Two TFA members; Dr. Samuel Freeman and Dr. Jessica Lavariega-Monforti defend Higher Education at Political Forum.

Peña May Run for Re-Election After All

By Steve Taylor

EDINBURG, Jan. 24 - State Rep. Aaron Peña says he has not ruled out running again for the Texas House of Representatives.

At a political forum at the University of Texas-Pan American on Tuesday morning, the Edinburg Republican was given an opportunity to categorically say he has retired from politics.

“Are you done,” Peña was asked by moderator Evan Smith, of the Texas Tribune. Peña paused for a moment and then said: “Under the San Antonio map I am absolutely done.” And under the legislative drawn map, Smith asked. “I can't absolutely rule it out,” Peña responded.

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Questions Surround Unregulated Institutions

HURST — Sitting in his new office — the sparsely decorated basement of an unassuming 9,000-square-foot building just outside Fort Worth — Christopher Cone cut to the chase during a discussion of academic accreditation.

“It isn’t necessary, and it doesn’t benefit anybody,” said Mr. Cone, the president of Tyndale Theological Seminary & Biblical Institute.

The former is certainly true in the case of Tyndale, a private, Bible-based institution with only religious course offerings. The seminary won freedom from state regulation over the granting of degrees in HEB Ministries Inc. v. Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the little-discussed 2007 Texas Supreme Court decision that Mr. Cone called “a key victory for Christian education in Texas.”

“It was a monumental thing,” said Mr. Cone, who has been president of Tyndale since 2006. “The government has no authority to dictate what is quality religious education. The biblical text — that’s our authority; that’s our standard.”

But critics of the decision say it may have opened the door to turning Texas into a breeding ground for unregulated diploma mills, with institutions allowed to grant degrees without approval from the state or a recognized accrediting body.

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Congratulations Dr. Skowronek, TFA member

UTPA wins community history grant

EDINBURG — The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the University of Texas-Pan American a nearly $100,000 grant to bolster its Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools, or CHAPS, program.

Created in 2009, the CHAPS program attempts to foster historically and archaeologically literate citizens who appreciate the value of the Rio Grande Valley’s natural and social past, Director Russell Skowronek said.

“If you’re older than 25, you have a very different image of this Valley than anybody that is under the age of 20,” he said. “This Valley was very commercial agriculture, row after row, orchard after orchard of lots of citrus, great vegetation.

“People lived and worked outside,” Skowronek added. “Now instead of growing oranges and grapefruits, we grow houses, Walgreens and H-E-Bs. Nobody wants to fight change, but if we don’t record that information … the memories of this land going back generations will be gone forever.”

Through the $99,425 grant, UTPA will connect with local schoolteachers to develop practical curriculum that Skowronek hopes will impart a stewardship of local non-renewable resources and historical and archaeological sites.

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Texplainer: Could Universities Undergo Sunset Review?

Hey, Texplainer: Could the state’s public universities go through the so-called sunset review process, forcing them to periodically defend their existence to state legislators?

The issue came up at a November hearing of the Joint Oversight Committee on Higher Education Governance, Excellence and Transparency, a group formed earlier this year amid tense debate over the operations of higher education institutions in the state.

A co-chair of the committee, state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, cited a recommendation from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank whose higher education proposals she has openly opposed, that was delivered to legislators prior to the recent legislative session. It called for lawmakers to “study the feasibility, the pros, and the cons of placing universities under sunset review.”

Most state agencies go through the high-stakes process every 12 years. Their operations are scrutinized and the Legislature decides whether they should continue to operate. If legislators don't act to keep an agency in sunset alive, it shuts down.

“If the Legislature were to adopt such a recommendation, how would your universities in your system be impacted?” Zaffirini asked a group of university system chancellors who had been invited to testify on matters of governance.

As might be expected, the chancellors didn’t go for the idea.

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College Graduation Rates: Income Really Matters

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- It's getting more difficult for low-income students to climb the economic ladder as the college graduation gap between the rich and poor grows.

While more students from all backgrounds are finishing college, the difference in graduation rates between the top and bottom income groups has widened by nearly 50 percent over two decades.

And since education is a key driver of upward mobility, this gulf means that it's even harder for the poor to prosper.

Some 54 percent of students from wealthy families obtained bachelor's degrees, said Martha Bailey, an assistant economics professor at the University of Michigan. But only 9 percent of low-income students got college diplomas.

Bailey recently co-authored a paper looking at students who graduated in the late 1990s and early 2000s and compared them to those in college two decades before. She found the wealthy made great gains in graduation rates, while the poor only inched up over that time period.

In the earlier group, 36 percent of the upper-income children graduated college and 5 percent of the poor did.

Part of the reason is because more students from households earning at least $87,000 annually are going onto higher education. But children from families making less than $26,000 have not made the same advances, said Bailey.

And while two-thirds of freshmen from wealthier households finish, only one-third of their poorer classmates do.

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