Texas Governor Calls for Financial Accountability, Takeovers of Failing Schools

Published July 1, 2005

On May 18, while the Texas legislature was working on the details of a school finance bill, Gov. Rick Perry (R) addressed more than 300 educators and activists at the Texas Public Education Foundation’s Education Summit. Below are excerpts from his comments, provided by Connie Sadowski, director of the Austin CEO Foundation.


On financial accountability: “If the taxpayers are going to pick up the tab, they ought to be able to look at every item on the receipt. The only way to ensure more dollars make it to the classroom is to make sure classroom expenditures are disclosed in plain terms. I think taxpayers deserve to know how much is spent on administration and instruction and how much they are paying lobbyists and lawyers to extract more tax dollars from their pockets. Taxpayers should also be empowered to control future spending by having the authority to vote on future property tax enrichment increases. The decision to spend more local tax dollars on local schools should be made by local voters.”

On mentoring and “battle” pay: “Too often our toughest learning environments attract the most inexperienced teachers. That’s why we must make two critical reforms: We must increase funding for teacher mentoring so that young teachers grow professionally and succeed in the classroom, and we must appeal to our best and brightest teachers to teach in difficult settings by paying them significantly more to do so.”

On the goal: “Ultimately, our task is to usher in a new era of academic achievement that is based not on the number of students that pass state assessments, but the number of students that graduate ready for college. … The measure of our success is not whether we provide more money for education, but more education for our money.”

“The measure of our success is not whether we provide more money for education, but more education for our money.”

–Texas Gov. Rick Perry