Texas
Texas outpaces other states in killings by police. Here’s what needs to be done. | Opinion
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“Beauchamp is promising action to make sure disinformation is not spread through state-sanctioned training after the commission’s staff recently wrapped up its own months-long investigation” — NBC, July 27, 2023
Corpus Christi and San Antonio have the highest ratio of deaths by law enforcement per capita versus other Texas cities, according to data compiled by the website Mapping Police Violence. Over a 10-year period (2013-2022), their rate was 5.8 per million.
For comparison, the Dallas suburb of Plano has the lowest, 1.2 per million. In other words, there are proportionally more than four times as many “deaths by cop” in Corpus Christi versus Plano.
The above quote is from a 2023 NBC DFW investigation into Texas law enforcement. At the time, Mr. Beauchamp was the interim director of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the body charged with training police. He is now general counsel. And there is no doubt that training is sorely needed. Here is just one example.
Last summer, a 46-year-old resident (Melissa Perez) with schizophrenia was having a mental breakdown at her San Antonio apartment. Three officers, all Latino, came to see about her. They ended up shooting her to death because she would not leave her residence and threw a candlestick at officers. All three were subsequently fired. Two have been charged with murder and the other with aggravated assault. But due to questionable procedural issues, the case has not yet been tried.
Last year, there were 5.66 per million shooting deaths in Texas caused by police (seven in Nueces County alone), according to Mapping Police Violence. But in Illinois, which is used by many as an example of a violent state, there were only 1.95 per million. In other words, police in Texas shot and killed citizens at three times the rate of Illinois officers. Further, in 2024 versus 2023, there were 17% more fatal shootings of Texans by law enforcement … so the situation is getting worse. The question is: Why?
I come from a law enforcement family with relatives who have been with the FBI, the New York Police Department and corrections departments. I fully support the appropriate use of force against criminals, regardless of race or ethnicity. And I believe officers should be treated with respect.
But respect goes both ways. We cannot simply assume a police officer is in the right if all the evidence shows him to be wrong, the proverbial “bad egg,” as has been the case in many incidents documented via videos and cameras … including in San Antonio.
Statistics also show that deaths attributable to police actions have increased over time, up 45% between 1999 and 2013. Further, during this time period, the rate of “legal intervention deaths” for whites versus white Hispanics was very concerning. The Hispanic death rate was 89% higher.
Disturbingly, research on these cases is very limited. This situation is no doubt due to several factors, with one key factor being self-interested resistance to information gathering by police departments … for obvious reasons. Confidential reporting of instances of police racial and ethnic bias must be facilitated and required.
Police must receive basic training to understand the history of minorities in the USA and their interactions with police. Bad apples must be weeded out early, at the police academy level. Training for experienced law enforcement officers must occur on a recurring basis. Ethnic and racial profiling, directly leading to the targeting of Latino and Black residents throughout our nation, must be stopped. And, yes, some Black and Latino officers are prejudiced against members of their own race/ethnic group and need appropriate education.
Finally, when instances of police misconduct and brutality are discovered, reasonable punishment must be netted out. Police are not, and should never be, immune from our laws. Despite the recent Supreme Court ruling about presidents, we are a nation built on fairness in its legal system.
This month Scott Leeton, head of the Corpus Christi Police Officers Association, became president of the statewide law enforcement union known as CLEAT (Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas). CLEAT activities include “legal representation, lobbying, local political action, collective bargaining and negotiation support and field-related services.” I would hope that with Mr. Leeton leading the organization, it would take a long, hard look at the training needs of Texas officers, especially regarding diversity.
For many decades Latino and Black ministers have been preaching about overt police violence against minorities. Nothing has come of their good intentions. The time for talk and prayer was yesterday. It’s now past time for action and reform, starting right now in Texas.
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Texas
What made Vic Schaefer emotional in return to Mississippi State women’s basketball as Texas coach
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Vic Schaefer describes return to Mississippi State women’s basketball
Watch what Vic Schaefer had to say about Mississippi State women’s basketball after making his return to Humphrey Coliseum on Thursday.
STARKVILLE — Vic Schaefer walked onto the court at Humphrey Coliseum shortly before tipoff to a round of applause from the Mississippi State women’s basketball crowd.
