Three constitution college superintendents who’re among the many highest paid in Texas are overseeing a number of the lowest-performing districts within the state, newly launched data present. Considered one of them is susceptible to closure by college 12 months’s finish.
An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune beforehand revealed that board members at Valere Public Colleges had paid Superintendent Salvador Cavazos as much as $870,000 yearly lately, roughly triple what it reported publicly to the state and on its web site. Two different districts the newsrooms lined, Religion Household Academy and Gateway Constitution Academy, additionally considerably underreported the compensation paid to their high leaders.
The state decided that each one three of these districts have had failing or near-failing ranges of efficiency lately. The scores, launched final month by the Texas Training Company, additionally present that constitution faculties make up nearly all of the districts which have repeatedly had “unacceptable” efficiency, although they account for a small portion of public faculties throughout Texas. The company printed two years’ price of accountability scores for the state’s public and constitution faculties that have been beforehand undisclosed as a result of litigation.
Religion Household Academy, a Dallas-area district with two campuses, was one among eight constitution college districts that are actually on monitor to be shut down on the finish of the varsity 12 months after receiving a 3rd consecutive “F” ranking. Board members paid superintendent Mollie Purcell Mozley a peak annual compensation of $560,000 lately to run the district, which has about 3,000 college students.
Training specialists mentioned they have been troubled that the underperforming constitution networks the newsrooms recognized would make investments so closely in superintendent compensation as an alternative of areas with a extra direct affect on pupil achievement.
“I don’t know what metrics the board’s reviewing to say that that is efficiency that will warrant this quantity of pay,” mentioned Toni Templeton, a analysis scientist on the College of Houston. “What we all know from tutorial literature is once you put sources closest to the scholars, the scholars profit probably the most. And the superintendent’s place is essential, but it surely’s fairly removed from the children.”
The state’s “three strikes” legislation mandates that the state schooling company mechanically shut down a constitution college district that has repeatedly failed to fulfill efficiency requirements.
Faculty leaders have a 30-day window to contest the scores with the state schooling company in the event that they imagine there have been errors. The state will then launch last scores in December that may decide whether or not failing campuses will likely be pressured to shut.
Keri Bickerstaff has despatched 4 of her 5 kids to high school at Religion Household Academy however pulled most of them out after prekindergarten. She mentioned she was shocked and saddened when she discovered in regards to the district’s funds to Purcell Mozley from ProPublica and the Tribune. At her kids’s college in Waxahachie, south of Dallas, Bickerstaff noticed crowded school rooms and felt that the lecturers lacked expertise and left the varsity at excessive charges. She was shocked that the superintendent had been paid so extremely.
“I used to be beneath the impression that funding was a problem,” Bickerstaff mentioned in an interview.
Purcell Mozley and Religion Household Academy didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark, however in an Aug. 14 letter to oldsters and workers posted on the varsity’s web site, she acknowledged that the district deliberate to attraction the state’s ranking. “Whereas this ranking is disappointing on its face,” Purcell Mozley wrote, “we would like our group to know that we now have performed an intensive evaluation of our efficiency knowledge — and we strongly imagine that our true rating for 2025 displays a stable C ranking.”
One other small constitution district in Dallas, Gateway Constitution Academy, has two strikes in opposition to it after receiving a mixture of “F” and “D” scores during the last three college years. If the district receives one other low rating subsequent 12 months, it too will likely be pressured to shutter its two campuses that serve round 600 college students.
State schooling data present Gateway has been suffering from instructor turnover, with as many as 62% of its instructors leaving the district lately. The district has paid lecturers about $10,000 lower than the statewide common whereas paying superintendent Robbie Moore greater than $426,000 in 2023, based on tax data — almost double his base wage of $215,000.
Gateway and Moore didn’t reply to requests for remark. After it was initially contacted by the newsrooms in regards to the beforehand undisclosed compensation, the district posted a new doc on its web site that lists an undated $75,000 bonus for Moore.
Whereas there are not any state rules limiting how a lot college districts will pay their superintendents, state lawmakers have tried to vary that for years. Lawmakers filed at the least eight proposals throughout the newest common legislative session that will have constrained directors’ pay and severance packages at public and constitution faculties, however none handed. That included a invoice authored by Sen. Adam Hinojosa, a Republican from Corpus Christi, that will have capped a superintendent’s revenue to twice that of the highest-paid instructor within the district.
Hinojosa filed one other invoice throughout a particular session that started in July that will have allowed superintendents to earn as much as thrice as a lot because the top-paid lecturers when their district scored an “A” ranking. But when a district earned a “D” or “F” ranking, a superintendent’s revenue couldn’t exceed that of the top-paid instructors. The measure failed to succeed in a committee for dialogue.
“If lecturers are held accountable for pupil efficiency, directors needs to be too,” Hinojosa mentioned in an announcement.
