Recently I attended a working meeting of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) to hear three well-known national experts discuss with board members the foundational elements of reading and the language arts, particularly as they pertain to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), which for the past ten years has been the foundation for the current model for K-12 curriculum standards and accountability. Over the years, in one capacity or another, I have attended and participated in numerous public policy deliberations, and I must say that this meeting was one of the most productive in my memory. In about four hours of give and take, one could actually see ideas and concepts explored and consensus advanced. The bottom line—Texas has an urgent need to revisit and completely overhaul major elements of the TEKS.By way of background, the TEKS document was adopted under the direction of the Texas Education Agency in 1997 and ostensibly developed to establish benchmarks for what a student should know in each subject matter area at each grade level in order to advance to the next level. This document is the basis on which the entire edifice is built—the curriculum, the assessments, the teacher preparation, the accountability, and the incentive system—in short, the foundation for the Texas model of standards and accountability.

As with most education policy in Texas, the TEKS was the product of the efforts of a large number of education “stakeholders”—those members of the education establishment and other experts who are qualified by experience and training to know such things as what a student should know and when he or she should know it, and who, by and large, would be responsible for the implementation and success of the product. It was a consensus document and, not surprisingly, there were a number of competing approaches to its development, most prominently in the reading and language arts disciplines, and more than a few minority views that differed greatly from the final product. As it is now apparent, the grounds for much of this opposition and subsequent criticism of TEKS—its vagueness, subjectivity, lack of specificity of objective knowledge, overlap from grade to grade, and lack of sufficient rigor—seem to have been borne out by our experience in student achievement in the ensuing ten years of its use. So, we live and learn.

The critical need now is to use this learning experience to move urgently and deliberately to the task of rewriting the standards to correct the identified deficiencies, and there is scarcely a higher priority for education policy makers. The SBOE now seems to agree, and it is incumbent on the State’s opinion leaders to insist that they get on with it.

“Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand.”—Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 74.This sentiment of our founding was clearly expressed in Article II of the Constitution, which establishes the President as the commander in chief, with inherent enemy surveillance authority which has never been denied by the opinion of any court. So what is there about this inherent discretionary power, so wisely included as a critical element of executive authority, that the New York Times doesn’t understand? I think I know—it’s the discretionary part they don’t like, mainly because of the particular President who currently wields it, one whom they loathe and consider illegitimate.

So here’s another quote for them to contemplate:

“Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates………..or publishes……….classified information…..concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States……shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”—Section 798 of Title 18, U. S. Criminal Code (as reported by National Review).

And since all appeals to their loyalty and common sense in the interest of national security in wartime have gone unheeded, maybe an appearance by their publisher and executive editor before a federal judge to answer for violation of this law would improve their focus.

A few random thoughts on the passing scene:• World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is rightly concerned that the Doha Round of trade talks will be a failure unless the proposed rollback of subsidies and expansion of markets for agricultural products is approved, with dire consequences for world trade and economic growth in underdeveloped countries. It’s a clear case of “no pain, no gain”, and failure will be disastrous in economic terms as well as for stability in the developing world. Protectionist forces must be overcome, here and elsewhere.

• Paul Krugman complains that wages have not kept up with U. S. productivity increases over the past five years, and he might have a point, but he ignores the worldwide drag on wages from India and China and other parts of Southeast Asia, as well as the particular drag on them in the U. S. from the impact of the onslaught of illegal workers, a problem he doesn’t seem to want to fix in any meaningful way.

• From Karl Zinsmeister’s farewell editorial in leaving The American Enterprise: “Ordinary Americans are not saints or savants with magical decision-making powers. But there are structural reasons why individual households will often make better decisions than experts. For one thing, they usually have richer information………Rule by the millions works because they are close to daily realities.” Pretty good sentiments coming from the President’s new domestic policy advisor!

• If you haven’t read Tom DeLay’s farewell speech to Congress, you should do so. Here is a brief excerpt on just one point: “……partisanship, Mr. Speaker, properly understood, is not a symptom of a democracy’s weakness, but of its health and strength, especially from the perspective of a political conservative…..The point is, we disagree. On first principles, we disagree. And so we debate………” Apropos his career and there could be no better legacy to this principle than the Supreme Court decision a few weeks later substantially validating victory in the Texas redistricting case, a fittingly partisan monument to him.

• My friend and subscriber, Jim Lockart, has admonished me to be less pessimistic about the cultural trends that I often observe, and suggests that I try and emphasize the “good that is flourishing”, so I promise to seek out more of the positive elements. As an example, I note with favor a recent island of optimism—the movie United 93, which from all accounts depicts the best sentiments and tendencies of Americans in their inclination to rise to any occasion, confront evil, and refuse defeat. And the fact that the source of this work is typically the country’s largest purveyor of cultural pessimism makes it all the more encouraging.

• The Weekly Standard invites us to look into the fever swamps in the upper reaches of our institutions of higher education, where theories are rampant that the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy orchestrated by the U. S. government. I briefly visited the web site of these “scholars” and was appalled, if not surprised, and most disappointed that among the members of their group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth were at least three from Texas institutions—one each from Rice, UT-Austin, and (gasp!) Texas A&M. Get a rope! If you want to take a look, go to www.scholarsfor911truth.org. And for this we need higher tuition?

• As a write, Mexico is electing a new President. Watch closely the outcome, which seems to be a dead heat. If Obrador wins, it’s “Katy bar the door”, almost literally, for a leftist administration will mean less freedom, slower economic growth, more government, and much more pressure on our southern borders. If Calderon wins, there is hope for a continuation of the Fox policies, but there should still be increased pressure from the U. S. to open more of Mexico’s markets to foreign investment and significantly reduce the heavy hand of government on entrepreneurial innovation, as well as to cease and desist in facilitating illegal immigration.

Pardon the “infomercial”, but I am pleased to announce the founding of the Texas Institute for Education Reform, a non-profit, non-partisan collaboration of Texas business leaders committed to the objective that every Texas child will graduate from high school fully prepared for higher education, the 21st century workplace, and responsible citizenship. We plan to accomplish this objective by educating opinion leadership on the urgency of adopting the next phase of critically needed K-12 reforms in academic standards, academic and financial accountability, assessment, educator quality, reading and literacy, competition and choice, and structural deregulation. Check out our web site at www.texaseducationreform.org and let me have your thoughts.