Equity Center Radio

You can email your questions about school finance and equity for answer on the air to ECRadio@EquityCenter.org.

In today’s broadcast, we interview two of the Equity Center’s staff who work with our members in budgeting, financial forecasting and other economic areas that call for special actuarial, computer program design for economic spreadsheets and databases, and statistics expertise. Tim Wolff and Charles Aki fit the bill to a tee and the Equity Center is delighted to have them here to be interviewed by our Deputy Executive Director, Ray Freeman.

Tim Wolff has worked since January 2007 as our programmer/analyst, a position he held for seven years in the Legislative Budget Board‘s public education team prior to joining the Equity Center. Previously, he had worked as an actuary in the Life Insurance industry and as a statistical programmer in the pharmaceutical sector. He began his working career by serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy. You can email Tim at Tim Wolff

Dr. Charles Aki is the Director of Research here at the Equity Center. He is in charge of all the tasks related to running the school finance model and analyzing the impact of legislation on the funding of school districts. Charles has been with us since February 2004. Prior to that, he was with the Texas Education Agency, where he served as a program administrator and principal financial and systems analyst in the State Funding Division. Charles has over 25 years’ experience in school finance, research, and economics. He holds a Ph.D. in resource economics from Ohio State University, and currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Economics at Austin Community College. Charles can be reached by emailing him at Charles Aki

Our sponsor of the week is Ray, Wood & Bonilla, Attorneys-at-Law.
Call them at 512.328.8877 or go to their web pages to discover more about this gold sponsor at
www.rwblaw.net

You can email your questions about school finance and equity for answer on the air to ECRadio@EquityCenter.org.

Lynn Moak, who has over 40 years’ experience in the realm of school finance and equity issues, provides unique insights into the operation and financing of public education in Texas. Today, he and Wayne Pierce, the Executive Director of the Equity Center, hold an impromptu conversation about school finance, equity and the upcoming legislative session.

Lynn served as Executive Deputy Commissioner of Education and has also been a senior staff member in the Texas Education Agency, the State Comptroller’s Office, and the Lieutenant Governor’s Office. Since 1999, he has been a partner in the firm Moak, Casey & Associates, Inc.. His firm provides legislative, financial and accountability consulting services to school organizations and districts in Texas and other states. He is widely recognized as one of the state’s leading experts in information systems, research and school finance.

During his long career in public administration, Lynn has been involved in virtually every major education finance policy change since 1967. He has presented in every major case regarding public school finance since the Edgewood litigation in 1984. He has conducted research into many facets of public education finance including administrative costs, cost variations associated with size, economic factors, community differentials, and changing state policy. He has participated in the basic design of state systems to gather and report financial and other information. At the regional and local level, he has assisted districts in projects ranging from the design of data systems to the analysis of revenue and expenditure options. So, we feel that this exchange of views should be very informative. We hope you, our listeners, agree and enjoy today’s show.

Our sponsor of the week is Ray, Wood & Bonilla, Attorneys-at-Law.
Call them at 512.328.8877 or go to their web pages to discover more about this gold sponsor at
www.rwblaw.net

You can email your questions about school finance and equity for answer on the air to ECRadio@EquityCenter.org.

Today, our host, the Equity Center’s Executive Director, Wayne Pierce, interviews Vivian Baker, the Superintendent of Schools for Belton Independent School District (“BISD”).

Today’s guest is Vivian Baker, currently the Superintendent of Schools for Belton ISD. Belton is located in the heart of Central Texas, just 60 miles north of Austin and 40 miles south of Waco on I-35. Belton ISD is located in the county seat of Bell County, has over 15,000 residents and is a historic downtown district that surrounds the county courthouse and Mary Harden-Baylor University campus. BISD has two high schools, two middle schools and eight elementary campuses.

BISD is a very fast growing school district, which has a proud tradition of excellence in education, but, because it is also a low wealth district, faces numerous challenges as it tries to ensure that every child within its boundaries achieves maximum educational potential. In spite of its meager resources, for 2009, Belton ISD was rated Academically Acceptable by the Texas Education Agency based on students’ performance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Four elementary campuses received an Exemplary rating; four received a Recognized rating; Belton High School a Recognized rating; and the remainder of its campuses were rated Academically Acceptable. Many campuses received Gold Performance Acknowledgments for individual subject areas.

Equity Center radio is happy to have Vivian talk about the struggles she faces as she fights to provide an education that challenges all of its students to excel and maintain the district’s high standing in the education community.

Belton ISD’s per pupil expenditure is $6,645. The District’s budget for the 2009-2010 school year is $65,087,240 with a total property tax rate of $1.41 per $100 valuation.

Vivian Baker

You can subscribe to our weekly show by pressing the RSS button here or hear the broadcast by pushing the button below:

To find out more about the Equity Center and the important work that it performs for the school children of Texas and its member school districts, please click on www.equitycenter.org.
 

You can email your questions about school finance and equity for answer on the air to ECRadio@EquityCenter.org.

A visitor from Mars; no, but Henk van Hezel is visiting from almost as far away. He is visiting the United States from the Netherlands to study our system of public education. Mr. van Hezel is an educational consultant in the Netherlands and works with numerous public school “districts” on how to best run their schools. He also works in the Netherlands with the Summer Institute’s international program for Doctor of Education students at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, under the auspices of Dr. Austin Vasek, its program director, who also joins him today in the broadcast booth.

Mary Hardin-Baylor’s College of Education offers the Summer Institute in Holland for third year students in its Doctor of Education degree in Leadership in Educational Administration (LEAD). Educational leaders and practitioners in the LEAD doctoral degree program visit, during the summer months, in order for each of the three years in the program, and study in, Austin, Texas, learning about how state governments’ work in relation to public education; Washington, D.C., studying the federal government’s impact on public education; and, finally, in The Netherlands, comparing their techniques of governance and philosophies of educational financing to our system. The experience provides each doctoral student with knowledge of the world of education in a different environment than the one with which they are most familiar . The Institutes are one of the unique aspects of the design of this particular doctoral program. Through the opportunity to travel to The Netherlands, where they are supervised by Mr. van Hezel, doctoral students are immersed in another culture, organization, and ideas.

Educational administrators and board members, our public officials and others interested in the United States public education structure need a world view, as culture, society, and learning become increasingly complex and interrelated.

On today’s program, hosted by Wayne Pierce, our guests explain this distinctive program and some of the differences between education in Europe, especially in Holland, and the United States. Interesting and informative, to say the least. We are sure that this different perspective on public education and a dissimilar system of its delivery will enthrall the listener.

Our Guests, Dr. Austin Vasek and Henk van Hezel, with Host Wayne Pierce

You can subscribe to our weekly show by pressing the RSS button here or hear the broadcast by pushing the button below:

To find out more about the Equity Center and the important work that it performs for the school children of Texas and its member school districts, please click on www.equitycenter.org.
 

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