Highlights from our interview with Dax Gonzalez, Director of Government Relations for Texas Association of School Boards.

Lone Star Standard: What services does TASB offer its members?

Gonzalez: Austin is a very unique case in that Austin is a very big district and they have resources to have staff do various things across their district. We have about 1,018 or 1,019 school districts across the state and the majority of those districts are small, rural districts. And so, where AISD might have 50 people, Dibill ISD or Loving ISD maybe have one person. What we do are things like, we have a service which is a cooperative purchasing entity. And what they do is they help throughout the bidding process that districts go through to buy things like toilet paper. We do all the bidding for them to get them the best deal. So a small district that doesn’t have the same buying power as Houston ISD or Dallas ISD can get the same price for a certain good that they could not get just by buying on their own. And, so, that’s one way, but another way that we have several services, like legal services, where a district can call and ask for legal advice without having to call a $300 an hour attorney to provide that same advice. And, so that is another way that we help districts to save money. We have a policy service division that helps to take all the laws that are created in a legislative session and all the different associated rules and things that go along with that and, transferred into policy, model policy really, that a district can take and review and cater to their needs.

Lone Star Standard: Has TASB taken a position on the state passing laws to address smartphones in schools?

Gonzalez: It’s something that they’ve talked about anecdotally. It’s not something that has come up on our advocacy agenda. And, like I said, we still haven’t passed it and the agenda will be passed later in September. But that’s something where as an association, if we were asked that question right now, is our advocacy agenda stands from the previous two year cycle, that it’s a matter of local control. In some districts the parents don’t want their kids to have phones in the classrooms, the administrators may not want it, or the teachers may not want it. So, let them make that decision there. But, in some communities, parents want their kids, if something happens, if there’s some kind of emergency, something going on. They want to have a way to reach their children. So, the people closest to those parents, the people closest to the ground are the school board members right there. They were elected by those parents. They hear from those parents at school board meetings. And, so, they’re best poised to take that input and also balance it against research that they get from the staff, saying, well, we see if kids bring phones to school, there’s a propensity for blank, or scores go up or down, or whatever the case may be. They’re able to balance that as stewards of the ISD, to balance that against the wishes of the community.

Lone Star Standard: How do you respond to those that say Texas schools have historic funding levels?

Gonzalez: Yeah. So, schools now are having to provide the same services that they provided back in 2019, getting that same amount of money that they were. So, they’re buying power is now reduced. Right now we’ll hear some people say, ‘well, schools are getting more money than ever, and it’s more money than they’ve ever gotten in the history of Texas.’ One, those aren’t inflation adjusted numbers. They’re just saying raw numbers, there’s a lot more money in there. But, to a lot of that, money really isn’t classroom dedicated money. Last session, the bulk of the money that the state spent towards education was to buy down property taxes. That did nothing to increase the amount of money going into the classroom that was solely to lower school district property tax rates, so homeowners could see a break in their tax bills. And that’s a laudable goal. It’s a worthy goal. But that was $18 billion that the state put towards that and none of that was new money for kids. It was all just to buy down property taxes. The level, the basic allotment, that the state decides each school gets for school funding stayed exactly the same. There was some money for school safety that was provided. They did a per kid increase in the school safety allotment, and a $15,000 per campus allotment. But they also required that every campus have an armed guard. Well, armed guards cost between $25,125 to $105,000 for not just the salary, but also benefits. An officer with a gun. This is an armed security officer, for training, for a vehicle. All that adds up. And $15,000 per campus isn’t going to cut it.

Lone Star Standard: What is your position on education savings accounts or school vouchers and why?

Gonzalez: Our agendas for many years now have been, expressed our members’ opposition to a voucher program primarily because of the lack of accountability and transparency that would come with such a program. None of the bills that we have seen have adequate accountability to make sure that if a kid is leaving the public education system, are they being served well? Are they learning? Because what we’ve seen in other state is that, especially your economically disadvantaged kids who use a voucher, they come back a year later further behind than when they left because they haven’t been getting the services that they need. We worry about special education services not being provided to kids in private schools. You’ll hear that private schools provide special education services, and they may. But there’s a difference between services for kids with dyslexia and for kids who are paraplegic or require constant medical attention. That is a huge spectrum. And so they can say that some provide special education services, but it’s not the right kind. In fact, what will happen a lot of times is private schools will contract with public schools to provide those more intensive special education services. And public schools do provide more intensive special education services. And, so I think a lot of the angst with vouchers among educators and among school board members comes from this giving away of money that has no financial transparency, no educational transparency or accountability associated with it.

Dax Gonzalez is the Governmental Relations Division Director at the Texas Association of School Boards. Dax joins the show to discuss TASB advocacy efforts including increasing local control, improved funding, school choice/vouchers, and more. 

This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity. 

Listen to the full discussion here: https://texas-talks.simplecast.com/404.html.