Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to cut property taxes will starve public schools while he sends state money to private schools.
Texas already ranks 47th in the nation in public school funding and pays teachers $10,000 less a year than the national average. No surprise then that Texas students trail the nation in reading and math scores, according to the Nation’s Report Card, a nonprofit that analyzes testing data.
The Legislature increased public school funding by $8 billion for the next two years, but it was the first increase in state funding since 2019 and doesn’t keep up with inflation. Lawmakers then promised to spend $1 billion in state tax revenue to send 100,000 kids to private schools.
Tying the hands of school boards will guarantee they will have to close more schools and cut more teachers, explained Clay Robison, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association.
“Abbott does not really care about public education; his focus now is on private schools, charter schools, and giving them all the tax dollars,” he told me. “More teachers are going to quit.”
My SO is a teacher here in Texas. She’s well aware of the budget hoarding Abbott has been at for years; districts are hurting and having to close schools to get by. State Congress also made cuts to homeowner taxes for schools.
It’s especially amusing when Abbott touts pay raises for teachers. Their health insurance premiums increase, to the dollar, for the amount of the ‘raise’.
I think the goal is to end secular education in the state. Fund the private/religious schools/charter schools (which in particular are a joke), and give the bogus vouchers for homeschooling. As others have said, they want an ignorant populace.
Hopefully when enough boomers die off we can turn things around.
Waiting for boomers to die won’t be as efficient as you think. Remember that both JD Vance and Stephen Miller are milliennials and you know how they are like.
Yup. The Zoomer conservatives won’t reform their ethics. They’ll just replace the teachers of poor black kids with AI chat bots.
And make sure those AI bots are trained on very racist datasets that make sure that they utterly crush their students.
I know there are a lot of older gen X who follow suit with boomers, but there may still be hope for them when the Entitled Ones don’t have such a voting impact. Same for Xennials (like me), Millennials, and so on. Remember Vance was flipped from being anti-Trump, for one.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking, probably so, but I believe the post-Trump hangover and subsequent rebuilding is on the way. Eventually.
Yeah, that was my hope with Covid. Don’t want shots? Ok, see ya.
What an underperforming virus.
Lol, there was a chance
I always assume the goal is to reduce education, likely increasing criminals who can get arrested and then work as free labor. No matter what it’s dumb. Ugh.