We have long supported giving families greater choices in their children’s schooling. Parents should have as many options as possible to meet their children’s unique needs, and competition puts pressure on public school systems to improve their quality.
Many have improved and expanded their offerings since charter schools came on the scene, after years of inefficiency and declining student test scores — clear evidence that competition has produced the promised results.
However, competition also can inspire predatory practices, as we are seeing in the Rio Grande Valley. Some public school districts are calling for the elimination of the South Texas Independent School District, which has been a star of South Texas education for more than a half century.
Such a change could make the future worse for hundreds of Valley students and those who benefit from their education and skills — and for Valley property owners. Those districts should try to match their competition rather than kill it.
Originally, the Texas Legislature created STISD in 1964 to educate special-needs students. Court rulings ordering that such students be mainstreamed into the general population, and the development of magnet schools, prompted the district to change its focus to career education. STISD is Texas’ only all-magnet public school district.
Since its creation, STISD has produced some of the top professionals and educators in South Texas — and beyond. For much of its existence the district provided career training for Valley students who couldn’t get it at any other school in the area.
As a state-sanctioned public school system, STISD has its own taxing district. In 28 of the Valley’s public school districts in Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy counties, property owners pay two assessments, one for their public school district and one for STISD.
STISD’s opponents claim those taxpayers are being charged twice.
They aren’t.
If STISD were eliminated, its students still need to be taught. Any district that absorbed these students would have to raise its revenue accordingly, and many of them spend more per student than the South Texas District does. Many taxpayers might find that they might pay more to a single district than the combined two smaller amounts they currently pay.
Moreover, STISD largely has been free from the scandals and turmoil that have plagued so many of the Valley’s other public school districts. If they had to choose, many Valley parents probably would prefer that STISD take over their public school district, not the other way around.
To be sure, the growth of magnet programs, dual enrollment and other features at general-education districts reduces the need for an autonomous magnet school district. An argument could be made to convert it into a charter school. But whether it’s funded fully by the state or it maintains its own taxing district, taxpayers still must help pay for their education.
STISD has proven its value to South Texas and beyond, both in educational excellence and the benefits reaped by the businesses that have hired them. We trust that sensible minds will be smart enough to ignore efforts to destroy it.
