Grading Texas – Page 124 – Texas State Teachers Association

Trying to get away with murder on school funding

The single biggest issue in this November’s election that will have an impact on Texas’ future is funding for public education, and many Republican candidates, including those running for the state’s top offices, are trying to get away with murder on this subject.

Intentionally or not, Texas Monthly blogger Erica Grieder now is aiding and abetting some of the biggest offenders, and I am sure she isn’t the only one.

By way of background, if you need it, the Republican legislative majority slashed $5.4 billion from public school budgets in 2011, following Comptroller Susan Combs’ revenue forecast, which under-estimated available tax revenue by several billion dollars and created a fiscal “crisis” that really wasn’t there.

Because of the bad revenue estimate, the education cuts were “technically unavoidable,” Grieder writes in a posting this week on Burkablog. In truth and even accounting for Combs’ poor or politically motivated math, the Legislature had several billion dollars available in the Rainy Day Fund in 2011, and the legislative majority could have spent some of that money to at least minimize the school cuts. What was lacking was the political will to do the right thing, fed by a short-sighted political ideology that still dominates the state GOP.

Grieder gives Mike Collier, the Democratic candidate for comptroller, credit for calling out his Republican opponent, Glenn Hegar, not only for voting for the budget cuts in 2011 but also for bragging about his vote now. Can you imagine what kind of fiscal “crisis” Hegar could conjure up as comptroller in order to cripple public schools to the delight of his Tea Party supporters?

But Grieder questions why Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor who filibustered against the school budget cuts, is challenging Republican nominee Greg Abbott on the school funding issue. After all, she writes, Abbott isn’t a legislator and “didn’t have a thing to do” with the cuts.

She forgets, however, that as attorney general Abbott has defended the cuts in court. He also will appeal a state district judge’s ruling that the entire school finance system, including the cuts, is inadequate and unconstitutional. Abbott’s actions as attorney general are a strong indicator that public schools will not be a top priority should he be elected governor, and Davis should continue challenging him on that point.

Grieder also questions how Davis would provide more funding for education, despite the fact that even Combs’ office is now acknowledging that state tax revenue is increasing significantly because of a strong economy.

And, finally, Grieder partially buys into Republican lieutenant governor nominee Dan Patrick’s claim that he “led the charge” to restore most of the education funding in 2013, despite the fact his claim has been branded a “Pants on Fire” lie by the Austin American-Statesman’s PolitiFact Texas. That’s because Patrick voted against the entire state budget, including all education funding, in 2013. The charge to restore most of the funding was led by Davis and Patrick’s Democratic opponent, Leticia Van de Putte, who also had voted against the cuts two years earlier, while Patrick was voting for them.

The blogger says “Pants on Fire” may be a little harsh because former Senate Finance Chairman Tommy Williams has defended Patrick’s work on the budget. She misses the point, though, that Williams, who last year sharply criticized Patrick for voting against the budget, is defending Patrick now because Williams is now a government affairs specialist for the Texas A&M University System and is trying to mend fences with someone who may be – ugh – the next lieutenant governor.

In fundraising emails to supporters, Patrick has all but promised additional cuts in education funding if he is elected to the higher office.

Nevertheless, Grieder claims, “Patrick’s concern for public education is sincere.”

Yeah. About as sincere as Rick Perry’s smile the last time the governor shook hands with President Obama.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/three-fights-over-school-funding

Patrick advocates more education cuts

Even as he continues to try to convince voters that he is a champion of education, Dan Patrick makes it clearer and clearer that, if elected lieutenant governor, he will cut education spending. In fact, he says so in his latest fund-raising appeal.

“Did you know that forty cents of every dollar in the state budget is spent on public education?” he asks in bold-faced type in the email. “We don’t need to throw more money at the problem; we need to use existing resources more efficiently.”

Actually, about 37 cents of every dollar in the current state budget is earmarked for public AND higher education, and education should account for a lion’s share of the budget because it is one of the most important functions of state government. But, despite Patrick’s claim, Texas has never “thrown” money at schools. Texas, in fact, ranks among the lowest states in per-pupil funding, more than $2,600 below the national average during the 2013-14 school year.

