Vote Ken Mercer

In 2012 because of redistricting, all seats on the Texas State Board of Education will be on the ballot. Even though many of us just ran in 2010, we will be required to run again in 2012 if we intend to retain our seats.

I am humbled to request your financial help for my re-election campaign. Your gift today of $5, $10, $25, $50, or more will help to ensure my conservative representation on the State Board of Education (SBOE).

As you know, because of my conservative leadership, I am again a target of the far left. I need your support to defend my seat.

Many supporters do not realize that as an elected State Board of Education member representing 1.8 million constituents in twelve counties, I receive no salary or benefits.

For example, a State Representative, who represents 150,000 constituents, is blessed with an officeholder allowance from the State of Texas of about $160,000 per year. That funding supports an office in Austin, an office in the Representative’s home district, three or more professional staffers, mailers to constituents, several computers, cell phones, furniture, and other equipment.

A State Representative also receives a small monthly salary, health insurance, and is enrolled in the pension plan.

Again, as a Member of the State Board of Education, I do not receive any allowance or salary.

This is not a complaint — just a fact. My intention is to help my constituents to understand why I need your financial help to defend our values.

There are three ways you can financially help our campaign.

First, you can go donate here at our website and contribute using the “DONATE” button. Your contribution is secured using PayPal.

Second, some have expressed a desire to give a “reoccurring” amount of $9.95 or more a month.

Finally, you can use the regular U.S. mail and send your gift to:

Friends of Ken Mercer
P.O. Box 781301
San Antonio, Texas 78278-1301

Please make your checks out to: Friends of Ken Mercer

Thank you for allowing me to represent you on the Texas State Board of Education. As always, please remember our 12- year theme of “Family, Faith and Freedom.” We want to strengthen the family, respect our faith, and defend our freedom!

Ken

Thank you for allowing me to respond to your editorial in which you referred to me as a conservative ‘zealot” on the State Board of Education (SBOE).

True, I will not always agree 100% with academic “experts” who come before the SBOE. True, there is a “culture war” of political ideology and philosophy, especially in the area of new standards for American History, Government, and Economics.

It might interest members of the Chamber of Commerce to know that “experts” had deleted every reference to the free enterprise and free market system in the K through Grade 12 draft version of the Social Studies standards.

Because I certainly could not agree with these “experts,” I successfully brought forward and passed the amendment, complying with Texas law, to restore the teaching of the positive benefits of the free market for creating jobs and opportunities.

Another example: A panel of university “experts,” led by a professor from the University of Texas at El Paso, voted 8-1 against American Exceptionalism. When I questioned that action at a public SBOE hearing, the “expert” immediately launched into a lecture about how wonderful Socialism is in a “good democracy.

When I asked the UTEP professor for his example of a good democracy, he replied “Venezuela.” I reminded him that the President of Venezuela has made sure that the state has control of every newspaper, radio, and television station in that country.

One Ph.D. “expert” testified that “high school students are unqualified to ask questions.” I countered that if our children are no longer allowed to raise their hands in class and ask honest questions, then we are no longer living in a place called the United States of America.

A professor from the University of Texas at Austin shared a survey that included 51 professors from the History Department. Fifty answered “Democrat” when asked their political affiliation.

While we SBOE members were searching for examples of good role models for our minority students, one “expert” pushed for a current board member of the Democrat Socialist Party of America. My amendment deleted the Socialist and added Navy Seaman Philip Bazaar, the first Hispanic recipient of the Medal of Honor, and Army Sgt. William Carney, the first African-American recipient of the Medal of Honor.

Finally, “experts” deleted Veteran’s Day, Independence Day, and the Liberty Bell from the Grades 3-4 Social Studies standards. “Experts” also raised a concern about the use of the word “patriot” in the new standards.

My fellow Conservatives and I carried the amendments to restore the coverage of Veteran’s Day, Independence Day, and the Liberty Bell along with many other essential historical elements of America’s history, such as including the word “patriot.”

I also voted to ensure that from K-12, as age appropriate, our students will actually read and study the authorship and purpose of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Our Texas school students will also study the impact those documents had on such historical milestones as the Emancipation Proclamation and women’s suffrage.

I am sad to report that too many university “experts” range from being America bashers to America haters. Unfortunately this editorial board blindly sides only with those types of “experts.”

I often state, “The Far Left is scared to death of a place called Texas.” Why? Texas has an elected SBOE, not a politically appointed board.

