Voucher Program and McAllen ISD
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
Life is just so discouraging at times and it’s just getting worse, not better.
I was an optimist when I was younger. Then I grew up. Unfortunately.
Take McAllen, for example. Now there is friction between the city and the school district, dismantling at least for the time being, a working partnership that has been in place for decades, to the benefit of all taxpayers.
Sure, (alleged) school sex scandals would come and go, blow up marriages, jobs, maybe soil some school furniture, but at least that didn’t affect the public partnership.
Now, this Monday, longtime, seasoned board trustee Sam Saldivar resigned from the school board, and people are taking pot shots at one another, and at the center of it all — money. By unanimous vote, the board voted to appoint his replacement at the next board meeting.
If it were up to me, I’d bring back former longtime board trustee Danny Vela. A business guy with common sense. Not sure if he wants the job, but if he does, he needs to apply by this Friday, 3 p.m.
Talk about a guy who weathered many a storm, that would be Vela.
Saldivar’s been there through a lot of trials and tribulations himself and stayed put. Now he’s gone, so whatever is going on behind closed doors has to be too much for even him to bear. It really makes one want to be a fly on the wall during executive sessions.
The new board president is Sofia Peña, who replaces Debbie Crane Aliseda.
No comment.
Saldivar’s departure might have something to do with McAllen ISD’s announcement made earlier this year, by a board vote of 4-2 (Crane Aliseda and Kittleman comprised the minority) to break its MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the City of McAllen, dating back to 2021, to help fund the city’s expansion at Quinta Mazatlan.
The school district currently owes the city $3 million out of the $4 million promised as part of the MOU, but has said it can’t pay because it’s broke.
The city has said it’s willing to work out a payment plan over time, so we’ll see how that goes.
Some teachers, too, aren’t happy with school business. (More on that in a future issue.)
For taxpayers, students, teachers, it’s always better for the two entities — school and city — to get along.
This weekend, someone siding with the district took a swipe against the city late at night by posting comments on the ISD’s social-media page, saying that the city of McAllen wouldn’t help out the district by providing the school district with bleachers needed for its regional baseball quarterfinals. They didn’t mention the MOU deal, though, so part of the story was missing, but such is social media.
That’s how bad the relationship has deteriorated. With any luck it will be restored. We can only hope.
I can dig deep in the weeds over this story — why the school district was approximately $16 million short of spending projections when new superintendent, Dr. Rene Gutierrez, came on board late last year — but don’t have the time this week.
Brain-replacement surgery scheduled for tomorrow.
Joking.
Thankfully.
School Vouchers
What I can do, though, is put in my two cents about what I think of the governor’s plan to ram school vouchers down the throat of Texas residents like me who think they’re asinine.
They are only going to hurt public school districts like McAllen ISD more as they siphon more students from their enrollment.
Why is Gov. Greg Abbott doing this?
Money, in my opinion. The love of money. Campaign money from bigtime donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They used to be a happily married couple, by the way, before Melinda got tired of Bill hanging out (no pun intended) with former pedophile (alleged) extraordinaire Jeffrey Epstein (the guy didn’t commit suicide).
The state currently has approximately $5 billion waiting to be sent to schools. That bill was passed last year. An appropriations bill, however, wasn’t passed with regard to how the money will be spent by school districts, so there it sits.
The appropriations bill wasn’t passed intentionally, because the governor wanted the state legislature to pass his beloved school voucher program. In other words, he was holding the billions hostage, along with his pet poodle, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, former radio jock, and the majority of Republicans in both the state house and senate.
Next session, though, the school voucher bill will likely pass because out of the 21 Republican lawmakers who ultimately shut the plan down by siding with the Democrats, most will likely not be a problem in the future.
Those Republicans mostly came from rural districts in the western part of the state, and they knew that if a charter school, or private school, came into their district, it would be a disaster for their respective public — school budgets. Many would undoubtedly go out of business.
Of those 21 brave souls, four Republicans chose not to seek reelection (the endless special sessions probably did it for them), five others lost their primaries to Abbott clones, and four others still face runoffs. It’s been estimated by some that the governor only needs to get his guy, or girl, to win one of the runoffs for the voucher program to be a slam dunk next special session.
Meaning, except for the people who will make money off the voucher program, the traditional public-school districts will only lose more money than they already have since the charter schools came to Texas more than 20 years ago. If their student enrollment declined without school vouchers, how much more will be lost once the brain-dead vouchers become a reality?
We’re not talking about your modest charter school, by the way, even though in a small district, that would still make a difference when it came to the annual budget.
No, we’re talking about the big charters, the big private operators, like IDEA. You know, the charter outfit that flew its people on private jets. Handed Mercedes SUVs to administrators and sat them down in luxury seats at the Spurs games. Paid the superintendent (Tom Terrific) an annual salary close to a million bucks.
I know it’s disgusting. I feel the same way.
IDEA Public Schools, the state’s largest charter school network, did so well, in fact, that in March of this year, the Texas Education Agency placed it under conservatorship.
The two conservators who now oversee IDEA’s board are paid $125 per hour plus necessary travel expenses.
What a deal for taxpayers.
Educate Reynosa?
By the way, time to close out this column, but the photo of the school buses at the top of this column? Those allegedly belong to IDEA Public Schools. I say allegedly, because I still need to vet the story, which goes like this — IDEA sends school buses to the Hidalgo International Bridge every morning to pick up kids crossing the border from Reynosa. They are then driven to IDEA campuses, where Texas taxpayers pay to educate them. In the afternoon, IDEA (allegedly) drives the students back to the bridge, drops them off in a parking lot, and says adios, as the kids cross back into Reynosa.
If this is indeed true, which I’m pretty sure it is, does that seem wrong to anyone but me?
Going to dig into the story next week, so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, let’s hope the city of McAllen and McAllen ISD can get back on track. They had a great working relationship for many years. No reason it can’t continue.