A few minutes later, Schaefer was again applauded when his name was read by the PA announcer as the Texas coach.
Thursday marked his first game back at Mississippi State, the program he coached for eight seasons and led to two national championship games before leaving for Texas in 2020. His No. 1 Longhorns (28-2, 14-1 SEC) thumped the Bulldogs 68-64 in a contested game to the final minute.
Schaefer, 63, still owns two farms in the Starkville area. His daughter, Blair, is a former MSU player and now an assistant coach for Texas. She received a round of applause from the crowd too on Thursday. Schaefer took his team to dinner at his farm on Wednesday night.
After the game, Schaefer was emotional describing the experience of returning to face Mississippi State (19-10, 6-9).
“It was hard,” Schaefer said, followed by a 30-second pause with his head down. “It’s hard. Obviously it’s a place that’s near and dear to my heart. I’ll always cherish that time here. Just so many fond memories, so many great friends that we still have.
“Obviously I still have the farm, and I bought another farm, so I think whenever that day comes and it’s time for me to not coach anymore, I’ll be around a lot more. It’s been hard. I won’t lie to you. I haven’t eaten very much. Sleep is just not part of my regimen right now.”
Schaefer added that he wasn’t worried about any possible boos or jeers from fans. None of them came.
“To me, that’s what makes Mississippi State the place that it is,” he said. “It’s just until you live it, you just have no idea how special this place is. People on the outside have no idea. They have no idea. My players have no idea how special this place is.
“I know we are very blessed, and we love being at the University of Texas. Our fans are really special, but this place is so unique. Bulldog fans, they’re just different, and they’re different in the best way you can possibly imagine.”
Vic Schaefer still roots for Mississippi State, attends football games
Schaefer still comes back to his home in Starkville when he can. MSU coach Sam Purcell said he’s been on plane rides back from recruiting trips coincidentally with Schaefer’s wife, Holly.
Schaefer also said he “always want(s) Mississippi State to be successful in anything and everything” and that he even attends one Mississippi State home football game every season.
“I hope (Jeff) Lebby does a great job and gets it going,” Schaefer said. “I think he will. It’s someplace I always stay in tune with. It’s just part of my DNA.”
Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
Texas
Can Texas lawmakers close the ‘floodgates’ of uncertified teachers that they opened?
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The explosion of uncertified teachers is a problem — that’s the message Texas’ education chief brought to lawmakers this week.
More than half of brand-new educators last year lacked a state certification, meaning it was impossible to know what kind of training they received.
“We are setting these folks up for a very rough ride,” Education Commissioner Mike Morath told lawmakers during a recent House committee hearing.
He ticked through data illustrating the myriad ways teachers without formal training can impact learning. A state analysis, for example, found that schools with lower academic accountability scores hired higher rates of uncertified teachers.
A decade ago, the Legislature created a system that empowered district administrators to loosen hiring requirements. Now, faced with the repercussions, lawmakers want to fix it.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa acknowledged this dynamic while calling the volume of uncertified teachers unacceptable.
“We need to take responsibility for some of that because we’ve made it easier to get into a classroom without certification,” the Austin Democrat told her colleagues. “That is a policy decision that we have made.”
Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, put it more bluntly: “We opened the floodgates.”
School administrators can waive certain requirements by applying for a “District of Innovation” designation. This ability, which began with a 2015 law change, is among the factors driving the spike in uncertified educators in public schools.
The law change gave traditional public schools some of the flexibility already afforded to charter schools. District leaders can exempt themselves from a wide array of rules related to school start dates, class sizes or teacher certification requirements.
More than 980 school districts have District of Innovation status, according to the Texas Education Agency. That’s the majority of the state’s public schools systems.
While agency officials log innovation plans, they don’t have power to approve or reject them, effectively giving them no oversight over how many schools open their classrooms to uncertified educators.
Texas’ reliance on uncertified new teacher hires shot up – hitting a historic high – after the pandemic exacerbated educator shortages and left administrators scrambling to fill classrooms. Meanwhile, the state’s largest teacher preparation program was under state scrutiny.
An omnibus school finance bill from Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, includes attempts to rein in the system that allows teachers to skirt certification.
The proposal would limit which classes uncertified educators can teach in the future. To encourage certification, it would give to districts a $1,000 allotment for every recently hired uncertified teacher who earns a standard certificate by the end of next school year.
