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.”
You have to respect his dedication to that 1 star rating, as advertised.
They can’t count anyway so they’ll likely never find out that’s a bad thing.
One lesson from Canada.
Canada is experiencing a major problem with Healthcare… they have been doing a lot of privatization as of late and those private clinics are not only more expensive and less efficient. They are also public money recipients… and they are more expensive on the taxpayer than the public option.
So they are technically publicly funded and get money from clients and are complete shit…
Sounds like the CSU and UC…they have an open faucet on financial aid + loans, on top of private investment. But they literally cry poor and “it’s too expensive” whenever it comes to benefitting the freaking students and staff.
but still free
Private healthcare isn’t though. You have to pay.
On the bright side when the Kansas governor tried pulling this move they ended up voting in a Democrat governor.
That’s not really a likely outcome in Texas of all places.
It has probably the most rigged elections of any state, which is how the GOP manages to have near-absolute control in spite of there actually being more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state.
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.
I guess Texas is getting what they voted for
Texas has been GOP governed for nearly 30 years.
The “please tread all over me” state.
It’s four big cities and four hundred oil baronies squashed into one state.
The politics varies heavily country to country.
What did Texas do to Greg Abbott, for him to hate it this much?
Oh, that’s easy to explain. They dared to give people “not like Greg Abbott” a leg up.
“A leg up”
“Greg Abbott”
Ironic
Took his legs.
https://www.texastribune.org/2002/02/18/greg-abbott-as-plaintiff/
The Lorax knew what was up, but he didn’t succeed in his plans.
In Florida, the MAGAs are all pledging to end property taxes, which of course will help the wealthy property owners the most. Without an income tax OR property tax, what is supposed to pay for things like schools?
Welcome to the end of the Boomer economy.
Texans are going to get even dumber, if that were possible.
That’s their goal. Dumb people are easy to manipulate and brainwash.
And meaner.
Step 1. Promise to Cut taxes
Step 2. Not mention those tax cuts are going to hit local public school
Step 3. Realize within a year or 2 that the cuts are not sustainable
Step 4. Force a levy for “emergency school funding”
A couple weeks ago here in TX we voted on 17 state constitutional amendments. I want to say 12-13 of those were some form of tax cut for the wealthy. I voted against all of them but they all passed. And they passed big, like 60-70% to 40-30%.
The wording they used to describe the amendments was very much skewed to make them sound wonderful. No negatives, only positives. For instance, something like this may have had the wording “more money for schools”.
On its face it seems like a good idea - fewer taxes for me, more money for schools - what could go wrong? I assume most folks just looked at it said “ok” without much additional thought.
It’s very frustrating to basically have the large majority of voters approve this, giving the state government reassurance that they can do whatever they want, when it’s an obvious lie.
Nothing they do is to help the “regular” people of Texas. It’s all tax breaks for businesses and the super wealthy and Christian Nationalism disguised as “parental choice”.
It’s absolutely disgusting.
Yeah I voted no for every single one. I think part of the problem is barely anybody showed up to vote.
I posted about this a few weeks ago, it’s so frustrating seeing texas tax situation get more and more regressive.
Lol, see you at number 50 in education Texas, when all those private schools cut corners and pocket money instead of teaching students.
Nah, this is them setting up their caste system. The rich people send their kids to these private schools to be management, and all the plebs get underfunded shitty education and get to be their wage slaves.
Yeah, they need someone to replace undocumented immigrants as exploited labor
But that already happens lol.
There’s currently some social mobility. They want to end any chance of it.
I dunno. It’s not like Mississippi and Missouri are doing anything right.
Thought I heard Mississippi was turning things around, partially by *gasp* failing kids that don’t meet standards and holding them back a year.
That isn’t reflected in the statistics yet and won’t be for another 5-8 years. Texas is probably 49th in terms of K-5 now.
They don’t have economies anywhere near the size of Texas. TX can easily afford to do the right thing, but instead chooses to do the right-wing thing.
Yeah, I mean I really don’t know what’s going on in the south with schools, they are all pretty near the bottom. There has to be some explanation and I kinda refuse to believe it’s a public school problem. As with everything, there’s probably far too many middle-management administrators and things like that which could be eliminated.
dumb, poor, desperate people are easy to manipulate, it’s a simple as that
What’s wrong with those voters? No matter how conservative you may be, How do you see your state among the worst education systems and decide they need less money?
I believe they are convinced the education system is already over funded, and we are not getting our money’s worth. The problem is, that money is not making it’s way to the student’s education, it seems, and no one wants to give up the grift.
Its often some combination of racism, corruption, and hating poor people yet relying on them for all sorts of things.
Poverty. When you lack secure housing/food/safety, you can’t focus as easily at school.
It’s really a goddamn shame what’s still going on there and many many large cities across the US. Every child should have a quality education available to them in this country of obscene wealth.
Republicans cut everything and keep the money, the deep red south
So what’s the deal they’re not satisfied with the skim and they want more? FFS. Though I suppose this has more to do with teaching a bunch of religious bs in the classroom.
Nah, the private schools are for the rich kids to actually learn things so they have a lifelong advantage over the public school kids.
By learning things I suppose you mean make connections because that’s the real power in a place like that.
I feel bad for anyone in the Texas public school system.
They are not getting a competitive education.
They’ll be taught to blame a Democrat anytime something goes wrong in their lives
Well, I was one of the last ones in within my department. Guess I’ll be second on the chopping block.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see LEE High School soon change back to its original (Robert E.) Lee. A name that was chosen the same year that modern civil rights were amended into the Constitution.
Keep 'em stupid.
Although I feel like conservatism has already reached max stupidity.
So does this asshole have kids? Because if so, it would be sooo surprising if they are accepted into said private schools and get all good grades. If he has kids they should be forced to attend the public schools, see what is what in reality.
Well, private/non-public-facing institutions aren’t bound by Titles 7 and 9. So, this means they can set up whites-only schools again.
These people haven’t gone away, and school integration wasn’t that long ago. Ruby Bridges and school integration happened within my mom’s lifetime.
THIS is the point, right here. White Flight has turned into outright Need to Segregate. Now they have a way to do that, without calling it segregation. 60 years of progress down the drain.
Hate is a powerful narcotic.
And Ruby Bridges is still alive. She’s only 71 years old.
Shit, putting things in perspective is always tough… Can you give me a more specific name for the title 7 and 9 thing? Not from US but want to search and learn more about it.
Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act, and Title 9 of the Civil Rights Act.
Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Race in education is burried in the public accommodations stuff, if I remember correctly.
*Edit: Fixed the links
**Edit 2: actually, no. Racial segregation was found unconstitutional in of itself in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). So, with a friendly SCOTUS, mixed with the change over to private schools, they’re probably still thinking they could undo integration.
Not that you need more edits, but: racial *segregation was found unconstitutional.
Fixed. Woops. That’ll teach me to stay up late and post while I’m tired.
