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WELCOME ALIEF ISD VOTERS
Re-Elect Dr. John Hansen
Position 1, Alief ISD Board of Trustees
November 6, 2007
KEEP AN EFFECTIVE TRUSTEE
GOOD SCHOOLS ARE NOT AUTOMATIC!
CAREER HISTORY
I have spent much of my adult lifetime in the field of education. After completing the coursework for his Ph.D. in Economics at Rice University, I taught at the University of St. Thomas (Houston) and Ohio Wesleyan University. I completed my doctoral dissertation and returned to Houston, where I spent the next six years as a business consultant. I then took a position on the faculty of Houston Baptist University where I wrote several textbooks and textbook supplements in the fields of statistics and corporate finance. After leaving Houston Baptist University, I have been involved in investment management.
ELECTION TO THE BOARD
I was first elected to the Alief ISD Board of Trustees in November 1993 at a time when Alief ISD was just beginning to recover from the effects of the “Oil Crash” of the 1980s. Alief ISD had lost about 40% of its property values from the high point in 1984. The District tax rate had risen from $0.95 to $1.80 in just 8 years. At one point, the District had been forced to borrow money just to pay its payroll on time. Alief taxpayers were in an unhappy mood and demanding that the rise in the tax rate be halted.
In bringing the District back to fiscal health, a concerted effort was needed by both the Board of Trustees and the professional staff to identify unnecessary overhead expen-ditures and concentrate Alief’s limited resources in its classrooms. I believe I played a key leadership role in bringing this about. In 1994, the Board recruited the Texas Superintendent of the Year, Dr. James Smith to take over as Alief’s Superintendent. Dr. Smith brought a wealth of experience in both business and instructional management to Alief ISD. When Dr. Smith eventually took his retirement, the Board promoted Dr. Louis Stoerner from the position of Deputy Superintendent for Business Affairs to the position of District Superintendent. In his turn, Dr. Stoerner has proven himself to be one of the outstanding Superintendents in the state.
While decreasing the tax rate, Alief ISD has funded a major increase in the District’s instructional technology and provided a competitive raise in employee pay in every year that I have been on the Board. Three bond issues have been passed and successfully funded. 16 new schools have been built – within budget and on time. Today the tax rate stands at $1.265 – down from the $1.80 that it was when I came on the Alief Board.
IMPROVEMENT IN STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
In 1993, Alief ISD had already begun to see the major demographic shift that is now obvious to everyone. Without question, these changes in our student population have required Alief to develop many new strategies and programs to deal with the new problems these students brought with them.
One of the earliest efforts (which is still in operation) was the Parent Involvement Program - which recognizes that in many families the close involvement in the education of the children that once existed in Alief, is no longer there. We know that the job of the classroom teacher becomes far more difficult when parents don’t demonstrate their interest in education by their direct involvement, so Alief created a room on each campus to attract parents (called a Parent Center) and hired a cadre of paraprofessionals -called parent educators - whose role it is to help parents see what they need to do to help their children learn.
Various intervention programs have been developed and implemented to provide additional help for students with various types of special needs. In recent years, Alief has increasingly focused on students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) as this has become a larger and larger part of the Alief student population.
Recognizing that students with above average potential also have needs, I successfully pushed for an expanded gifted & talented program. The centerpiece of this is the Alief Institute for Math and Science (AIMS), which provides a challenging instructional program taught only by G-T certified teachers to maximize the achievement of these high potential students. This program is widely recognized as one of Alief’s most successful.
As a result of financial pressures, many Texas school districts have severely reduced or even eliminated their programs in the performing and visual arts. I take great pride in the leadership role that I played in preserving vibrant arts programs in Alief ISD. In particular, I was directly responsible along with Ms. Paula Smith, the then Coordinator for the Performing Arts in Alief, for the creation of the Alief Jazz Ballet – a student group that is well recognized and highly regarded throughout the Houston region. It remains to this day the only such group sponsored by a Texas school district.
