taxes as more of the cost of public schools shifted from the state to property owners, said Brad McClellan, campaign manager for Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is running for governor as an independent in the Nov. 7 election.

Perry spokesman Robert Black disputed that calculation.

"They cannot make the case that we're using local property taxes because local property taxes are not part of the appropriations process. The Legislature never sees that money," he said.

And he said the Strayhorn camp disregarded $3.8 billion in new state money for education that state lawmakers approved in a special session earlier this year.

Democratic candidate Chris Bell faults Perry for doing little to target high school dropouts, which Bell considers a crisis.

About 38 percent of high school students entering the ninth grade fail to graduate with their class four years later, according to San Antonio-based Research Association Intercultural Development.

"When it comes to dropouts, Rick Perry can't even admit that we have a problem," Bell said. "We are losing almost four of every 10 kids because of our dropout crisis, and it's only getting worse."

Black called Bell's assertion "bogus." "He's the only governor who has ever addressed (the dropout problem)," Black said, citing a $130 million partnership among the state and the Gates and Dell foundations.

Black also disputed the dropout numbers.

"We track the actual child and not just look at abstract numbers," he said, suggesting a dropout figure of 4.3 percent for the 2005 class.

There were 239,716 high school seniors graduating in the class of 2005, according to the Texas Education Agency, leaving more than 124,000 unaccounted for from the 364,270 students from that class who entered ninth grade in 2001.

Black questioned those numbers because they don't account for students who got their general education degree or who transferred out of state.

Bell blamed the high-stakes nature of the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test for part of the dropout problem because, he said, "it pushes kids out of the system when they can't pass the test."

Texas teachers, whose pay trailed the national average by about $6,000 last year, got a $2,000 raise this year.

"Too little, too late," said Louis Malfaro, president of an Austin education association and a Strayhorn ally.

Independent candidate Kinky Friedman joined Bell and Strayhorn in criticizing Perry's education ad.

"The governor has really let down the students and teachers of Texas," Friedman spokeswoman Laura Stromberg said.

The $2,000 pay raise is "a court-ordered crumb that still leaves Texas teachers way behind the national average," she said.

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