Grading Texas

A strong school system needs more than more of the same

This analogy may be an overextended stretch into the dramatic, but Texas’ growing public education system reminds me a little of the Titanic. It is an ambitious, enormous venture with serious, basic flaws. The Titanic sank too easily and didn’t have enough lifeboats. Our education system is not adequately or fairly funded and, like the Titanic, is on a collision course with trouble.

As attorney general, Greg Abbott continues to defend the indefensible school finance system, including $5.4 billion in budget cuts, despite a judge’s strongly worded ruling that school funding is inadequate, unconstitutional and overdue for a real remedy. As a candidate for governor, Abbott issues little more than hollow statements about making Texas education No. 1 in the country without offering anything that would realistically bring that about.

Abbott represents “status quo-plus,” as The Dallas Morning News noted in an editorial this week, and for Texas school kids and educators that means more crowded classrooms, more standardized tests and more experimentation with school privatization for a select few students, while a growing number of parents fume and worry.

If Abbott were captain of the Titanic, as the old cliché suggests, he would be busily rearranging the deck chairs, oblivious to the iceberg looming ever closer.

Wendy Davis wants to avoid the iceberg, and, as governor, would set a new course for Texas schools, beginning with a realistic school funding plan to meet the challenges of a public education system growing by 80,000 students a year. She will work to expand crucial pre-kindergarten programs that will determine classroom success for thousands of children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

She will cut back on standardized tests, promote college readiness and treat teachers and other school employees as the professionals they are, including efforts to begin moving teacher pay toward the national average.

Davis has been accused by some, including The Dallas Morning News, of not knowing – or avoiding – how she would pay for these needed educational improvements. Some have suggested that, as governor, she would promote a major tax increase. In truth, she won’t because, one, the conservative Legislature won’t pass a major tax increase, and, two, higher taxes aren’t necessary to begin accomplishing what Davis wants to do.

Billions of additional dollars will be available from existing taxes, the comptroller’s office told the House Ways and Means Committee a couple of weeks ago. Sales tax revenue has been increasing by about 5.5 percent a year, thanks to the strong economy, and the Rainy Day Fund balance is sitting at $8.4 billion and will soon grow to double digits.

“I will set a vision,” Davis said during her second debate with Abbott. A vision that is strong enough to see the iceberg coming – and do something about it.

Patrick outlines plan to gut schools, local governments

I doubt that Dan Patrick has ever had a bad idea that he didn’t try to make worse. First, he was trying to fool voters into thinking that he would lower school property taxes in a “swap” for higher sales taxes, an idea that would have been bad enough for public education. But during last night’s debate of lieutenant governor candidates, he dropped even the pretense of a tax trade.

Now, he has made it clear that he wants to lower school and other local property taxes and abolish or significantly reduce the state’s main business tax (the margins tax) while raising the sales tax only a “penny or two.” In other words, Patrick wants to complete the job of gutting school funding AND cripple budgets for cities, counties and hospital districts, which also rely on the property tax as a major source of revenue. That is what Leticia Van de Putte, Patrick’s opponent, pointed out during the debate, and she was absolutely correct.

A modest increase in the sales tax, which Patrick suggested, wouldn’t come close to closing the huge revenue shortfall that would be left by lowering property taxes and cutting revenue from the margins tax. But it would force Texans to pay more every time they went out to eat or needed to buy new clothes, new furniture, another computer or thousands of other items.

Meanwhile, many teachers would lose their jobs, as would police officers, firefighters and other critical employees we have come to take for granted. Taking Patrick at his word, many neighborhood schools would be forced to close, and thousands of children would be forced into overcrowded classes on unfamiliar campuses farther from home – and with less police and fire protection.

Patrick is an opportunist who would – and does – promise right-wing, anti-government ideologues anything he thinks will help him advance up the public payroll ladder. Wipe out public schools? Sure, no problem, Patrick says, just so we save enough tax dollars to pay for private school vouchers.

Even before entering the lieutenant governor’s race, Patrick was well on the way to torching public education. He voted for the $5.4 billion in school budget cuts in 2011 and voted against the entire state budget, including ALL funding for education, in 2013 – and later lied about “leading” an effort for education funding. That whopper was so bad the Austin American-Statesman, in its PolitiFact column, gave Patrick a “Pants on Fire!” rating.

The only thing Patrick wants to lead is the continuing effort to throw Texas over the cliff, aided and abetted not only by Tea Partiers, but also by people who should know better, including some of the state’s insider business organizations.

Most business people understand the importance of a strong public education system to the state’s economy and business prosperity. But some Austin-based groups, notably the Texas Association of Business (TAB), continue to moan and groan about low test scores while supporting Patrick and questioning the need for additional school revenue, even though thousands of grade school classes exceed the state limit on capacity.

