Texas Education Commissioner visits EP, talks EPISD

El Paso hasn’t seen the Texas education commissioner in about 5 years.

“I think it’s about time we see a commissioner,” saidYsleta Independent School District SuperintendentDr. Michael Zolkoski.

In just his fifth week on the job, Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams can’t say he’s done much to clean up the corruption that has tarnished EPISD. But he promises he will.

“I’m outraged by what happened,” saidWilliams.

He told a room full of educators and students he wants EPISD to scour its schools and purge the ranks of those involved with the cheating scandal. If they don’t he says he will.

“We’re going to give the district an opportunity to right the ship. And obviously if that doesn’t happen and obviously if that doesn’t happen, there are several options available to the commissioner of education,” Williams said.

But teacher’s I spoke with say when they reached out to the TEA to blow the whistle on disappeared students, the TEA gave the impression they investigated and found the claims to be unsubstantiated, according to a press release sent out by Sen. Eliot Shapleigh in 2010.

Once the FBI came in and discovered the disappeared students, Shapleigh charges the TEA failed to investigate elements that were essential to the scheme.

The release also says previous TEA Commissioner Robert Scott is now embroiled in a serious controversy over the Texas Projection Measure which allowed half of the 1 million students who failed TAKS to be counted as “passing” for the purpose of the Texas school accountability system.

“We’re not going to take forever. And I know how to make a decision, and I know how to make one expeditious,” Williams said.