Study shows East Texas students at risk

Also: Republicans in apoplexy; Abbott has one thing right

Children at Risk, a non-profit that started in Houston 35 years ago as a local effort and has morphed into a statewide mission to help meet the needs of impoverished children, has produced its periodic list ranking Texas schools for their overall effectiveness.

I’m not going to leave you in suspense. Children behind the Pine Curtain consistently are last in line.

The group’s standards are generally more stringent than the state’s and it ranks schools on such things as how students do on standardized tests, campus performance on test scores and how much improvement is taking place. The study also looks at students’ college readiness.

There are some bright spots fairly near the top. Frankston High School in Anderson County was the first Pine Curtain school I spotted with a ranking of 118 of the 1,263 schools. That’s not at all bad for a small public high school.

Hudson High School, located just west of Lufkin in Angelina County, was ranked 160 and Smith County’s Lindale High School achieved a 180 ranking. Sabine High in Gregg County ranked 186, and Broaddus High in San Augustine County was ranked 198. Only Cushing High School in Nacogdoches County was left in the top 200 schools, though a few charter schools in East Texas were sprinkled in.

At least no East Texas schools were at the very bottom. The lowest ranking East Texas school was Jasper High at 1,235, with Huntsville High just a few steps higher at 1,207

Tyler High was ranked at 1,201, while its sister school, Legacy High, just up Loop 323 was ranked at 852. That’s a whopping difference between schools in the same community. I didn’t dig deeply enough into the numbers, though, to know if any two schools in the same city had a larger difference.

If you want to do your own research, you’ll find the results at children@risk.org.

Other East Texas cities of interest include Alto, ranked at 1,166; Marshall 1,154; Hemphill, 1,149; Nacogdoches, 1,122; Rusk 1,103; San Augustine, 1,034; Kilgore, 916; Lufkin, 710; Mineola, 613; Mount Pleasant, 393; Palestine, 392, and Longview, ranked 306.

I suggest you look at the full list yourself. You just might be motivated to run for the school board.

It’s important to know that these low rankings have little (if anything) to do with the quality of teachers and other educators in the district. They also aren’t related to the desire of local school boards to give children the best education possible.

Many of the lower ranking schools are in rural areas and small school districts which have few alternatives for funding and are severely limited by the state for tax rates.

They must meet state requirements without the same kind of funding as the larger districts get. Districts in economically depressed areas aren’t given extra money to make up for the lagging resources.

The state’s funding logic has been the subject of numerous lawsuits over the last four decades. We still don’t have it right.

If you are reading this from behind the Pine Curtain, you likely have children or grandchildren who are suffering from the lack of state support. Unfortunately, with the current state leadership, the future doesn’t look much better.

You can be an advocate for change and you can vote but be prepared: The battle will be uphill all the way.

———

The sputtering you hear from the right is the sound of Texas Republicans who can’t believe that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule against the state because, after all, they are supposed to be loyal to Donald Trump.

The court, in a narrow decision, said the feds are free to take down barbed-wire barriers erected by the state along the border because such enforcement is the purview of the federal government.

It was a 5-4 ruling with Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts voting with the three more liberal justices to allow the border patrol to remove the barriers.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, who seems to be vying for the title of nuttiest Texas representative now that he doesn’t have to compete against Louie Gohmert, was apoplectic with rage and said the state should just ignore the court ruling. So much for the Rule of Law. Maybe he thinks it should be the Rule of Roy.

I would say that cooler heads will prevail but there aren’t any cool heads in Texas government. At times you have to wonder if there are any heads at all.

It seems to be that Republicans think that if their party is responsible for nominating and approving a justice to the court, then they get to mandate rulings. Uh, sorry, but that’s not the way it really works.

This isn’t the first time one of Trump’s “lambs” has strayed a bit. We can all hope that it will not be the last.

———

It’s probably not surprising to regular readers of this column, but I don’t often agree with any of the policies pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott. What’s more, as he plays to the MAGA crowd, he’s getting ever worse.

We do agree on one thing, though, and it’s a biggie: Texas shouldn’t have to foot the entire bill for dealing with migrants, who come to the United States seeking asylum. That, burden needs to be shared by all and it should be done in a humane manner.

Remember, these people have followed the rules established by the United States government. They’ve done not one thing wrong. They deserve to be treated right.

Abbott hasn’t done that but he’s correct that other parts of the country need to chip in to help. Unfortunately, our governor has used the migrants as political pawns, sending them to cities that aren’t expecting them and aren’t prepared to care for them.

There is a way to do this the right way. Abbott knows this fully well, he just wants to try to use migrants to his advantage. Can you say, “despicable” governor?

The right way would be to establish a real connection with states to plan when and where the migrants will arrive. That gives the destination city time to prepare a place for housing and feeding them.

Then, too, Abbott needs to include all the other states, not just those with Democrat governors or cities with Democratic mayors. Migrants would properly be sent to Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, places that now have Republican governors.

Given just a little planning this, Texas gets some relief, and no one place has to shoulder that much of a burden.

Don’t count on such a sensible and orderly process coming to pass. Those words are not in the Republican Party playbook and certainly not in Abbott’s lexicon. He only wins when chaos reigns.

Coordinating this would not be simple but it is certainly within the abilities of the states to make it work. All that is required is a little “want to.” Unfortunately, the desire to do the right thing is in short supply, it seems.