Chapter 6: Education
Review the Role of Regional
Education Service Centers
in Public Education
Summary
The 1965 Texas Legislature created regional education service centers
(RESCs)
to distribute federal education funding. Since that time, the services provided
by RESCs have multiplied, their budgets have grown, and responsibility for their
oversight has changed. Despite sweeping changes in the roles and
responsibilities of RESCs, the state has never conducted a comprehensive
assessment of how RESCs fit into the overall educational delivery system. Such a
review should be conducted by the Comptroller’s office.
Background
For nearly 35 years, 20 regional education service centers (RESCs) have
provided services to Texas school districts in geographic regions created in
1967.[1] RESCs charge districts varying fees for
their services; few if any of their services are free.
Created initially by the 1965 Texas Legislature as vehicles for distributing
federal education funding, the RESCs’ role has broadened to include
instruction-related services, media services, teacher training and certification
testing, training for bus drivers and school board members, informational
services, data processing, and administering various federal and state programs.
Most, if not all, RESCs also provide media services, teacher training, and
support for the state’s Public Education Information Management System
(PEIMS), which collects information for the state’s
accountability system.
RESCs received over $300 million in total revenue in the 1998-99
biennium.[2] For the 1996-97 biennium, 35 percent
of RESC funding came from school district payments for RESC services. Another 40
percent came from the federal government for programs such as Head Start, Child
Nutrition, Adult Education, Special Education and other
programs.[3] State funding provided the remaining
25 percent.
In recent years, the state’s
Commissioner of Education
has assumed greater authority over the RESCs. In 1992, the State Board of
Education (SBOE) granted the commissioner authority to approve RESC executive
directors.[4] In 1995, the Legislature directed
the commissioner to create and administer an RESC accountability system. In
1997, the Legislature transferred rulemaking authority for the RESCs from SBOE
to the commissioner, and authorized the commissioner to conduct annual RESC
evaluations including financial audits, client satisfaction surveys, and reviews
of any other performance indicators the commissioner chooses to
establish.[5]
Despite the commissioner’s increasingly broad responsibilities,
authority over RESCs is fragmented. Legally, RESCs are nonprofit corporations
governed by “lay boards” elected by local school boards and
administered by executive directors hired by the RESC boards with the approval
of the state Commissioner of Education.[6] The
commissioner also must approve any dismissal of an executive director. The
executive directors are responsible for the day-to-day management of the RESCs,
although they answer to the commissioner. The authority of the lay boards is
limited largely to obtaining the commissioner’s permission to hire and
fire executive directors.
The increased authority of the Commissioner of Education and the fact that
many of TEA’s technical assistance functions have been moved to the RESCs
means the education service centers are functioning in practice as if they were
TEA satellite offices.[7] RESC personnel are
expected to be familiar with TEA regulations and to help districts comply with
them. Nevertheless, education service centers are not state agencies; their
payroll and benefits are independent of the state’s salary classification
system, and RESCs are free to set charges for their services. RESCs, moreover,
are prohibited from enforcing state
regulations.[8]
RESCs can compete with one another to provide services to school districts,
since the Legislature has explicitly authorized districts to purchase services
from any RESC in the state. In practice, the centers fail to provide school
districts with the sort of information that would allow them to compare the
type, cost, or quality of the services the various RESCs and private providers
might offer. While such information would be helpful to districts, the RESCs
have no incentive to provide comparative data that could threaten their own
market positions.
RESC Oversight
High-level oversight of RESCs has been sporadic and limited, despite their
increasingly important role in Texas public education. The Comptroller’s
office conducted a modest review of the centers in 1992 as part of a
“limited performance review” of TEA; this review resulted in six
major proposals and 25 detailed recommendations for changes in RESC operations
and procedures, some of which were partially
implemented.[9]
The 1995 Legislature called for a “sunset review” of the RESCs,
but relied on the Commissioner of Education to perform the study. The
commissioner responded with a 26-page report, plus a focus-group report and a
survey of RESC customers. The report provided little information regarding the
objective measurement of performance or
efficiency.[10] The 1997 Legislature enacted
some modest changes in accordance with the commissioner’s
recommendations.
TEA does not regularly track the RESCs’ current expenditures, revenues,
or employee statistics. The only rule imposed by the commissioner on the RESCs
concerns the procedures for RESC board member selection. Moreover, despite the
commissioner’s considerable oversight authority, the process for
evaluating RESCs and ensuring their accountability to Texas taxpayers is
unstructured and ineffective. The commissioner examines:
- The results of regional student Texas Assessment
of Academic Skills testing;
- Regional Academic Excellence Indicator System
statistics;
- Reports from district effectiveness and
compliance visits;
- Management/service audits; and,
- Financial audit
reports.[11]
To date however, neither the commissioner nor any other independent authority
has attempted to undertake a detailed study of RESC service delivery systems,
their relationships to the districts and TEA, their business processes, the
possible benefits of outsourcing certain functions, or other fundamental issues.
Efforts to achieve educational excellence must couple accountability with the
freedom to pursue innovation. While RESCs appear to have a great deal of
freedom, the state has a vested interest in ensuring that they are held
accountable for using taxpayer dollars in a cost-effective manner.
Recommendation
State law should be amended to authorize the Texas Comptroller of Public
Accounts to conduct a comprehensive review of the state’s Regional
Education Service Centers (RESCs).
This review should include a “Yellow Pages Test” for competitive
contracting opportunities, and analyses of RESC oversight, finances, business
practices, accountability safeguards, and their number and geographic
distribution. This analysis also should weigh the need for RESCs, as opposed,
for example, to a separate system of Texas Education Agency field offices.
Fiscal Impact
The Comptroller of Public Accounts and the Texas Education Agency would enter
into an interagency contract for a comprehensive review of RESCs. The review
would be directed by the Comptroller of Public Accounts, and funds for the
review would be drawn from funds appropriated by the Legislature for RESC
operations. A comprehensive review of the state’s RESC network would cost
the state about $500,000 in consulting fees and other costs.
[1] Texas Comptroller of Public
Accounts, Texas Education Agency Performance Review (Austin, Texas, May
3, 1993), p. 94.
[2] Interview with Philip
Cochran, director of Regional Education Service Center Support, Texas Education
Agency, Austin, Texas, November 9, 2000.
[3] Texas Education Agency,
Regional and District Level Report: A Report to the 76th Texas
Legislature (Austin, Texas, December 1, 1998), p. 11.
[4] Texas Education Agency,
Regional and District Level Report: A Report to the 76th Texas
Legislature, p. 10.
[5] Interview with Philip
Cochran, director of Regional Education Service Center Support, Texas Education
Agency, Austin, Texas, June 16, 2000; and V.C.T.A., Education Code, §8.101
and §8.103.
[6] V.C.T.A., Education Code,
§8(a).
[7] See Texas Education Agency,
Regional and District Level Report: A Report to the 76th Texas
Legislature, p. 15, for a listing of these functions.
[8] V.C.T.A., Education Code,
§8.054.
[9] Texas Comptroller of Public
Accounts, Texas Education Agency Performance Review.
[10] Texas Education Agency,
Service Centers 2000: Task Force Report to the Commissioner of Education
(Austin, Texas, August 1996).
[11] Interview with Philip
Cochran, June 16, 2000.
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