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Meet the new House Public Education Committee Chair:

A man of many talents with much to do

The three Naval students were all advanced pilots close to earning their wings, out for another training exercise with their instructor. As the four-plane formation went into a break, the first plane broke from the formation, then three seconds later, the second plane did the same, then the third plane, and then the fourth. At that point, it was time to decelerate to ensure a good downwind interval between the planes. But ahead unexpectedly were several planes that were already downwind coming straight away. Over the radio came the warning: “Look out Rob.” Hearing that message “probably saved my life,” said Rob Eissler as he quickly changed course and avoided disaster. And it’s a good thing–he still had a lot to accomplish.

Rob Eissler is a man of many talents. As a Princeton graduate with an architecture degree, he joined the Navy and served as a carrier-based attack pilot on the USS John F. Kennedy, with 349 carrier landings to his credit. As a successful businessman in The Woodlands near Houston, he has led an executive recruiting firm for 26 years and mentored public school students on the free enterprise system. As a public servant, he served 18 years on the Conroe Independent School District Board of Trustees, including two terms as president, and since 2001, has served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives. As if that weren’t enough, he coached basketball for 20 years and is well known as one of the voices of high school football on local radio broadcasts. He and his wife, Linda, have three children.

In January, he was named to head the powerful House Public Education Committee during the 80th legislative session, succeeding Kent Grusendorf of Arlington, who was defeated in the March primary after a 20-year career in the Legislature. Soon after, TCTA lobby staff sat down to have a conversation with Chairman Eissler, asking him the tough questions about where we’re headed with vouchers and accountability, and getting his advice on how teachers can be effective in reaching their legislators.

Top three fixes for public education

When asked the top three things that need “fixing” in public education, the Chairman put school finance at the top of his list. While school finance is not expected to dominate the Legislature’s agenda this session, there are many concerns that the restructuring of the state school funding system, which passed during the spring 2006 special session under a pressing deadline imposed by the Supreme Court, is just a temporary fix.

School accountability is another key issue for Chairman Eissler, who intends “to level the playing field for school accountability and find a good, fair, equitable way to evaluate teachers and reward the most effective teachers,” potentially by using the percentage of economically disadvantaged students as the leveling factor. “My theory on accountability is to recognize the good schools and repair the poorly performing ones,” in a positive, non-threatening way. “I would love to see teachers make $120,000-$150,000, the good ones, I mean the really good ones. But the problem is we can’t afford to pay all the teachers that, and we have to learn to tell the difference.”

His third priority is to build better teamwork between the state and schools so they can work together to make the schools better. “There’s too much talent in the education business not to use it all.”

The GBC report and vouchers

The Chairman expects the Governor’s Business Council (GBC) plan for increasing teacher effectiveness to come before the House Public Education Committee soon. The report, prepared by a group of business activists not affiliated with the governor’s office despite their name, offers recommendations for evaluating teacher performance and rewarding teacher effectiveness. TCTA pointed out several issues of real concern in the report to the Chairman, especially those proposals that would base teacher evaluations more significantly on student test scores and would incorporate student test scores in the determination of contract renewal, at least for probationary teachers. While he agreed that there were some “potential hot spots” in the report, specifically burden of proof for teachers, Chairman Eissler commended the GBC for focusing on teachers, noting that it would be good to take “a look at teacher preparation, at the colleges of education, and try to see who’s doing the best job of preparing teachers.” But while he recognizes that any “focus always brings pluses and always brings minuses,” he is hopeful that those can be worked out. Clearly, TCTA will be among those working with the Chairman on this and other crucial education issues, such as the recurring private school voucher proposal.

Chairman Eissler expects a voucher proposal to begin in the Senate, but doesn’t think it will have the votes necessary to go far. Besides, he stresses, if every student in Texas got a voucher and every student in Texas wanted to use it, there would only be 19,000 spots available for 4.5 million students. While the Chairman would not say how he would vote until he sees the bill, his voting record reflects a pro-voucher stance.

Changes in the House Public Education Committee

Chairman Eissler plans some practical changes in the operations of the House Public Education Committee, including a streamlining of the testimony process, with presenters asked to highlight in yellow key points of written testimony and provide a summary presentation of the highlighted points. He also plans to use a whiteboard to record pros and cons on an issue and limit the number of people with the same or similar testimony. “My theory is, it’s the quality of the argument not the quantity.” Still he promises to give “equal opportunity to those in favor of or against a bill, even if it’s my bill….because they may have a compelling argument that I either haven’t thought of or haven’t heard.” He also hopes to get as many bills heard as possible, and credits committee testimony with being a good precursor of the issues that will be raised on the House floor.

Military is good preparation for life in the Legislature

Chairman Eissler says his military background prepared him well for the Legislature, both places where “you work long hours for low pay and can still contribute,” something that our members can no doubt relate to. As a representative, he takes home $600 a month and frequently works 12-plus hours a day. The military “will always test you on your level of frustration….always give you too much to do, because they want to see how you will react.” He also credits the military with teaching him not to get flustered and to depend on other people, both useful skills for work in the House.

A friend of TCTA

Though you might not expect it from his voting record, Chairman Eissler is a favorite among TCTA lobby staff because of his willingness to work with us and his ability to make things happen. Honored as one of TCTA’s legislative stars in the 2005 session, he has been very effective in advancing several TCTA legislative proposals and doing significant damage control behind the scenes, at our request. He often files legislation just to get ideas “on the table,” but has always been willing to rethink a proposal when presented with good arguments. The feeling is mutual. In a word, the Chairman calls TCTA “wonderful,” adding “What I love about TCTA is that if they disagree, they disagree professionally.” “I think what we do agree on all the time is that teachers are intrinsically good and want to do a good job.”

As a freshman legislator in 2003, Eissler authored two successful bills at the request of TCTA–one allowing less-than-annual appraisals of teachers whose performance ratings the prior year were satisfactory and who had no identified areas of deficiency, and another that established teachers’ grading authority so long as the grade was not arbitrary or erroneous and was in compliance with district policy. During the 2005 session, he sponsored several TCTA bills, including the successful job postings bill and a student discipline bill. During this session, he is hard at work on a bill to place students who are required to register as sex offenders in alternative education settings, and is reviving efforts to clarify the right of a teacher to communicate directly with school board members–just two of the four bills he filed at TCTA’s request.

Advice to TCTA members who want to lobby their legislators

TCTA is always encouraging its members to be active and contact their legislators on lobby issues and asked the Chairman for his thoughts on what works and what doesn’t work in the legislative arena. He cautions against the “scripted call,” “official rhetoric” and the phone trees that verge on harassment. He responds to “real people with real concerns” and encourages teachers to call and tell him what they think. “I may get one call that’s against a bill and 99 calls in favor of it that say the same thing, but then I get that one call, and that could do it.” And who knows, he might pick up the phone himself, which he is known to do when he arrives early before the office staff.

As the Chairman headed to the House floor and the TCTA lobby staff to meetings at the Capitol, he was asked what message he would like for our members to have. “I’m a big proponent of the public schools, and I think teachers play a very important part,” said Chairman Eissler, “and we have too much to lose not to give our best, to do our best with our public schools.”

On a lighter note, when asked what he considers a “perfect day,” the Chairman didn’t use the words that would come to mind for most of us, like “beach” or “easy chair.” Instead “work” is what makes him happy. “You know if I won the lottery…I’d still work. My perfect day would be to see what I can get done to make things better.” Clearly, the Chairman is a man on a mission.

Web posted: 03/22/07 from The Classroom Teacher, Spring '07