Buckley’s proposal encourages district leaders to pay beginning teachers with certifications higher salaries than those who are not. Districts of Innovation could also not opt-out of notifying parents if their children are assigned to an uncertified teacher.
Kate Greer, managing director for policy and state coalition at The Commit Partnership, said the proposal reflects that “the more training a teacher can have … the better off those kids are.”
Texas must deal in the short-term with the fact that many students in uncertified teachers’ classrooms aren’t learning as much as children paired with educators who have extensive training, she said.
“And longer term, how do we incentivize what the data shows is really good for kids, which is having highly qualified, highly prepared teachers in front of students,” Greer said.
Impact of certification
To become a certified teacher in Texas, candidates must earn a bachelor’s degree, complete an educator preparation program, pass related exams, submit a state application and go through a background check.
The road to the classroom without state certification is less clear.
Some uncertified educators may be switching careers from the corporate world or the military. Others may have worked as teachers in other states and didn’t want to apply for a Texas certificate when they moved.
Others could be recent graduates who saw open positions in their local district.
The level of training these educators begin with is wide-ranging, officials say, from years in schools to essentially nonexistent.
That stands in contrast to educators who come from high-quality preparation programs where they must spend copious time learning how to manage student behavior, plan lessons and serve children with disabilities.
An emerging body of research examines the potential negative effects of uncertified teachers who lack previous experience in the classroom.
Students with new uncertified teachers lost the equivalent of about four months of learning in reading and three months in math, according to a Texas Tech University study.
Such educators also identified elementary school students for dyslexia services at a lower rate than their certified counterparts.
Roughly two-thirds of uncertified teachers left the profession after five years compared to about one-third of those who are traditionally certified, according to Texas Education Agency data.
And finally, a state analysis found that schools that saw decreased academic accountability outcomes since 2019 also saw an increase in the percentage of uncertified teachers.
When schools gained District of Innovation flexibility a decade ago, many officials initially used the certification waiver to hire career and technical education teachers. They looked for industry professionals who lacked a certificate but brought real-world experience to teach students about plumbing, culinary arts, graphic design and other industries.
These days uncertified teachers lead a much broader array of classrooms.
In elementary school, roughly 10% of those who taught English, social studies, math and science were uncertified last year.
Meanwhile, in high school, one in five career and technical education teachers was uncertified as was roughly one in 10 science teachers.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron and Phyllis Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
Texas
First measles death reported in Texas child amid outbreak infecting more than 120 people
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A child who was hospitalized with measles has died from the illness in West Texas, state and local health officials announced Wednesday. It is the first death in a measles outbreak that has infected more than 120 people since late last month.
Lubbock health officials and the Department of State Health Services said the patient who died was an unvaccinated school-aged child who passed away in the last 24 hours.
As of Wednesday, the Texas health department reported at least 18 hospitalizations in the outbreak, which is primarily affecting children and teenagers. Nearly all of those who have been reported ill in Texas were unvaccinated. Nine cases have been reported in neighboring New Mexico.
As many as 1 in 20 children with measles will develop pneumonia, CDC data shows. In some cases, measles can cause severe infections in the lungs and brain that can lead to cognitive issues, deafness or death.
While most people’s symptoms improve, about 1 in 5 unvaccinated people will be hospitalized, 1 out of every 1,000 will develop brain swelling that can lead to brain damage, and up to 3 of every 1,000 will die.
Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases, but doctors and health officials say the vaccine, which is normally given as part of the combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, is highly safe and effective.
Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said recently on “CBS Mornings” that lower vaccination rates allow measles to spread, noting that even a slight dip in coverage can lead to outbreaks.
“This is a measles outbreak that began in a very close-knit, rural, Mennonite community that has very low vaccination rates. And unfortunately, we have seen vaccination rates exemptions … really soar in Texas in recent years,” she said.
According to recent KFF polling, about 17% of parents say they have skipped or delayed a vaccine dose for their children.
“This is up from about 10% just two years ago. So we’re really seeing a lot of exemptions [and] concerns about vaccination that are not warranted,” Gounder said.
Before a vaccine became available in the 1960s, between 400 and 500 Americans — mostly children — died every year from measles.
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