Well, as the old joke about lawyers puts it, “It’s a good start.”

Kevin Haggerty at BizPac Review writes:

Texas’s largest school district aimed to balance the scales amid worsening student enrollment with tough news for hundreds of administrators: “…we’re cutting some of that bloat.”

At the beginning of June, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) took dramatic steps to address a number of problems in the Houston Independent School District (HISD), including the appointment of a new superintendent, Mike Miles. Thursday, he announced his plan to reform the district for the benefit of students with the issuance of 672 pink slips.

Speaking at a virtual forum, Miles revealed that roughly 20 percent of administrative positions were being cut from the district. Between the layoffs and 1,675 vacant positions that were done away with, the total cuts came to 2,347 jobs getting axed.

Note that Houston is the second-fastest growing metro area in the country, and the core city of Houston is suffering no noticeable population loss.

Public domain photo

We’re not talking about Youngstown. Enrollment is suffering because parents would rather pay for private school than accept the lousy government school education that costs them nothing. “They can’t even give it away,” applies to a growing percentage of parents.

I do credit Superintendent Miles for cutting 20% of administrators. That such a large percentage can be dispensed with is not surprising and suggests similar cuts could be done nationwide.

I do think that we can credit the ridiculous school closures imposed over Covid, a disease that killed almost no children, with opening the eyes of many parents to the low quality of the education their children were receiving. Teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten – who fought to keep our schools closed even as schools in most countries stayed open – laments what happened to the esteem in which her profession (and union) is held:

Remember the beginning of the pandemic? Parents showered praise on teachers and school staff. People saw just how essential the connection is between educators and public schools with kids, families and communities. And then the far right-wing started their smears. #TEACH23

— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩‍рџЋ“ (@rweingarten) July 21, 2023