I am a representative of 1.8 million constituents in a very conservative district, and I am not a rubber stamp for the agenda being directed at our public school students by the “Far Left zealots.”

Ken Mercer
Member: Texas State Board of Education
Former Member: Texas State House

I strongly disagree with two of my colleagues on the State Board of Education – Bob Craig (R – Lubbock) and freshman Thomas Ratliff (R – Mt. Pleasant) – who led an effort to change the Texas Constitution and take $2 billion away from the principal (e.g., corpus, assets) of the Permanent School Fund (PSF).

Ratliff — believed to be the only elected state official who is also a registered, full-time professional education-related lobbyist to the Texas Legislature — testified before the April 19 Senate Finance Committee on the proposal. He stated that “we” (meaning the SBOE members) had discussed this item.

As a matter of public record, that proposal to raid the PSF of $2 billion was never posted as an official agenda item for the April 13 – 15, 2011, SBOE meeting; there was no public comment; and it was never publicly discussed or debated by the full membership of the SBOE. The proposal lobbied to the Senate Finance Committee was an initiative discussed and signed behind closed doors.

I believe the closed-door meeting of SBOE members to discuss the $2 billion raid of the PSF may be a direct violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.

The PSF is commonly known as the “children’s textbook fund.” The state’s early-day founders created the endowment to help fund public education; and since 1919, the PSF has been used to ensure that Texas schoolchildren receive free textbooks.

However, because of the economic downturn after the Civil War, the original fund was raided and depleted by the 1865 Legislature.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson reminded the Senate Finance Committee at its April 19, 2011, meeting that in 1876 Texas changed its Constitution to forever protect the children’s textbook fund from any future raids. That is why the legal term today is the “Permanent” School Fund.

When I took my oath of office as a State Board of Education member, I promised to uphold the Constitution, which demands that the SBOE protect and preserve the PSF for future generations, and use any proceeds to provide free textbooks for our 4.8 million public schoolchildren.

The Texas Constitution provides a key tenet of American exceptionalism: the separation of powers. Permanent funds are managed by the executive branch, separate from those who appropriate funds, i.e., the Legislature. This Constitutional separation should prevent any attempt to raid an endowment fund meant to be permanent.

I firmly agree with Sen. Kevin Eltife (R -Tyler) who correctly painted the PSF proposal as both a “raid “of the children’s fund and “bad public policy”!

In the Senate Finance discussion, Sen. Florence Shapiro (R – Plano) and Sen. Dan Patrick (R – Houston) both correctly noted that such a “one-time” $2 billion proposal would move authority for PSF spending decisions away from the executive branch (the SBOE) to the legislative branch. That is a bad precedent to set.

Sen. Ed Lucio (D – Brownsville) also expressed a concern that the proposal, if passed, could impact the rating of guaranteed school bonds that are backed by the value of the fund.

Thomas Ratliff, with just three months of SBOE service, concluded his testimony to the Senate by stating, “We could not sit back and not do anything.” I take exception to Ratliff’s comment.

In 2010, under the leadership of SBOE Chair Gail Lowe (R – Lampasas) and then-PSF Committee Chair David Bradley (R – Beaumont), critical discussions were held with Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Land Commissioner Patterson to help ensure the SBOE could pay out the most PSF funding possible while still being prudent in managing the endowment for the long term.

The results were a payout from earnings, as allowed by the Constitution, of $1.2 billion for the current budget and another commitment of $1.8 billion for education for the upcoming biennium. The careful management by the members of the SBOE had resulted in protecting the principal (e.g., corpus, assets) of the fund. This was a major accomplishment by the SBOE.

Next, conservatives on the SBOE joined with Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Republican Congressional delegation to call for a repeal of the federal budget amendment authored by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D – Austin) that withheld $830 million from Texas schools.

Texas now has that $3.0 billion from the PSF payout from earnings plus the $830 million that the Doggett amendment held back from our Texas schools. This adds up to $3.8 billion in new education funding. Thomas Ratliff’s public comment to the Senate Finance Committee in which he accused the past SBOE members of sitting back and doing nothing was truly out of line.

The proposal led by Craig and Ratliff to raid $2 billion from the principal of the Permanent School Fund to meet a budget deficit is both bad public policy and bad precedent. The unprecedented promotion of the idea of robbing $2 billion from the PSF without the issue being posted on the SBOE agenda, without public comment or debate, and without any advice from legal or investment counsel, may be a direct violation of the Open Meetings Act and an unauthorized, if not outright illegal, action.

Public Education Funding Must Focus on Classroom!

