OLIVEIRA WAS READY TO ABANDON TSC, THE PEOPLES' SCHOOL

By Juan Montoya

In their "Brief History of Education in Brownsville and Matamoros," Milo Kearney, Alfonso G.Arguelles and Yolanda Z. Gonzalez, outlined the efforts of both cities to bring education to their children.

The work was published in 1989 as a one-year commemoration of the merger between Pan American University and the University of Texas System in 1988 by the U of Pan Am Press.

The authors painstakingly traced the humble beginnings of the first settlers to Matamoros who came from Camargo and Monterrey in 1774 as they tried to provide a basic education to their children by paying for tutors their children as far back as 1793. This work was then performed by the Apostolic Colleges of Zacatecas in 1796.

In 1814, 34 years before there was a Brownsville, the settlers in Matamoros established the first primary school (elementary) with a paid teacher. Peaceful (?) Indian workers were hired to do the ranching chores of boys who were sent to school. In 1833, the new Mexican government brought on by independence established the Dept. of Public Instruction, an overly optimistic effort that produced little or no financial support for local schools. In the void, Matamoros residents took up the slack. The schools lacked everything, including books and had to rely on what the parents sent with their children. But in 1837, the schools there were opened up for girls, too.

Through the years, it was the Catholic (Oblates and other monastic orders on both sides), including Presbyterian missionaries, who provided the instruction. In 1853, Matamoros established the first secondary school. On the American side, it wasn't until 1855 that Cameron County established the first country school housed on the Methodist Church and later in the first federal building. That effort fizzled due to lack of state funds and for 17 years, Cameron County lacked public instruction.

The Catholic Church – through the Villa Maria school for girls run by the Order of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word in 1853 and the St. Joseph Academy for boys run by the Oblates in 1862 – was the only educational force. If families could afford it, boys and girls from both sides of the border could get a religious-based education.

It wasn't until 1875 that the Brownsville Public School System was established, but again, like their neighbors across the Rio Grande, their efforts were not funded by their state governments. One-third of the children in Brownsville were enrolled for school, but only one-fourth attended, the authors say.

In 1889, the first grammar school was established in Brownsville at the site of the present-day Annie S. Putegnat Elementary next to Washington Park. It wasn't until 1916 that Brownsville had a high school, 63 years after there was one in Matamoros. It was located at the corner of Palm Blvd. and Elizabeth Street.

By 1926, the Junior College of the Rio Grande, later named Brownsville Junior College and renamed Texas Southmost College in 1941, came into existence.
Since the State of Texas had proven reluctant to provide funds for that purpose, the residents showed their desire to provide their children with an educational rung to higher education by establishing the district, that is, to tax themselves.

Matamoros had three colegios already in existence by the time Pan American University rented space from TSC years later to establish an extension and provide upper-level classes in Brownsville in 1973.  Four years later, the University of Pan American-Brownsville was established.

Then, in November 1988, Pan American merged with the UT System, and Brownsville residents complained that the result would be that state resources would be funneled to Hidalgo County to the detriment of the Brownsville campus.

Among some of their fears was that without autonomy from Edinburg the Brownsville campus would be ineligible to seek federal funding and would be at the mercy of Edinburg for funds. Also, they could not solicit private or foundation funds without the approval from Edinburg. Autonomy, they said, would help attract industry to Brownsville and help of recruitment and retention of superior faculty, and help it gain accreditation.

Efforts to get an independent free-standing university were rebuffed – as had the initial establishment of a public school system – by the legislature in Austin. This despite offers from the city to the UT System of donating 200 acres adjacent to the TSC campus. In the face of continued denials by the legislature, a half-baked answer was concocted to appease Brownsville.

Sen. Eddie Lucio and State Rep. Rene Oliveira bought into the disastrous "partnership" between TSC and the UT System that required the college district to foot the bill for UT to "partner" with TSC. The taxpayers of the poorest community in the state and nation would pay for hte oil-and-gas wealthy UT System to be here. Over the next 21 years, the community college district – under the "leadership" of President Julieta Garcia – "transferred" more than $1 billion to the UT System, indebted its taxpayers with $120 million construction bonds, and produced dismal graduation and retention rates in return. Tuition was charged at university level even for vocational classes and the community college mission abandoned.

It has only been since 2011 that an independent TSC board of trustees opted to separate itself from the UT System and gain operational independence two years alter in 2013. But before that happened, the trustees went to Lucio and Oliveira and asked them to support the separation and allow the college to return to its original mission of providing affordable, accessible opportunity to local students.

Oliveira had submitted a bill ( HB 3689) backed by then-UTB-TSC president Julieta Garcia to turn over all the assets of the community college to the UT System diametrically opposed to the wishes of college trustees and residents. It took the testimony before the committee of TSC trustee Adela Garza and Erasmo Castro to convince Oliveira to amend the bill to make TSC an independent institution. Even the chairman of the committee disapproved of the original Oliveia bill.

If not for the resistance to the bill by the TSC trustees and district residents, Oliveira and Lucio were content to have TSC and all the assets nurtured by the district's taxpayers since 1926 gobbled up by the UT System, except for the $128 million in bond debt. As it was, Oliveira submitted a bill that in effect erased the $10 million in rent owed TSC by the UT System.

Now the worse fears of those back in 1988 that the new entity – in this case the UT Rio Grande Valley – would relegate Brownsville to a satellite campus without say so in its operations or academic decisions, have come full circle and a self-fulfilling prophesy.

These turns of events for the worse in the educational opportunities for students in the Matamoros-Brownsville are were made possible by our state legislators despite the fact that Oliveira's uncle – the late Arnulfo "Nuco" Oliveira – served as president of TSC and Pan Am Brownsville before his death. Additionally, trustee David Oliveira – Nuco's son and Rene's cousin, both Texas Exes – showed his loyalty was to the UT System and not to the people of the district by voting for Garcia's plan to turn over TSC's assets to UTB and to continue to let the community taxpayers subsidize it.

But even worse than that, both Oliveiras and Lucio were willing to turn their backs on the 224 years of the labor of love of Matamoros and Brownsville residents to provide an education to their children.