Two North Texas school districts have ditched the state’s controversial school board association and switched to a new competitor, ending the old organization’s decades-long monopoly.
Carroll and Princeton Independent School Districts voted this month to partner with Texans for Excellence in Education (TEE), becoming the new association’s first member districts.
TEE is a nonprofit launched earlier this year to meet parents’ and school districts’ demand for an alternative to the old and increasingly politicized Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).
Carroll ISD trustees voted in March to exit TASB by the end of 2023—also a first—and previewed TEE’s services at a board meeting in June.
“For decades TASB has been the only game in town and they have largely abused their station to proliferate policies and an overall ideology that diminishes the role of publicly elected trustees, elevates administrators, silences parents, and leaves children behind,” said TEE President John Petree.
Petree called TASB “outmoded” and “unrepresentative.”
TASB was established in 1949 as a voluntary association for school board officials.
Local taxpayer dollars are used to fund TASB membership fees and services that include training, legal advice, and insurance.
The organization also engages in taxpayer-funded lobbying on behalf of school district interests, which often conflict with the interests of students, parents, and the taxpayers picking up the tab.
In addition, TASB has used its legal guidance to promote leftist ideologies pushed by the Obama and Biden administrations.
While TASB has claimed “all 1,025 Texas school boards” as members, that’s now starting to change.
“TEE was created to break TASB’s unchecked monopoly, offer competition, and reinvigorate the roles of trustees in setting the agenda for their public school districts,” said Petree.
According to the TEE website,
TEE seeks to implement and provide guidance to the current ISD policy frameworks to aid Texas independent school districts, their boards, administrators, and teachers in achieving these critical objectives.
We believe parents should be principally involved in the education and instruction of their children. School board trustees are elected to govern ISDs and are accountable to the taxpayers.
Petree said TEE is working to expand into other districts across the state and believes that as more school boards join, “the value proposition we offer will become even more desirable.”
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