Negotiations on the state budget are down to the final days – if not hours – and, once again, public education funding remains the outstanding issue.

Whether Texas lawmakers write the 2012-13 budget prior to the regular session’s end later this month or whether they have to return for a special session, a rising chorus of voices is calling for the bulk of public education funding to go directly into the classroom. The state comptroller made that job a little easier by recently telling lawmakers they have an extra $1 billion to fund the budget.

In this budget debate, let’s not forget instructional materials are one of the most basic of classroom items. When the state pays for textbooks and other instructional materials, 100 percent of that money goes into Texas classrooms. This is one of the most tangible contributions the state provides to public education.

The funding of instructional materials is important for several reasons, not the least of which is the requirement in the Texas Constitution that the state provide public school students with free textbooks.

The Permanent School Fund (PSF), commonly know as the “Children’s textbook fund,” was created by the state in 1854 and is an educational endowment that benefits the schools by helping to pay for basic education costs, including the purchase of textbooks and other instructional materials. Even at that time the state of Texas wanted to ease the tax burden on its citizens by helping to pay for public education and textbooks.

More recently, the State Board of Education (SBOE) answered the calls of educators, parents and legislators, to raise educational standards and stop teaching to the test.

Our reform efforts to bring back the basics of education are reflected in the new stronger standards and new end-of-course exams which are set to begin at the end of the next school year. New instructional materials have been developed in accordance with the curriculum required by the new standards; they have been printed and are waiting in warehouses to be delivered to classrooms.

These new textbooks will replace materials that are anywhere from 8 to 18 years old. The new materials are for core subjects like reading, writing, and grammar, and or subjects designed to get students to a position where they can do well in these subjects.

Not funding new instructional materials, aligned with our new higher education standards, is essentially an unfunded mandate. It is also a travesty because earlier this year the SBOE provided budget writers with $3 billion of non-tax revenues form the Permanent School Fund. The price tag for the new instructional materials is under $500 million, one sixth of the amount we transferred to legislative budget writers.

And if all this is not enough, these outdated materials could result in legal action against the state – a lawsuit many of my colleagues agree the state would lose.

All this can be avoided by buying the textbooks Texas school children deserve and for which money has been previously allocated.

Of course, instructional materials encompass both traditional textbooks and electronic delivery options. How students read the textbooks is not nearly as important as having up-to-date material for them to learn from, material that matches the new curriculum.

Even as a very young state, Texans understood that there are few things more basic to a successful society than educating its children. That sentiment still runs strong today.

According to a statewide poll, 78 percent of Texans, regardless of political affiliation or geographic location, support funding for new instructional materials.

The importance of adequately funding education has been consistently underscored this session by Texas business groups. They are concerned about the long-term effects that a drastically reduced education budget will have on the state’s ability to produce an educated workforce.

The Texas Legislature needs to do the right thing and put up-to-date instructional materials in the classroom and avoid creating another unfunded mandate.

This coming Thursday, April 1, 2011, while the Texas Legislature is voting on the new education budget, the entrenched political lobby of the Far Left is fighting to stop the funding of the new English Language Arts textbooks.

Why? The new standards include a return to a strong emphasis on phonics, explicit grammar, spelling, and handwriting. Texas’ employers will tell you that these English skills are critical for a student’s success.

The Far Left, however, wants to keep funding their decade’s old, political failure called “whole language” which includes holistic scoring of essays (scoring an essay with a 1, 2, 3, or 4), inventive spelling, and no direct systematic instruction of grammar/usage.

As a member of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), I can tell you that the results of whole language are devastating. The Commission for a College Ready Texas reported that 50 % of college freshmen in Texas are unprepared and must enroll in remedial or developmental education. Texas students consistently rank in the bottom ten percent of our nation in the language sections of the college ACT and SAT exams.

Taxpayers must not continue another decade of funding the political, education disaster of whole language.

In May 2008 the conservatives on the SBOE had the courage and the backbone to listen to their constituents’ cries to go “back to the basics.” Now our students need those new textbooks to help them learn the newly adopted standards. Many of the current textbooks are 12-18 years old.

Phonics is a key plank of the conservative agenda for education reform. We want our children to be successful. The ability of students in America to read and write English is critical to that success.

Of course the Far Left is stating that there are no funds for the new phonics-based curriculum.

That is a political lie.

The 2010 SBOE, led by Chairman Gail Lowe (R – Lampasas), voted to send the 2011 Texas Legislature $3 billion dollars of brand new funding for public education. That money is not from taxes or fees but is made possible through the careful management by the SBOE of the Permanent School Fund (PSF). It is the PSF endowment that provides free textbooks to school children.

