Welcome to the first e-Letter edition of the IDRA Newsletter! Published 10 times a year, the IDRA Newsletter explores issues facing U.S. education today and strategies to better serve every student. Now you can choose how you want to receive the newsletter, which is published in print and on the IDRA website, in addition to this mobile-ready e-Letter format. Feel free to share this e-Letter with your friends and colleagues or unsubscribe as you wish with the links at the top of this page.

by María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, Ph.D.

As a nation, we often seem to talk about poverty as if it impacts a small number of people. But today, close to 50 million Americans are poor. Education has been and is a way out of poverty, especially for minority students. Students with a college degree have fared far better (even during the last recession) than those who either left school before graduation or earned only a high school diploma.

Yet we continue to miss the mark of preparing all students well – and this disproportionately impacts low-income and minority students. Even as a child’s zip code continues to play such a big role in that child’s future, education has become more essential.

“We must ensure that Texas provides equitable access to excellent education – to high quality curricula, good teaching, support services and facilities – for all students in all school districts. We can’t compete in the global marketplace if we do not get serious about creating top quality schooling for all students.”
– Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, IDRA President and CEO

By providing high quality education for all students, we can leverage opportunity, if we know how to focus our efforts. The good news is that we do know how.

In a recent issue of Time, former President Bill Clinton lays out a case for optimism in tumultuous times based on learnings from the Global Initiative (2012). I believe that a case for optimism can also be made at the intersection of education and poverty for at least five reasons: education is a stated priority; educators are showing what works; technology connects us, and courage can be catching; many views of poverty aren’t true; and contributions of young people are inspiring. – Keep reading

Highlights of IDRA’s Expert Reports and Testimony

On December 3, 2012, Dr. Albert Cortez, IDRA’s Director of Policy, presented testimony in the Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition vs. Michael Williams, et al., school funding trial in Austin. The testimony was based on a series of expert reports IDRA prepared for one of the plaintiffs, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, between August and November 2012.

“In Texas, the quality of schooling still is markedly affected by the neighborhood in which you happen to reside.” - Dr. Albert Cortez, IDRA Policy Director

Highlights derived from research conducted by IDRA and reported in testimony are presented here, including school funding disparities in Texas school districts in 2011-12, impact of increasing ELL and low-income student funding weights, and special program cuts and district property wealth disparities.

Based on our analyses, IDRA concluded that the Texas school finance system – with its continued support of unequalized funding and the target revenue mechanism that undermines the equity features of state’s funding formulae – is inequitable, provides inadequate levels of funding for educating ELL and low-income students, has disparate impacts on low property wealth and major urban school districts, and suffered special program cuts that negatively impacted students in low wealth school districts. – Keep reading

by Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed.

A key fundamental element in our Quality Schools Action Framework and the central issue in the founding of IDRA, is fair funding. It is not the sole element, but it is fundamental and will be an ongoing and challenging goal to reach. States must fund public schools at a level that achieves excellence and equity for all children.

The many arguments to syphon public money away from public schools range from “look at all we’ve invested and gotten no returns” to “money doesn’t make a difference,” from questioning the efficiency of how the dollars are used to the claim that putting money into “those schools” for “those kids” is putting good money after bad. Ultimately the argument boils down to “money does make a difference but only for ‘our’ [affluent] children.”

One huge attack on having excellent public schools has been to under-fund them and then complain about poor results. Parallel to direct cuts in education funding is the major challenge from voucher proponents. Here is a list of reasons vouchers are bad for public education and bad for families. – Keep reading

Classnotes podcasts on fair funding:

• Fair Funding Now! for Excellent Schooling – Episode 102
• Implications of Inequitable School Funding – Episode 68
• Fundamentals for School Change – Episode 52

Fair Funding Now! initiative – Get news, share how funding cuts have affected your school, get funding info for your Texas school & download English and Spanish handouts

At a time when public education makes a world of difference to our students, communities and economic success, many are looking for strategies that will work for them and that will last. Courage to Connect: A Quality Schools Action Framework shows how communities and schools can work together to strengthen their capacity to be successful with all of their students.

IDRA founder, the late Dr. José Angel Cárdenas, tells the story of the founding of IDRA in the book, Texas School Finance Reform: An IDRA Perspective. 2013 marks 40 years of IDRA’s work with educators, policymakers, parents, students and communities to fulfill the promise of equity and excellence for all students.