Three constitution faculty superintendents who’re among the many highest paid in Texas are overseeing among the lowest-performing districts within the state, newly launched information present. One among them is prone to closure by faculty 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 coated, Religion Household Academy and Gateway Constitution Academy, additionally considerably underreported the compensation paid to their prime 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 colleges make up the vast majority of the districts which have repeatedly had “unacceptable” efficiency, although they account for a small portion of public colleges throughout Texas. The company revealed two years’ value of accountability scores for the state’s public and constitution colleges that have been beforehand undisclosed attributable to litigation.
Religion Household Academy, a Dallas-area district with two campuses, was one in every of eight constitution faculty districts that at the moment are on observe to be shut down on the finish of the college 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 consultants stated 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 influence on scholar achievement.
“I don’t know what metrics the board’s reviewing to say that that is efficiency that may warrant this quantity of pay,” stated Toni Templeton, a analysis scientist on the College of Houston. “What we all know from tutorial literature is while you put sources closest to the scholars, the scholars profit essentially the most. And the superintendent’s place is essential, however it’s fairly removed from the youngsters.”
The state’s “three strikes” legislation mandates that the state training company routinely shut down a constitution faculty district that has repeatedly failed to satisfy efficiency requirements.
College leaders have a 30-day window to contest the scores with the state training company in the event that they consider there have been errors. The state will then launch ultimate scores in December that may decide whether or not failing campuses will probably be pressured to shut.
Keri Bickerstaff has despatched 4 of her 5 youngsters to high school at Religion Household Academy however pulled most of them out after prekindergarten. She stated she was shocked and saddened when she discovered concerning the district’s funds to Purcell Mozley from ProPublica and the Tribune. At her youngsters’s faculty in Waxahachie, south of Dallas, Bickerstaff noticed crowded lecture rooms and felt that the lecturers lacked expertise and left the college at excessive charges. She was stunned that the superintendent had been paid so extremely.
“I used to be underneath the impression that funding was a problem,” Bickerstaff stated 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 employees posted on the college’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 wish our neighborhood to know that we’ve carried out an intensive evaluation of our efficiency information — and we strongly consider 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 over the past three faculty years. If the district receives one other low rating subsequent 12 months, it too will probably be pressured to shutter its two campuses that serve round 600 college students.
State training information present Gateway has been stricken by trainer 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, in accordance with tax information — practically 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 concerning 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 aren’t any state laws limiting how a lot faculty districts pays their superintendents, state lawmakers have tried to alter that for years. Lawmakers filed at the very least eight proposals throughout the latest common legislative session that may have constrained directors’ pay and severance packages at public and constitution colleges, however none handed. That included a invoice authored by Sen. Adam Hinojosa, a Republican from Corpus Christi, that may have capped a superintendent’s revenue to twice that of the highest-paid trainer within the district.
Hinojosa filed one other invoice throughout a particular session that started in July that may have allowed superintendents to earn as much as 3 times 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 achieve a committee for dialogue.
“If lecturers are held accountable for scholar efficiency, directors needs to be too,” Hinojosa stated in a press release.
Though Valere acquired a “D” ranking for the previous two years, its board has compensated Cavazos a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} yearly on prime of his base wage, making him among the many highest-paid public faculty leaders within the nation, the ProPublica and Tribune investigation discovered.
Within the weeks after the newsrooms revealed their findings, state lawmakers and an advocacy group that represents constitution colleges strongly criticized Cavazos’ compensation, calling on the district to decrease his pay and tie it to particular metrics. The state training company opened investigations into every of the three constitution colleges talked about within the story, that are “open and ongoing,” an company spokesperson stated.
In a written response to questions for this story, Valere Public Colleges stated 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 stated 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 check scores that drove the district’s “D” scores.
The board members didn’t say whether or not Cavazos’ pay would stay on the identical degree sooner or later however pointed to his employment contract for the present faculty 12 months that lists a base wage of $285,887, plus a “retention stipend” of $20,000 per 30 days, after taxes, which doubtless 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 check scores to grade every district and campus on scholar achievement, faculty progress and success with closing socioeconomic achievement gaps.
The brand new scores come after a prolonged authorized battle between Texas public faculty districts and the TEA over adjustments to the training 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 courtroom overturned a ruling in favor of the districts, setting the stage for the discharge of efficiency scores for the 2022-23 faculty 12 months in April, and scores for the 2 most up-to-date faculty years in August after a separate choice by the identical appeals courtroom.
The scores have an effect on constitution colleges and conventional public colleges in several methods. A standard public faculty district can doubtlessly face state intervention after one in every of its campuses receives 5 years of failing scores. The brand new TEA information present that there are 5 such districts in danger. By comparability, the state is required to routinely shut down a complete constitution district that receives three years of failing scores.
Supporters usually level to the “three strikes” legislation as proof that constitution colleges are held to a better degree of efficiency requirements than public colleges.
The regulation, which was launched in 2013, is one in every of many guardrails that has been put in place since constitution colleges have been licensed within the Nineties with far much less state oversight than public colleges. Constitution colleges, for instance, have been initially shielded from the state’s nepotism and conflict-of-interest legal guidelines till reviews of leaders participating in self-dealing and profiteering progressively prompted lawmakers to behave.
Brian Whitley, a spokesperson for the Texas Public Constitution Colleges Affiliation, stated that Texas holds constitution colleges “extra accountable, extra shortly” once they don’t meet efficiency expectations, together with by means of computerized closures.
Personal colleges are set to obtain the same degree of safety from the legal guidelines that govern how conventional public colleges spend their cash: Below a landmark faculty voucher invoice the Legislature handed this spring, the state plans to direct at the very least $1 billion public {dollars} to personal training 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 colleges that doubtless would have violated state legal guidelines had the colleges been public.
These kinds of conflicts of curiosity and familial enterprise entanglements have been widespread amongst at the very 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 keeping with Gateway’s 2017 monetary audit, Moore additionally married an “tutorial coach” within the district that 12 months. Data present that the coach’s compensation elevated from $75,000 to $221,000 throughout the 2022-23 faculty 12 months, after she was promoted to director of curriculum growth. 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 be her uncle, in accordance with bond paperwork. Lewis’ spouse additionally sits on the board of a separate entity that oversees the district, in accordance with Religion Household Academy’s tax filings.
Lewis and his spouse didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Whitley informed the newsrooms that his group had supported a variety of laws to implement higher accountability for charters.
“We strongly consider that each one public colleges, together with public constitution colleges, have to be clear and good stewards of taxpayer {dollars},” he stated in a press release.