The Texas Constitution gives the SBOE the authority to fund the textbooks, but the Legislature has to agree to appropriate the money. The cost to fund new phonics-based textbooks for our 4.8 million K-12 students over the next ten years is approximately $450 million, much cheaper than continuing to replace the expensive whole language textbooks.

Please call your State Legislators and ask them to vote for the children of Texas, not the self proclaimed “experts” of the whole language lobby. The SBOE provided $3 billion or six times the funding required to pay for new textbooks that will emphasize phonics and the other basic and important English skills. Texas must fully fund phonics.

Sincerely,

Ken Mercer

Note: The SBOE requested that after purchasing the new textbooks, the Legislature dedicate the remaining $2.5 billion only to education!

Ken Mercer (R – Bexar) is a current Member of the State Board of Education and a former State Representative. Mercer now represents 1.7 million constituents in twelve counties including Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Comal, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Hays, Kendall, Llano and parts of Bell, Bexar and Travis.

The 2010 Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), led by Chairman Gail Lowe (R – Lampasas), voted to send the 2011 Texas Legislature $3 billion dollars of new funding for public education.

How? The forefathers of Texas had the foresight to create the Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) to ensure that all children in Texas will receive free textbooks. While some elected officials are promoting the idea of raising taxes and fees on the backs of hard-working Texas families, the SBOE is blessing Texas with a $3 billion payout generated from the PSF endowment.

Lowe sent a letter to the Texas Legislature, signed by all fifteen members of the 2010 SBOE, asking that the first $500 million be used to purchase new textbooks built upon the newly adopted standards and that the remaining $2.5 billion that is left over should be dedicated to education funding.
Some of the textbooks being replaced are 12-18 years old.

That $2.5 billion could pay the salaries of 25,000 English, math, or science educators for the next two years.
On January 18, 2011, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus released a formal letter praising the SBOE for this huge distribution of new funding for education.

The SBOE is the only entity in Texas that sends the Legislature a “bill” for $500 million and then provides $3 billion in new education funding which is six times the amount needed to pay that $500 million bill.
The SBOE is fulfilling what our founders intended – free textbooks for Texas children.

That $500 million secures two major victories for Texas’ parents.

First, the new English Language Arts textbooks will include a strong emphasis on phonics, explicit grammar, spelling, and handwriting. These English skills are critical to help students gain English proficiency.

The SBOE listened to their constituent’s cry to go “back to the basics” and return to a proven success, phonics. Now our students need those new textbooks to help them learn the new standards.

Second, the public has screamed for an end to “high stakes testing” and “teaching to a test.” These new textbooks and standards will move Texas to the sensible end-of-course exams championed by Sen. Florence Shapiro (R – Plano) and mandated by the Texas Legislature.

Our educators cannot achieve that 2012 Legislative mandate without new textbook materials that are aligned with the new standards. Failure to fund these new textbooks means another unfunded mandate for educators.

Please call and remind your State Legislators that the SBOE provided $3 billion of new funding for education. Ask them to spend $500 million on the new textbooks and dedicate the remaining $2.5 billion to public education.

Ken Mercer (R – Bexar) is a current Member of the State Board of Education and a former State Representative. Mercer now represents 1.7 million constituents in twelve counties including Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Comal, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Hays, Kendall, Llano and parts of Bell, Bexar and Travis.

My friends, at the first 2011 meeting of the Texas State Board of Education I was honored to be nominated (by acclamation) as the new Chair of the Committee on School Initiatives.  I appointed Charlie Garza (R – El Paso) as Vice-Chair.

Know as the “Charter School Committee” we have the oversight of charter schools.

Attached below is a short video of my recent luncheon speech at a statewide meeting on “Bond Financing” for Charter Schools.  In that video you will learn that:

• Charter Schools are public schools, and have the same state testing and accountability standards as public schools.
• Charter Schools receive about $1,500 to $2,000 less in funding (per child) than public schools.
• Charters and have no taxing authority, which means they must raise money for facilities.
• Finally, Charter Schools cannot “pick and choose” their students.  In fact, due to high demand, new charters often hold a “lottery” for new students.

Other responsibilities of this committee include the oversight of: a) educational technology and telecommunications, b) Military reservation and special school districts, and c) the rules proposed by the State Board of Educator Certification.

Finally, I thank you for your continued prayers and support and promise to continue as your voice for conservative, Texas values on the State Board of Education!