Though Valere acquired a “D” ranking for the previous two years, its board has compensated Cavazos lots of of hundreds of {dollars} yearly on high of his base wage, making him among the many highest-paid public college leaders within the nation, the ProPublica and Tribune investigation discovered.
Within the weeks after the newsrooms printed their findings, state lawmakers and an advocacy group that represents constitution faculties strongly criticized Cavazos’ compensation, calling on the district to decrease his pay and tie it to particular metrics. The state schooling company opened investigations into every of the three constitution faculties talked about within the story, that are “open and ongoing,” an company spokesperson mentioned.
In a written response to questions for this story, Valere Public Colleges mentioned that it didn’t intend to attraction the district’s newest ranking and continued to defend Cavazos’ excessive pay, stating it was justified by his “expertise, efficiency, and involvement in fundraising.”
The board mentioned it didn’t really feel that Cavazos’ compensation was interfering with different district priorities and disagreed that Valere was among the many lowest-performing districts within the state. Its response cited commencement charges, that are barely increased than the state common, however didn’t deal with the low take a look at scores that drove the district’s “D” scores.
The board members didn’t say whether or not Cavazos’ pay would stay on the identical stage sooner or later however pointed to his employment contract for the present college 12 months that lists a base wage of $285,887, plus a “retention stipend” of $20,000 per 30 days, after taxes, which probably doubles his base wage. The stipend, which the newsrooms revealed earlier this 12 months, had not beforehand appeared in Cavazos’ annual employment letters.
Holding Constitution Colleges Accountable
Texas’ A-F ranking system was established in 2017 and makes use of metrics resembling standardized take a look at scores to grade every district and campus on pupil achievement, college progress and success with closing socioeconomic achievement gaps.
The brand new scores come after a prolonged authorized battle between Texas public college districts and the TEA over adjustments to the schooling company’s scores system. Districts twice sued Mike Morath, the TEA commissioner, to cease the discharge of the scores after the company introduced plans to revamp the system in 2023. The lawsuits efficiently saved the scores from public view till this spring, when a state appeals court docket overturned a ruling in favor of the districts, setting the stage for the discharge of efficiency scores for the 2022-23 college 12 months in April, and scores for the 2 most up-to-date college years in August after a separate resolution by the identical appeals court docket.
The scores have an effect on constitution faculties and conventional public faculties in several methods. A standard public college district can probably face state intervention after one among its campuses receives 5 years of failing scores. The brand new TEA data present that there are 5 such districts in danger. By comparability, the state is required to mechanically shut down a whole constitution district that receives three years of failing scores.
Supporters usually level to the “three strikes” legislation as proof that constitution faculties are held to the next stage of efficiency requirements than public faculties.
The regulation, which was launched in 2013, is one among many guardrails that has been put in place since constitution faculties have been approved within the Nineties with far much less state oversight than public faculties. Constitution faculties, for instance, have been initially shielded from the state’s nepotism and conflict-of-interest legal guidelines till studies of leaders participating in self-dealing and profiteering step by step prompted lawmakers to behave.
Brian Whitley, a spokesperson for the Texas Public Constitution Colleges Affiliation, mentioned that Texas holds constitution faculties “extra accountable, extra shortly” after they don’t meet efficiency expectations, together with by way of computerized closures.
Personal faculties are set to obtain an identical stage of safety from the legal guidelines that govern how conventional public faculties spend their cash: Underneath a landmark college voucher invoice the Legislature handed this spring, the state plans to direct at the least $1 billion public {dollars} to personal schooling within the coming years. Earlier this month, an investigation by ProPublica and the Tribune revealed greater than 60 cases of nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of curiosity at Texas non-public faculties that probably would have violated state legal guidelines had the colleges been public.
These types of conflicts of curiosity and familial enterprise entanglements have been frequent amongst at the least two of the three constitution districts which have made outsize funds to their leaders.
Data present that Gateway Constitution Academy has employed workers associated to directors, together with Moore. In accordance with Gateway’s 2017 monetary audit, Moore additionally married an “educational coach” within the district that 12 months. Data present that the coach’s compensation elevated from $75,000 to $221,000 through the 2022-23 college 12 months, after she was promoted to director of curriculum improvement. She didn’t reply to requests for remark.
At Religion Household Academy, Gene Lewis, one of many founding board members who employed Purcell Mozley and opinions her efficiency, can also be her uncle, based on bond paperwork. Lewis’ spouse additionally sits on the board of a separate entity that oversees the district, based on Religion Household Academy’s tax filings.
Lewis and his spouse didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Whitley instructed the newsrooms that his group had supported a variety of laws to implement higher accountability for charters.
“We strongly imagine that each one public faculties, together with public constitution faculties, have to be clear and good stewards of taxpayer {dollars},” he mentioned in an announcement.
