Commissioner encourages ECISD

Jul. 20—Speaking virtually, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath praised the progress of Ector County ISD at its Leadership University Wednesday.

The event is being held at Crossroads church through Thursday.

Morath has been in his job for six and a half years and oversees 1,200 independent school districts with 500,000 students. He spoke about leadership and qualities chiefs need to be effective.

He said he works with the most "mission-driven" people on Earth.

"... We all are born with certain talents and we can nurture them — or not — over the course of the long and winding paths that God puts in front of us. And y'all have chosen to use your time, use your tremendous talents ... helping children become the best versions of themselves. Literally, making the world a better place. ... I am so honored to be able to serve you in any capacity that I can add to today," Morath said.

When he first came to TEA, Morath said they did not really have a structured, coherent strategic plan.

"I spent six months talking to students, to teachers, to parents, to school board members, to superintendents, to principals, and other district personnel, community members, business leaders, you name it, and we coalesced around this set of priorities, which there is really a remarkable degree of unanimity on. Everybody wants K-12 education to result in children that are prepared for success. And we really want all children — we don't care what they look like; we don't care what their family background is; we don't care where they live. We want our children to be prepared for success. And the success isn't just ... you graduated; have a nice life. It is that you will be launched into the next phase of your life prepared to be successful, that you can go to college; not just pay a little bit of money and then drop out but make it all the way through," Morath said.

Strategic priorities are to recruit, support and retain teachers and principals; build a foundation of reading and math; connect high school to career and college; and improve low-performing schools.

Enablers for this include increase transparency, fairness and rigor in district and campus academic and financial performance; ensure compliance and effectively implement legislation and inform policymakers; and strengthen organizational foundations (resource efficiency, culture, capabilities, partnerships).

He added that students can join the military, or go directly into the workforce with a career path that is going to allow them to take care of themselves and their family and meet their financial needs.

Teachers are the most important factor that drives student outcomes, Morath said.

"We've got to be relentless in how we recruit, support and retain teachers. Oh by the way, teachers don't hire themselves. Leadership on that campus, the principals and the culture that they create is absolutely critical to whether or not we're successful for kids," Morath said.

"We also have to think about the structure of what we do in the early grades, the early years. It is critical to lay a foundation of reading and math and strong literacy, strong numeracy in all of our kids. Otherwise they will not be prepared as life gets more and more complicated," Morath said.

He added that while staying focused on the earliest learners and their needs, educators have to be cognizant of what our kids in high school need.

"And what are we doing to make sure that the high school journey is as rigorous and as connected to what comes next for them ...," Morath said.

He pointed to the RISE campuses, growing their own, Opportunity Culture and the Teacher Incentive Allotment are initiatives ECISD has implemented that have made a difference.

Morath said the Teacher Incentive Allotment is not a grant. It's a line item in the budget and embedded statutorily in the foundation school program.

"We don't just want a few teachers to get to $100,000. We want them all to reach that level of efficacy and these operational changes that y'all have made using Opportunity Culture in particular that we've been trying to support as effectively as we can. This speeds up the growth curve of our teachers and improves their efficacy that much faster and it's huge," Morath said.

"These are not isolated changes that y'all are making. You're putting it together in various thoughtful systematic ways. I think about an initiative that we support called ACE, Accelerating Campus Excellence, which y'all have implemented under project RISE into your schools. It is bringing all of these approaches to talent management together, as well as instructional practices together and seeing an explosion in student outcomes growth. This is remarkable and it's part of a sort of thought process change that began in Ector County a couple of years ago as part of our system of great schools work," Morath said.