TAB and other Austin insider groups have been supporting education budget-cutters for years because, truth be told, they are more interested in currying favors – low taxes, lax government regulations and protections from consumer lawsuits — than they are in promoting quality classrooms. In that regard, they have found a champion in Dan Patrick. But too bad for the rest of us.

“Swapping” money from education

We have known for a long time that Dan Patrick, if elected lieutenant governor, will continue his attack on public education, and now we know a little more about the hocus-pocus by which he intends to do that.

Patrick emerged from hiding behind the tea counter long enough to announce, at a Texas Tribune-sponsored event in Austin last weekend, that the Legislature should consider a so-called “tax swap” – reducing local school property taxes in exchange for a higher sales tax. There are at least two big problems with that idea.

One, a swap implies an even exchange. So even under the most favorable interpretation, Patrick isn’t proposing any additional money for our under-funded public schools, even though enrollment continues to increase by about 80,000 kids per year. So, that would mean less money to spend on each child’s education.

And, worse, the last time the Legislature enacted a so-called “tax swap” — in 2006 — it dug a $10 billion hole in the public education budget that is still there – on top of the $5.4 billion in school budget cuts that Patrick and the legislative majority approved in 2011.

That’s because the 2006 “tax swap” was a sleight of hand. School property taxes were cut by one-third, a short-term savings that soon disappeared as property values continued to increase. The lost property tax revenue allegedly was replaced by an increase in the cigarette tax and a new business tax, the so-called margins tax. But state leaders intentionally designed the replacement taxes to bring in less revenue than was lost from the property tax cuts, so they could claim they had delivered a net tax “cut.” And, to make matters worse, the new margins tax under-performed.

Consequently, the two-year education budget still has a “structural deficit” of $10 billion. That 2006 law and the 2011 cuts are two major reasons that most school districts sued the state over funding. That lawsuit has resulted in a judge declaring the school funding system inadequate and unconstitutional, and Patrick cannot be trusted with leading the Legislature to fix it.

He voted for the $5.4 billion in school cuts in 2011, he voted against the entire state budget – including a partial restoration of the cuts – in 2013 and now he is proposing an alleged “swap” of taxes that, even under the best circumstances, would further cut per-student funding and likely would be even worse.

Funding per student already has dropped by almost $500 since the 2011 cuts.

Patrick’s Democratic opponent and TSTA’s endorsed candidate, Leticia Van de Putte, has the right idea. She wants to use increased revenue being generated by existing taxes (thanks to a strong Texas economy) to begin restoring the damage to education that Patrick and his fellow ideologues have inflicted.

Patrick is part of the problem. Van de Putte represents a solution.

When excuses about school funding fail, some people lie

If you really want to do something, even if it is difficult, you try to do it. If you don’t want to do something, even if it is important, you try to avoid it with one excuse or another and hope it goes away. If you are publicly put on the spot about your procrastination, then you may squirm, mislead or even lie.

Clearly, Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republican nominee for governor, doesn’t want to do anything to improve education funding for Texas’ 5 million public school students. So, the first sentence above doesn’t apply to him. He has chosen the second route.

When state District Judge John Dietz issued a strongly worded opinion declaring that the state’s school finance system was inadequate, unfair and unconstitutional, Abbott immediately made plans to appeal the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court.

With a little luck, Abbott figures, the Supreme Court eventually will overturn Dietz’s ruling, to the delight of the legislative majority and of Abbott himself, whose campaign promises to improve public education contrast sharply with the fact that he continues to defend $5.4 billion in school budget cuts. Or, an appeal, at the very least, would give Abbott some relief before Election Day from pesky questions about how he, as governor, would address a school finance issue he has no intention of trying to address.

When Democratic nominee Wendy Davis asked Abbott during last week’s gubernatorial debate whether he would try to settle the school lawsuit, Abbott replied that a law enacted by the Legislature in 2011 prohibited the attorney general from seeking a settlement.

In truth, that law simply provides that the Legislature would have to approve a settlement negotiated by the attorney general. The law does nothing to prohibit Abbott from seeking a settlement. Nor, does it require him to continue wasting tax dollars on an appeal while Texas school children continue to be shortchanged of the resources they need to succeed.

Abbott either deliberately lied during the televised debate, or he isn’t competent enough to know the state law governing his office.

Davis, as governor, will advocate for an adequate and fair funding system for all students and take advantage of increased tax collections in a strong economy to pay for it.

Last week, the comptroller’s revenue estimator told the House Ways and Means Committee that sales tax revenue increased by 5.5 percent last year and is expected to experience similar, strong growth this year. That means billions of additional tax dollars for state needs. Additionally, the Rainy Day Fund is at $8.4 billion and is expected to reach double digits within a few more months.

Financially, there is no excuse for the state not to begin working on a strong school funding plan now. Abbott lacks the political will to either lead on the issue or get out of the way.

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