But it's not like the district doesn't need good math teachers. Fallon says the linchpin to a good faculty is a principal who sees the teachers as a team with the principal as coach, one that fosters cooperation and is willing to help with problems and encourage innovative ideas. She estimates 60 percent to 70 percent of HISD principals fit the bill. The principal's attitude, she says, is translated to the children in low rates of turnover and absenteeism and in how much they're willing to do outside the classroom. Rodriguez says charter schools and schools with magnet or Vanguard programs work well.
Teachers have greater academic freedom and are enthused by the subject matter and the children.
The key, he and others say, is parental involvement. This is partly because teachers work in a structured environment all day, and many believe that once they're off duty their time belongs to them. One teacher who defies that description is Linda Velasquez, a bilingual language arts teacher at Burbank Middle School. Despite the north Houston school's population, which is 87 percent Hispanic with most the children of recently arrived immigrants, the school held parents' meetings for 45 minutes in English, and then gave a five-minute summary in Spanish. Understandably, Velasquez said, many of the parents who didn't speak English stopped coming.