Attacks on schools and what some see as controversial curriculum choices in public schools have parents seeking alternatives. One option under discussion is allowing parents to control taxpayer dollars dedicated to educating their children. Marty Crawford, Ed.D., superintendent of the Tyler Independent School District, says there are better ways to address parents’ concerns that won’t hurt public education.
Transcript
Mike Landess: For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess. Call them school vouchers or school choice. Gov. (Greg) Abbott is touring the state to drum up support for the idea that the state provide money to parents for private school education. But just the day before the governor’s appearance at Tyler’s Grace Community School, an unprecedented gathering of East Texas superintendents and school board chairs addressed their concerns about such a program to reporters.
Our guest is Dr. Marty Crawford, superintendent of Tyler ISD, who also spoke out that day.
Marty Crawford: Well, thank you, Mike, appreciate you having me here today to discuss a very important topic.
Mike Landess: Well, now the idea of vouchers and choices been bandied about for years. What’s giving it such a priority in Austin right now, and what’s your concern about it?
Marty Crawford: Well, the genesis of all of this has been really a national narrative, and it’s trickling down here to Texas, finally. There’s a lot of opportunity considering what parties control the executive branches and the legislative branches, and school districts because that’s where a lot of tax dollars are targeted.
A majority of your tax dollars are targeted at school districts. We’re kinda right in the front and center of a legislative session as we always are. It does make up a large majority of the state’s budget, and certainly that makes us susceptible every session for either support or what we’re talking about today.
The concerns that we do have in regard to what they’re calling “education savings accounts,” what we refer to as “vouchers.”
Mike Landess: In the most recent UT Tyler poll of 1,200 Texas voters, some 60% said that they supported the idea of education savings accounts for school choice, but the number opposed actually rose to 29%. Have you or other East Texas ISDs discussed this with Rep. Matt Schaefer or Senator Bryan Hughes?
Marty Crawford: Absolutely. And the way to go about that is not to have those relationships or even conversations during the heat of the battle. We’ve got great relationships with our East Texas representatives, whether it be Matt Schaefer, Cole Hefner (who) actually has about 5% of our school system that’s represented as well. He gets all of Lindale, Mineola, etc. And then Matt and Bryan are so accessible even during off-session hours that when you do have opportunities to talk with them, to speak with them, whenever you do have a a point of concern, they listen to you.
So that’s one thing that’s great about East Texas. We’re all part of this special place where relationships still matter. And even though you may have some differing viewpoints in regard to some issues as long as those relationships are done professionally and positively, I think that there’s always an opportunity there to to make your case and for them to listen.
And then hopefully, it makes a difference whenever they go down to Austin to represent Tyler ISD constituents, East Texas constituents and not just those that are maybe in other parts of the state who are driving this conversation.
Mike Landess: So they listened to you, but did they push back? And if they did, what did they say?
Marty Crawford: A little bit. It’s probably not for me to say what their thoughts are.
Mike Landess: You can tell me what they said to you.
Marty Crawford: Well, it’s gotta make sense. It’s gotta make fiscal sense. It’s also gotta make sense from their ideological viewpoints them both being Republicans and from the conservative point of view.
And I think our board president stated a very conservative case about why vouchers are not the thing that’s gonna help public education or just general education in Texas as a whole. We all understand parents are responsible for their children. No doubt about that. And we do say that in Tyler ISD.
We’re not gonna be (like) some of these school boards or administrations like you’ve seen out of state, in Illinois or Virginia or Pennsylvania, that have said, “No, we’re gonna decide what’s best for your children.” We’re not saying that at all. And I think that narrative is what’s kind of crept down here into Texas.
It’s virtually crept down here in Texas, and Matt and Bryan both realize the type of people that we have here in East Texas, that we do value the parent as the number one educator of the household. We’re here to support that and supplement what they want us to do as far as educating their kids nine hours a day, 187 days a year.
Mike Landess: Look into your crystal ball if you can. Do you think the general concept of vouchers or choice has enough support to pass in some form or another this session?
Marty Crawford: Well, your sample size is pretty good on your statistics as far as your survey goes. And so, 60% of the state says that’s something they want to consider, but “school choice” is such general terminology. It doesn’t always have to mean vouchers. It could mean attendance zones; it could mean programmatic opportunities that you do actually have inside of your school system. Like we have in Tyler ISD. We have a lot of choice because you can apply for transfers.
You’re not locked into an attendance zone, even though a lot of folks love living inside of attendance zone, having a neighborhood school to go to. But if you want to go to Moore MST Magnet School, which is (for) math, science technology on the east side of town, but you live out there by Flint or Gresham, you can apply for a transfer, and then actually get into that Moore program.
We have some innovative programs as well. Career Technology Center, Early College High School, great flagship high school facilities that were just recently rebuilt by our community. There’s a lot of choice inside of school systems.
But then you start talking about the voucher conversation. And your question was, does it have legs? Absolutely, it does because it’s bipartisan this time. Specifically driven by the party that’s in control of the legislature and in the governorship right now. But at the same time, there are some on the Democrat side as well that are supporting this.
Mike Landess: Let’s talk about the aftermath of the Uvalde shootings. The talking point in Austin at the time was all about school safety. Tyler ISD ramped up its security, expanded its police force. School safety in Texas and across the country is still an issue. And yet here we had a deadly issue in Arlington just recently.
How are your folks responding to that? Are you working within the same parameters you were before? Have you beefed-up any security?
Marty Crawford: No, we’re we’re ahead of the game. It doesn’t mean that there might not be something tragic or concerning happen here locally. I mean, it’s the world we’re living in right now, and isn’t it sad that we’re having to talk about this with schools?
But in saying that, in 2019, we hired a director of safety and security, a retired FBI agent here locally. And what a blessing. And he’s been able to look at some innovative, creative approaches on that side. We’ve also got a very robust police department that we’ve had for 20-plus years, as well.
We have now staffed a police officer, enough police officers, to put one at every campus. And there might be some folks who are concerned about over-policing. But I’ll say this: The ones that I’ve run into are either retired from the Smith County Sheriff’s Department, or retired Tyler PD. So they’re from here, they’re in the community, and man, they’re the best guys and gals to have. I see ’em eating lunch with our students all the time. I see ’em presenting inside of classrooms. I see ’em shaking hands with parents and there’s a smile on their face.
But that’s not the only thing. We’ve got some mental health issues that we’ve gotta work on here in the state as well. And we’ve been, I think, a vanguard in being able to supply some mental health counselors across the district on top of the normal counselors that you actually have inside of schools. They are so busy doing that component of it, especially at the high schools, that we now have mental health counselors who can help with some of the other things that we have going on here. Because we are seeing that kids are having some struggles in regards to the mental issues that are out there that they’re so well documented, we’re not immune to that.
Mike Landess: Our guest has been Tyler ISD superintendent, Dr. Marty Crawford. To hear this interview again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)
