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Cover Story- By the numbers
When John Petree decided to change careers after years as a high school principal, he didn’t look further than the nearby regional education service center (ESC) for his new job. Petree was familiar with its programs, having taken advantage of several as an educator, and he didn’t hesitate when presented with the opportunity to be on the other side as an ESC employee. “I jumped on it,” says Petree, who now serves as Region 18 associate executive director in Midland. “Most service center employees are former district employees. That’s our recruiting pool. The centers have a lot to offer school districts.” Regional education service centers — commonly known by the acronyms RESC, ESC or SC — have been around for more than four decades. The centers, which serve public schools and charter schools, are charged with assisting districts in improving student performance, operating more efficiently and implementing state initiatives. Petree’s positive stance on ESCs is shared widely by school district personnel, according to a recent University of Texas study that gauged the satisfaction levels of districts with ESC programs, trainings, technical assistance, administrative support and products. In the survey of 1,271 superintendents and charter school administrators, overall responses fell between 4.52 and 4.73 on a five-point scale, with five being the most satisfied. The highest-scoring items in the survey were support services for the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) and for compliance guidelines and support concerning state and federal regulations. Another study, “The Consolidated Report of Texas Education Service Centers,” which is required by state statute and prepared for Education Commissioner Robert Scott, found that school districts incurred significant savings when using ESC products and services. Among 20 items in the study, ESC prices were lower in 14 comparisons. Funding and perceptions Despite the high marks, however, ESCs have struggled with funding and misperceptions. There’s a sense among some lawmakers that the service centers don’t provide enough “bang for the buck” when it comes to serving larger, more urban districts. The impression is that ESCs mainly benefit smaller, more rural districts.
Ron Simpson, a spokesman for ESC Region 10 in Richardson, says the idea that ESCs are most useful to smaller, more rural districts is simply wrong, especially in today’s climate of budgetstrapped school districts in all corners of the state. “As time has passed and needs of school systems have grown, the products and services have changed,” says Simpson, who counts Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD and Dallas ISD as major consumers. “We have a balancing act that we have to provide. We work very hard at maintaining a relationship with our big districts.” Adds Jerry Maze, executive director of Waco’s ESC Region 12: “We continue to evolve based on customer needs.” In the beginning More than four decades ago, ESCs were proposed as media centers that would supply educational and professional training videos to districts that otherwise couldn’t afford them. After the state Legislature authorized the media centers in 1965, the State Board of Education created the 20 regions in which the centers would operate. By 1967, there was talk of expanding the centers’ roles, which led to the models that exist today.
Since then, ESCs have been on the front lines of efforts to improve reading and math scores among Texas youth by serving as a primary professional development center for elementary and middle school teachers. ESCs assist more than 550,000 staff members and 4.1 million students each year. “The role of regional ESCs is to meet the needs of school districts, whatever that need may be,” says Nancy Oliver, deputy director of administrative services for Region 6 in Huntsville. “Regional ESCs have adapted and evolved over the past 45 years to meet that need.” The concept of regional education service centers isn’t unique to Texas. In 42 states, there are an estimated 620 service centers, some dating back to a century ago, with few these days serving as regulatory agencies. They’re especially needed in larger states, Petree observes. “In smaller states, you don’t have to travel a long way to get across the state. In Texas, you can drive for three days and still be in Texas,” he jokes. “Part of what makes service centers in Texas an efficient model for operations is that we can provide services face to face.” Nationwide, the centers go by different names — Board of Cooperative Educational Services, County Office of Education, Education Service Unit and Intermediate School District, among them. But no matter what they’re called, many can best be described as partners in education, focusing on customization, efficiency and delivery. “Everything we do — whether it is training, support or direct services — focuses on saving districts money and leveraging resources and time,” says Katie Chenoweth, coordinator of purchasing, marketing and communications services for Region 7 in Kilgore. And officials boast that no two centers are alike. “Each of the 20 service centers has its own personality,” says Petree. “We’re all a little bit different, but we operate as a system. We share ideas, commonly produce products. We meet to plan, to organize, even to share staff sometimes. Although we are 20 different entities, we do function as one system.” While they perform similar functions, their methods of delivery may differ depending on the locations and types of districts served. One size does not fit all. “A smaller district may want to send several of their teachers to a new training at the ESC, while a larger district may want to send one educator or have one of our specialists travel to their district,” says Chenoweth. “The needs of our large and small districts can be very similar, yet vary by scale.” Funding and the future ESC directors and associate directors throughout the state say demand for services is on the rise. However, the budget cuts have sparked considerable unease and service cutbacks. As school districts experienced drastic funding cuts, many ESC officials began planning for the worst, says Kyle Wargo, executive director of Lubbock’s ESC Region 17. “Some service centers have had to narrow their focus,” he says. “Other service centers began to find creative ways to continue the services they provide to districts.” Prior to 2003, ESCs received approximately $67 million each biennium. In the last legislative session, that figure was cut almost 40 percent, from $42 million to $25 million. Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, a member of the house appropriations and public education committees, says he expects ESCs to “become closer to self-funding.” “Wherever there is a way to consolidate services and gain efficiencies, I think that will be looked at real hard” by the Legislature, Aycock says. Dominic Giarratani, assistant director of governmental relations for the Texas Association of School Boards, is concerned that ESC funding cuts will change the playing field. “The Legislature urged schools, in the face of unprecedented cuts to school revenue, to seek out efficiencies to provide the same quality of education with less funding,” Giarratani says. “Education service centers — which are optimally positioned to help schools become more efficient because of their programs, knowledgeable personnel and organizational expertise — will find it difficult to help schools to the same extent they did in the past as a result of the massive state funding cuts within their own organizations.” The centers certainly are feeling the pressure. Region 6 cut staff, grant services and delivery services. Region 7 is offering more online training to offset travel costs. Region 8 in Mt. Pleasant discontinued an early intervention program for young children with special needs. Still, staff cuts have been the most painful, Oliver says. “The ultimate resource of the RESC is its staff,” she says. “Due to staff cuts, we have had to assign additional responsibilities to remaining staff to continue service offerings. This potentially may impact the quality of those services, as well as the timeliness of the delivery of those services.” Other directors say they’re trying to remain focused on their districts’ funding woes and not their own. “In our current environment, I think service centers are the lifeblood of schools,” says Petree. “They have stepped up and filled a major hole. School districts just do not have the resources.” Despite challenges, ESC directors remain optimistic about future growth in services and utilization. Their 2010-2015 strategic plan lists four main goals:
Karen Whitaker, ESC Region 8 deputy executive director for administrative services, says her center is offering “the best support we’ve ever provided” in curriculum and instruction, despite the economic climate. The center provides support for districts using the CSCOPE curriculum. “We have a highly qualified, very experienced curriculum and instruction staff,” she says. As state funding for school districts decreases, Maze chooses to see only opportunity. He estimates that annually districts save a little more than 25 percent on professional development consultants by using a service center; in Waco ISD, that amount came out to $90,000 last year. Across the region, it amounted to $3.5 million. The Waco center recently was awarded a federal grant to track college readiness for 4,000 students. “Our future is very strong,” Maze says. “School boards know us, and even though superintendents may come and go, we have relationships with those communities that allow us to work with them in ways that others couldn’t.” Advertising their services to school districts remains a top priority, he says, to ensure districts receive information about services and programs. The center also conducts surveys and needs assessments to maintain the quality of the ESC’s customer service, Maze says. “We really have a good participation rate — with some of the very small districts, all the way up to Waco and Killeen,” he says. “We see school districts utilizing service centers more and more. We believe we provide an excellent product, and that’s the feedback they give us.” Whitaker maintains a positive outlook as well. “We know our schools, and our schools know us,” she says. “The way that we can be most effective is through developing partnerships. We accept responsibility for what’s going on in those districts. We’re willing to say, ‘If District A is not being successful, what can we do to help them?’ We’re in it together.”
RAVEN HILL is the former education reporter for the Austin American-Statesman
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In the wake of brutal state budget cuts last year (almost 40 percent of ESC funding was slashed), these questions have become more pronounced. “I don’t think people understand what (ESCs) do provide,” says Rep. Jim Pitts, a former school board member from Ellis County. “I don’t think a lot of small school districts tell their legislators and taxpayers, ‘If we did not have the service centers, our tax rate would have to go up so we could find people to provide these services.’”
In the 1980s, the state directed regional ESCs to work with the Texas Education Agency to “raise the quality of district programs and enhance the uniformity and consistency in district operations,” according to an online history of the centers. The operating rules were revised a decade later, giving more oversight to the state education commissioner in the areas of personnel and budgeting, and clarifying the centers’ role in improving student performance.