Lawmakers take aim at prison education programs Education system costs state $65 million a year

Texas lawmakers, taking aim at what they see as a bloated, outdated bureaucracy, Thursday called for a dramatic overhaul of the state prison system's educational programs.

With the state facing a massive shortfall, members of a Senate Finance subcommittee said they can no longer justify the $65 million a year in state revenue used by the Windham School District to provide approximately 5,200 high school equivalency certificates and other vocational training programs.

"I'm looking for ways to get more bang for the buck," said State Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

Whitmire, along with Senate Education chair Florence Shapiro, believes the state could dissolve the district to save administrative costs and continue offering similar programs. "When we are laying off the librarian at the School for the Deaf, it's hard to justify spending this money," he said.

Shapiro, pointing to a disappointing study on the impact of Windham programs, said "They just don't seem to be doing a very good job. ... This is a golden opportunity to look at a new model" for administering prison education.

Windham Superintendant Debbie Roberts spent an uncomfortable hour fielding pointed questions today fired by members of the Texas Senate's Finance subcommittee on public education, who zeroed in an a study by the Legislative Budget Board earlier this year examining the employment status of paroled inmates who had received vocational training.

Lawmakers wondered why inmates who received the training did not seem to have much better luck finding jobs than those who did not.

Roberts replied that job statistics had been better in previous years but "started going down with the economy."

Administrative costs

Currently, the Windham School District, with 1277 employees, receives $65 million from the state's Foundation School Program — supplemented with another $15 million in federal funds and other sources - to provide high school equivalency certificates, literacy, life skills and vocational training programs to approximately half of the state's 150,000 incarcerated felons each year.

"It's a huge bureaucracy," said Whitmire, noting that Windham, unlike local school districts, operates on a statewide basis with four regional offices. He also questioned whether the Windham School District operation has outlived its usefulness. Begun in 1969 when the Texas prison system was concentrated around the Huntsville area, Windham operations grew alongside prison operations, which now exist in every corner of Texas.

Overall, Windham spends approximately 67 percent of its budget on teachers, but closer to 84 percent on direct services to inmates, when counselors and principals are counted, according to Roberts. Those employees assist inmates in enrolling in classes and conduct all achievement testing, she said.

"We strive to keep our administrative costs low because we have to and because it is the right thing to do," she said.

Roberts earns $115,000 annually and oversees four division directors earning $81,000 per year and four regional directors earning $76,500 a year. Teachers at Windham on average earn 25 to 30 percent more than the average Texas school teacher, but they also work about 30 more days a year.

"If I have to cut drug and alcohol treatment for inmates … I want to know if we can outsource what they (Windham administrators) are doing," Whitmire said. "I would argue that education is not going to matter if they (inmates) are not off of drugs and alcohol."

Difficult to compare

After her testimony, Roberts said she "understood the dilemma" of lawmakers attempting to find ways to cut the state budget. But she suggested that some ideas would not be workable in a prison setting.

"I think it would be a challenge" to implement Internet-based instruction in prison, given security concerns," she said. "In the free-world environment, that might be a good idea. I would hope we carefully weight the pros and cons and don't lose the good things" about the current system.

Roberts also noted that comparing Windham to other school district operations is "like comparing apples to oranges," since the operations are so dissimilar. Windham doesn't have the huge transportation costs of most school districts, for instance; on the other hand, no other school district serves a population as unique - and as difficult to educate - as Windham.

The average Windham student is 33 years old, with an IQ of 86. Thirty-six percent of Windham students score a grade equivalency below the sixth grade level. The average yearly educational growth is 1.2 academic years per student.

patti.hart@chron.com