More on “No trust, no bond”

I’m still inclined to vote for the HISD bond, but I’m listening to the opposition and am very interested in seeing what traction they can get.

Several HISD teachers, parents and community members say they are planning to cast their first-ever vote against a school bond if HISD puts the $4.4 billion school bond package developed under state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles on the ballot in November.

Critics recognize that this is one of their most powerful opportunities to voice their opposition to the state takeover, the replacement of HISD’s elected board members, concerns over financial accountability and a lack of trust in district leaders, especially Miles.

Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said the largest teachers’ union in HISD has never opposed any of the district’s past four school bond proposals — until now. She, like other bond opponents, have adopted the rallying cry of “No trust. No bond,” to stress to district leaders that much more must be done before they’d ever consider voting for the proposal.

“This is a very difficult position for the union to take and for teachers to take,” Anderson said. “We know that our schools need work. We know that, but because our collective voices and democracy have been stripped away from us, this is our only chance to express our disapproval at the direction that our district is going in.”

The full scope of the pushback to the bond in the HISD community, including if it will be able to swing the election, remains unclear. According to HISD, 69% of voters said they would support a bond with no tax rate increase in a poll from Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, which was taken before the district publicly unveiled its bond proposal in May.

However, with more than three months until the potential vote, bond opponents say they’re working to raise awareness of their position and convince enough people to vote down the district’s proposal later this year through actions like regular chants at board meetings, selling anti-Miles yard signs and even creating public yarn installations advocating against the bond.

I’ve said my piece about the merits of the bond and of opposing it, so I’ll skip that here. I’m interested in a couple of other things. One is the possibility that bond opponents might try to bargain their way towards supporting it, or at least not actively opposing it. I don’t know who might organize such an effort (if indeed one exists; I’m going way out on a limb here), I have no idea what they might ask for – I think we can agree that “Mike Miles is given a one-way bus ticket to Fairbanks, Alaska” is not on the table – and I have no clue who might be empowered to grant them any of their wishes. I mean, other than that, it makes sense to try, because what have you got to lose? Like I said, I’m sure I’m reading way too much into a sentence that isn’t even Jackie Anderson’s own words, but it’s my blog and I’ll engage in a flight of fancy if I want to.

Second, I wonder how many times that one Kinder Institute poll, taken before the bond was authorized, will be cited as a factual level of support for it going forward. HISD bonds have done quite well in the recent past – more on that in a moment – and under normal circumstances I’d expect this one to pass easily. These are not normal circumstances. We should be clear about that.

How popular have HISD bond issuances been? Here are the results from the last four such elections:

1998: 142,233 For, 55,155 Against, 72.1% For
2002: 133,454 For, 67,677 Against, 63.4% For
2007:  43,657 For, 41,631 Against, 51.2% For
2012: 217,319 For, 97,787 Against, 69.0% For

Note the four-to-five year gap in between them before now. The lack of any bond issuance since 2012 is very much an anomaly, and is a big part of the reason why this one is as needed as it is.

As for the four elections, there were three easy wins, all in relatively high turnout environments thanks to the year in which they occurred. The outlier was the one that was controversial at the time, for reasons I don’t care to detail in this post. Go peruse my Election 2007 archives – there was precious little happening on the ballot that year – and see for yourself. (Fun fact, one of the main opponents of that bond was then-State Rep. Sylvester Turner.) That Kinder poll may be meaningless, but 69% support is not out of line with historic precedent. The question is whether this year’s referendum is anything like the ones of the past. I say an emphatic No to that, but that doesn’t mean the result will be any different.

One more thing to consider, via Campos:

I have yet to see any organized pro-bond campaign activity or anti-bond campaign activity. I assume the pro-bond forces will have the funds to conduct a campaign. I wonder if the anti-bond folks will have funds.

It’s a little early for that, but there will be a pro-bond campaign. There always is. If those who oppose the bond are truly serious about it, they will raise money, form a PAC and a campaign, and mount a real effort to defeat it. That remains to be seen.

Related Posts:

• A closer look at the HISD bond proposal
• HISD asks for $4.4 billion in bonds
• HISD’s current goals