Grading Texas – Page 93 – Texas State Teachers Association

Good schools and a clean environment aren’t “socialism”

The Texas Tribune had a story this week about a family of West Texas billionaires who struck it rich in the oil and gas fracking boom and are investing large amounts of their fortune in legislative candidates and a political action committee that, if given the opportunity, would gut state government, beginning with public education.

The family, led by brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, also has contributed $15 million to a super PAC supporting the presidential race of Ted Cruz, who, if elected, would try to gut the federal government, eliminating a host of services millions of Americans actually need.

In a recent interview, Farris Wilks told a TV reporter why he was investing so heavily in political races.

“I fear that our nation is going in the direction of socialism, and so I think that maybe we’ve forgotten what has brought us to the place we are as a nation,” he said.

Baloney.

Here’s a guy who has made a fortune, partly by hard work and partly by a government that has promoted his business. State regulations encourage fracking and try to ignore some of the environmental issues that have been associated with it. Voters in the city of Denton approved a local ordinance trying to ban fracking rigs from towering over their backyards and spewing noxious fumes through their neighborhoods, but Gov. Abbott and the Legislature overturned it, much to the delight of people like Wilks.

Wilks has the government he wants but has the gall to cry, “Socialism.”

The risk of Texas and the United States becoming socialist is about as great as the probability that Farris Wilks will vote for Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat for president.

Wilks, of course, is free to support the political candidates of his choice, but socialism is a scare word, not an issue. What Wilks really fears is the Texas Legislature or the federal government clamping new environmental and public safety restrictions on his business. So, he is supporting political candidates who will keep giving him the government he wants, which is as little government as possible. Never mind the public service needs of school kids and the rest of Texas’ non-billionaires.

Wilks also is overlooking – or ignoring – the fact that education and all the innovation it has produced also are major factors in, as he put it, “what has brought us to the place we are as a nation.”

Some of the candidates he is supporting would turn back the calendar.

http://www.texastribune.org/2016/01/20/anti-straus-candidates-receive-boost-pacs/

Don’t get excited about education’s Powerball share

Predictably, as anticipation built over the huge Powerball payout this week, there was this headline on at least one TV station’s website: “Texas Schools Win Big in Powerball Jackpot.”

But not really. Texas’ under-funded schools are grateful for every dollar they can get. But the only big winners from the Powerball were the people who picked the right numbers, not the schools.

Powerball and the Texas Lottery generate a lot of big figures. But here is some perspective. Last year, the Texas Lottery, which is a partner in the multistate Powerball, contributed $1.2 billion to Texas public education through the Foundation School program. And Powerball alone generated $70 million for the schools since November.

But as Texas Education Agency spokesperson Debbie Ratcliffe pointed out in an interview with KUT’s Texas Standard: “Our entire school system spends around $50 to $52 billion a year in all funds. So the lottery essentially covers one week of operating our 8,000-plus public schools.”

No, folks, not even a $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot can take the governor and the legislative majority off the hook for a lackluster school funding performance.

Judge blocks Nevada voucher program touted by Patrick

Nevada’s new system of private school vouchers that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was touting last week has been blocked, at least temporarily, by a Nevada judge, who ruled that the scheme, which would drain tax dollars from public schools, violated the Nevada Constitution.

In remarks to the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, Patrick said he would push during the 2017 legislative session for tax credit scholarships that would help public school students from all economic backgrounds – not just low-income kids — transfer to private or religious schools. He said the Legislature may want to copy Nevada’s “education savings accounts.”

Whatever your call them, scholarships or savings accounts, they are vouchers that would steal much-needed tax dollars from already under-funded public schools, where the vast majority of Texas students will continue to be educated.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, District Judge James Wilson of Carson City granted an injunction against the new law in a lawsuit brought by six parents who are challenging the program. He said the plaintiffs are likely to prevail at trial because the Nevada Constitution requires the Legislature to “set apart or assign money to be used to fund the operation of public schools, to the exclusion of all other purposes.”

The Texas Constitution is worded a little differently, but it also requires Texas legislators to fund a system of free public schools and says nothing about siphoning tax dollars to subsidize private school tuition.

Voucher proponents, nevertheless, will remain undeterred. The state of Nevada likely will appeal the district judge’s order to the Nevada Supreme Court and try to jump-start what is considered the most sweeping voucher law in the country. Students selected for the program would receive, on average, about $5,100 per year.

And, in Texas, Patrick, the self-proclaimed education “evangelist” and “expert” in his own mind, will continue to promote vouchers and a host of other unproven privatization schemes while squeezing the budgets of public schools.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/education/decision-delays-nevada-education-savings-accounts

Many private colleges will ban guns

Unlike state-supported universities, private universities will still have the option to ban handguns from their campuses when the new campus carry law goes into effect Aug. 1, and at least half of Texas’ private colleges already have said “no” to guns.

According to The Texas Tribune, which is keeping track of their decisions in the article linked below, 19 of 38 private colleges and universities surveyed in Texas already have officially imposed the bans.

They are, in alphabetical order, Abilene Christian University, Austin College, Huston-Tillotson University, Jarvis Christian College, Paul Quinn College, Rice University, South Texas College of Law, Southern Methodist University, Southwestern Christian College, Southwestern University, St. Edward’s University, St. Mary’s University, Texas Christian University, Texas College, Texas Lutheran University, the University of St. Thomas, the University of the Incarnate Word, Wayland Baptist University and Wiley College.

The list is expected to grow between now and Aug. 1 since the other universities on the list or still deliberating the issue or haven’t taken official action. Officials for a few schools, including Baylor and Trinity University, already have publicly said they expect guns will be banned on their campuses as well.

No school on the list – so far — has announced that guns will be allowed.

“There is no evidence that allowing the carrying of guns on campus will make the campus safer,” the Tribune quotes Rice President David Leebron.

That same comment could apply to all the state-supported universities in Texas as well, but public universities will be forced to allow licensed pistol holders to carry their firearms, concealed, onto most campus areas. Debate continues over what areas can be designated as “gun-free zones,” but the zones will be pretty restricted.

Many college administrators, even at state-supported universities, just don’t buy the line that guns will improve campus safety. Unfortunately, though, most legislators did.

http://apps.texastribune.org/private-university-campus-carry/

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