I have long recognized that many students need courses that have direct career applications in order to be adequately motivated. He has pushed during his entire Board tenure for increased and improved offerings in Career and Technology Education (CATE) which is the current term for what used to be referred to as “Vocational” education. The Automotive Tech program was dramatically improved and now turns out students capable of ASE certification. The Hotel and Restaurant Management program is directly overseen by the University of Houston Hilton School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. Students who complete the Alief program can go directly into the hospitality industry after high school or they can enroll in a university level program such as the one offered by the Hilton school. An office management program is offered in cooperation with several local employers who provide co-op opportunities for Alief students. A health careers program is operated in conjunction with the West Houston Medical Center.
Unfortunately, one of the serious limits on the expansion of career education is the number of specific courses currently required by the Texas Legislature. Currently, all students are required to follow the Recommended Program unless their parents specifically sign an “opt out” form. This Recommended Program is intended to prepare students to enter a four-year liberal arts college program. It is well thought out for that purpose, but it only allows students a total of three elective courses in their entire four years of high school. With only three electives, students on the Recommended Program really can’t pursue any serious CATE programs. That limits the CATE students to those not on the Recommended Program and many of the CATE courses struggle to draw adequate enrollments.
The net result of all of these instructional efforts has been a dramatic rise in the percentage of Alief students showing success on state and national tests. The percentage of Alief students passing the required Texas exams has more than doubled during my tenure on the Board. As a result of systematic encouragement, Alief now has a higher percentage of its students taking the Advanced Placement (AP) exams and the SAT and College Board exams for college entrance than the state average. Despite the high percentage of low-income students in Alief, Alief students now match the state averages for these exams.
ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE
It would be nice to be able to say that all of Alief’s problems are now solved and we can all safely go back to sleep. Of course, that is not the case. The biggest single issue facing all Texas school districts in the next 2-3 years is, without question, funding. The Third Special Session of the Texas Legislature (2006), passed HB 1, which made a number of major changes to Texas school finance. It created a new business receipts tax and committed all of the revenues from this tax to reducing the property taxes levied by school districts. The school Maintenance & Operating (M&O) tax rate was reduced by 1/3 in each school district. I strongly supported this change because I believe Texas has been too dependent on property taxes for the support of its schools. However, the Legislature did not want schools to make a “profit” from the switch in tax bases, so it placed in the law a “hold-harmless” provision which said that school districts cannot have more funding per student than they had in the 2005-06 school year.
So far, I am OK with that. But, it put no time limit on the hold-harmless. So now, Texas school districts can never have more funding per student than they had in 2005-06! No matter how much costs increase, school districts can never have any additional revenue. How are we to pay for higher teacher salaries? How are we to pay for higher energy prices? How are we to pay for higher insurance costs? The Legislature has left us with no answers. Clearly, at some point in time, either this must change or school districts will lose most of their best teachers and be forced to eliminate even essential programs.
Until such time as the law is changed, school districts will have to manage their budgets with extreme care. Because of all the efforts we made in previous years, there is very little “fat” in the budgets in Alief ISD. Because we have built a culture of cost-consciousness in Alief, I expect to have a great deal of cooperation from our employees. But starting with the 2007-08 budget, we will have to run budget deficits in order to preserve our programs and live up to our commitments to our employees. These deficits will certainly increase over time.
Obviously, we will only be able to sustain that for a limited number of years. We are counting on change in the law at some point. Our hope is based on our belief that most districts are in far worse financial trouble than we are. Some nearby districts have run deficits for several years, now. Alief has, to this point, run small surpluses. A metaphor I have been using is that Texas school districts are heading for a train wreck. Alief’s goal is to be one of the last districts to arrive at that train wreck. My commitment to you is to manage the District’s resources so as to preserve Alief’s instructional program but to maximize the time we can last before arriving at that train wreck. That may sound grim, but it is an honest statement of where we are.
Unfortunately, this shortfall in state support comes as our percentage of at-risk students continues to rise. This means we must continue to improve student achievement with little or no new money for additional resources. This will not be easy. I think our highest priority for the next year or two must be our high school program. I say this simply because this is the level at which our performance on the state exams has been the weakest.
I believe that the next several years are going to demand Board Members who can work effectively as a team and who have a good grasp of the limits of our financial resources. I believe I have demonstrated that I have these traits. I ask for your support for another four years to continue my efforts on behalf of you and our community’s children.
Sincerely,
Dr. John P. Hansen
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