I represent Central West and Central Northwest Houston, including my own neighborhood, River Oaks, as well as Tanglewood, Briargrove, Timbergrove, and others. In fact, Senator Ellis is my Senator.

Last week, we all heard some very unfortunate words spoken from the State Capitol – happily not from your side of the Capitol, but from the other. The words were that “the educators are against everything, and for nothing.”

Well, we are here today – members of the Houston and Dallas ISD Boards, and our superintendents, to say that we are for a great deal of what we have seen in SB8. In particular, I want to applaud many of the reform provisions in the bill. Reform of this kind has been needed in education in Texas, and in fact, reform is the main reason why I ran for election to the Board a year and a half ago.

Your provisions for a teacher pay increase are welcome, and needed, as we must do more to attract and retain the best educators. Also, your provisions for incentive pay are excellent, and we agree that this is an area that needs more attention in education. We also support your provisions for consequences for failing schools.

We are not against reform, we are for it. In fact, HISD has been a leader in reform for a decade, including in the areas targeted in your bill.

Regarding teacher pay increases, our board approved just last month a three percent across the board pay increase for our teachers, despite desperately tight finances and cutbacks in other areas, including administration. HISD has increased teacher pay by more than 36% in the past six years.

Regarding incentive pay, our board approved last month a large incentive pay system to be implemented beginning later this month for all teachers. That system provides $14 million in incentive pay to help recruit and retain the best educators.

Because we all know that there is not enough money in the state of Texas to pay every teacher what the best teacher is worth.

Regarding consequences for failing schools, HISD administration this past February announced the reconstitution and requests for proposals for three persistently low performing high schools, and two of those schools will be re-opening with reconstituted faculties later this month.

At HISD, we know that reform is not easy, and it is often not popular. But it is part of the solution to what ails us in education today.

You asked for comments on what provisions of the bill we believe need improvement. As a general comment, we believe the bill does not adequately address the needs of Texas’ large urban areas, with their diverse, at-risk populations, and the increased costs associated with those situations.

We strongly believe that higher weights are crucial for compensatory education, bilingual education, and special education. The area of growth in Texas - unfortunately – is in at-risk populations. Those populations are the most expensive to educate. If we are to prepare Texas for the future which demographics tells us will be ours, we must do what is necessary to educate these populations. Houston is a microcosm, and a glimpse into the future, of what Texas will look like not very long into the future. Funding formulas that do not work in Houston now, will not work in Texas in the future.

We also strongly urge you to review the Cost of Education Index to ensure that the higher costs for everything in our largest urban areas are acknowledged.

Finally, I implore you to return a provision that we had heard was going to be a part of the bill – and that is supplemental funding to provide full day quality preschool for qualifying children. Having studied this issue intensively for several years, and being very familiar with the costs, benefits and characteristics of quality preschool, I can tell you that there is no better investment in education today than ensuring that our at-risk populations have access to full day quality preschool.

Currently funding exists for half day preschool, but many of the children who need it most do not access it because they live in single parent households where the parent is unavailable to pick up a child from a half day program half way through the day. Sadly these children are usually found in neighborhood day care facilities that often are no more than supervised playgroups, and which include no educational component.

At-risk children enter the HISD in kindergarten already 1-2 years behind their more economically advantaged peers, and longitudinal study after study have shown that these children never catch up. These are the children that drop out in ninth grade. These are the dropouts. These are the children we are failing, and the cause of future social ills that will last another generation. We ask that you return supplemental funding for quality preschool to the bill.

Finally, you asked that we not mention adequacy, and so I will try only to touch on this subject briefly.

And yet funding adequacy is central to solving the problem at hand – as is reform – but both – not one or the other – are needed to solve the problem.

The first step to solving a problem is realizing we have one, although of course there are varying opinions on adequacy. However, we not long ago came to the end of a long legal process in which the court ruled that Texas’ educational funding is absolutely inadequate. And, as you know, by appealing directly to the Texas Supreme Court, the State admitted before the Supreme Court that it did not dispute the findings of fact from that earlier decision. And that means that Texas’ funding inadequacy is a matter of fact from a legal perspective.

I know how difficult raising taxes – or lowering some and increasing others – can be, and we are here to offer our help in broadening and increasing the public dialog on this subject. I believe, based on the people I know both in the voting public, and in the business community, that there is support for increased funding if it comes in the form of fair, equitable business taxes that spread the cost across the entire economy.

I believe it is essential, not only from a social perspective, but from a business perspective, that we increase funding for education now alongside continued reforms in a system that has come a long way, but still has a long way to go.

Thank you for your time.