Patrick’s statement, moreover, makes it clear that he doesn’t intend to spend any additional money on education, and that, folks, means he intends to further cut the amount of state funding for each student in public schools. Why? Because enrollment in Texas public schools is growing by about 80,000 students per year, and each year the Legislature doesn’t appropriate enough money to meet that growth, each student receives less. Classrooms become more crowded. Districts raise local taxes if they can and cut back on computers, books and other instructional materials.

Patrick already has voted (in 2011) to cut $5.4 billion from public school budgets. That has had the effect of reducing spending by almost $500 per child since 2010-11. And, in 2013, he voted against the entire state budget, which included money to partially make up for the 2011 cuts.

A few weeks ago, Patrick claimed to have led the fight to restore education funding in 2013, but that was snake oil, and Democrat Leticia Van de Putte, the genuine education champion in the lieutenant governor’s race, called him out on it.

And what about his call for using “existing resources more efficiently”? That’s more campaign blather, because what he really wants to do is divert more tax dollars from public schools to privatization schemes, such as corporate charters and private school vouchers.

Patrick is dodging every public appearance he can these days, including a debate scheduled with Van de Putte tomorrow night. He is hoping the “R” behind his name on the ballot will make him the No. 2 elected official in Texas. If you care anything at all about public education, do you really want that to happen?

When school lunches become political

Most educators, except for some food service directors or cafeteria managers, have never heard of Todd Staples, and it is just as well. He is nearing the end of his second – and last – term as Texas agriculture commissioner, and in what may be his parting shot of publicity has registered a beef with a “Meatless Monday” program that Dripping Springs ISD is experimenting with in some of its school cafeterias this year.

Now, Staples is entitled to his opinion, which he expressed this week in an oped in the Austin American-Statesman, but I have a couple of beefs with him over it.

Number one, Staples is not a nutritionist, his article includes factual errors about nutrition and the decision by the Central Texas school district is not a subversive plot, as Staples infers. It is, in fact, a well-reasoned exercise in local control, a concept that Republican officeholders, such as Staples, supposedly cherish – almost as much as Tea Party Republicans cherish cutting school funding.

Which brings me to my second complaint. For those of you who don’t recall – and that may be most of you – Staples lost a race for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor last spring. Most educators may have ignored him because he said virtually nothing about school funding, testing, school lunches or any other education issue over which the lieutenant governor has considerable influence.

About the only thing I remember him campaigning for was “border security,” an issue that the lieutenant governor doesn’t have much control over. But Staples couldn’t hyper-ventilate as well as Dan Patrick could on that issue for the benefit of Tea Party voters, and so Patrick is the GOP’s lieutenant governor nominee.

As agriculture commissioner, Staples has some oversight over school lunch programs. But the main function of that office under Staples and his recent predecessors has been to promote Texas agriculture products. There’s nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but Texas produces a lot of vegetables, as well as meat.

I don’t know if Staples already has decided what he is going to do when his last term as commissioner ends in a few more months. But I wonder if his rant against “Meatless Mondays” was an audition for a new job, say, as a lobbyist or promoter for beef, pork or poultry producers.

We’ll see.

Guess who voted against all education funding – and more

Anyone who thinks I have been writing too much about Dan Patrick, the snake oil salesman of Texas politics, may want to stop reading now. But remember, folks, this guy is running for what, in some respects, is the most powerful office in state government, and he needs a lot more attention than the mostly peek-a-boo campaign he is running.

Patrick’s latest major transgression — for which his Democratic opponent, Leticia Van de Putte, already has called him out – was claiming credit for restoring most of the $5.4 billion in school budget cuts during the 2013 legislative session. These would be the same cuts he voted for in 2011 and Van de Putte voted against.

In truth, most of the funding was restored in spite of Patrick because he voted against the entire state budget in 2013. That means he voted against all state funding for public education and every other program and service the state has to offer, including the salary for his own services, such as they are, as a state senator.

Patrick voted against funding for every state-supported university in Texas, every health care program, every environmental protection program operated by state government, new highway construction and maintenance, every economic incentive for job creation and every educator’s and state employee’s salary. And the list goes on.

Patrick, who continues to scream “border security,” also voted against something more critical and relevant – domestic security. His vote against the budget also was a vote against continued funding of the highway patrol and other law-enforcement functions of the Department of Public safety, a much more critical concern of law-abiding Texans than the political theater of immigration bashing.

For someone who aspires to hold the state’s No. 2 job, Patrick has demonstrated a strong disrespect for the essence of public service.

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