Earlier this week the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released the results for their science test. The stastics are encouraging, Texans can definitely be proud of the progress our students are making.

The TEA released a report of the news test results which is posted below.

“AUSTIN – According to test results released today by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), every major ethnic group in Texas scored higher on the redesigned eighth-grade NAEP science test than did their peers nationally, and white students earned the second-highest score in the country.

Only eighth-grade students attending the Department of Defense schools, who earned an average scale score of 170, scored higher on the exam than Texas’ white students who tied with white students in Massachusetts with the second highest score of 167.

The 2009 NAEP science assessment is based on a new framework that keeps content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments and research. Therefore, the 2009 scores cannot be compared to previous NAEP scores.

Both the fourth and eighth-grade tests cover three broad areas – physical science, life science, and earth and space sciences.  The score range for each assessment is 0-300.

At the eighth grade level, students earned the following scale scores.

The Texas scores are considered by NAEP to be statistically higher than the national average except for the scores for the all students category.

“While we still have room for improvement, Texas students fared well when compared to student groups nationally. In recent years, Texas has worked to improve science instruction through its focus on Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering (STEM) programs. We have also made a concerted effort to focus on science education through state policy, standards and assessment. I think we are beginning to see results from those efforts,” said Commissioner of Education Robert Scott.

Texas’ fourth-grade students posted results similar to the eighth-grade scores, with white students receiving the third highest average scale scores in the country at 168. Students in Virginia earned the top spot with an average scale score of 172, followed by Massachusetts at 169.

Only African-American students in Virginia and at the Department of Defense schools, who earned average scores of 141, scored higher than Texas students.  African-American students in Texas and Maine earned an average scale score of 139.

At the fourth-grade level, students earned the following scores.

Statistically, the Texas scores differed significantly from the national public school scores for all groups except Asian American and the all students category.

About 6,300 Texas fourth-grade students and 5,900 Texas eighth-grade students took the NAEP science test. Schools are selected to participate in NAEP through a stratified random sampling process, with the intention of mirroring Texas’ demographics.”

The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) will provide over $3 billion of increasedfunding over the next two years for textbooks and the education programs of our public schools.

The “$3 Billion Christmas Gift” will not cost taxpayers one red cent.  This payout to the Legislature is possible because of the strong investment performance of the Permanent School Fund and assistance from the General Land Office.

The SBOE manages the Permanent School Fund (PSF) and is affectionately referred to as the “Children’s Textbook Fund.”

The PSF, an endowment created in 1854 to support the state’s public schools, now has a fair market value of $22.6 billion and is ranked as one of the top performing endowments in the entire nation.

SBOE Chair Gail Lowe (R – Lampasas) and PSF Chair David Bradley (R – Beaumont) worked closely with the Office of Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson to find a method to increase funding for public school children in light of the state’s expected budget deficit.

In September and November, the SBOE voted for a “catch up” payment of  $1.15 billion and an additional payout of $1.58 billion from the Permanent School Fund for the legislature’s biennial funding of public education.

Then in November, Jerry Patterson, Commissioner of the General Land Office, notified the SBOE that he will ask the School Land Board to transfer $500 million to the Permanent School Fund.  The GLO manages the Permanent School Funds’ land and mineral holdings.

That is $300 million more than originally expected from the GLO and allows the SBOE to send additional funding to the Legislature.

Combined with the September and November SBOE actions, this investment payout totalsover $3.05 billion for the Available School Fund, which by law is required to be spent on new textbooks and education programs.

Lt. Governor Dewhurst issued this statement:

I want to thank Commissioner Jerry Patterson and the State Board of Education for working with us to develop a solution that will help the Legislature fund our education priorities this session.

A Texas Education Agency press release noted that all 15 SBOE Members (10 Republicans and 5 Democrats):

…signed a letter to legislators today notifying them that the board had fulfilled its duty to provide funding for the public school system. They asked the legislature now do its duty and appropriate a portion of this money for the purchase of new English language arts textbooks and supplemental science materials. These instructional materials are expected to cost about $550 million over the next two years.

Ken Mercer (R -San Antonio) reminds Texans that the SBOE is the only government entity in Texas that: “Sends a bill, provides the cash money to pay that bill, and then provides billions in additional funding!”

“With this $3 billion Christmas gift, the SBOE sends a bill of $550 million to purchase crucial textbooks for the children of Texas, provides the cash money to pay that bill, and then pays out over $2.4 billion in additional funding for public school education!”