Do They Hear What You Are Sayin? Make "Em Listen!

Yesterday I wrote an opinion about the State budget crisis and how it was affecting education K-12. Some online searching today gave me more information to back up my claim that if the Conservatives push too far on the cuts, they will find them selves in a Blue Capitol Dome in the next biennium. I might have to find me a bit more moderate Texan to vote for as well. Even a Texas Democrat can pass for a Republican in Congress.

This blah blah blah... coming out of Austin this week, such as David Dewhurst saying that he and Gov. Perry could be tied down, staked and tortured and they wouldn't raise taxes or  dip into the rainy day fund! That is nothing but lines from a bad movie script that ignores the duty they have to fund education as it should be in this State - a constitutional requirement.

How about taking the Education Stimulus money from the last Biennium that was meant for education and teachers and use it this year? That $3millioin + was supposed to be used IN ADDITION to the money the State was supposed to fund anyway. I worked on federal grants for seven years in the mental health field. The biggest no-no was to not use federal funds to supplant local funds.  Now, Perry is crying foul that the Fed's won't release education dollars unless he agrees to use the dollars as they are intended IN ADDITION to regular budget dollars.  I say, make sure the Governor doesn't have any more piles of money for his own use for "economic development"as he's had  for the last two years. Now that he used that money to bring all those Corporations here to create jobs, he needs to give some to the schools to educate the students that came with them.


Dip into the "rainy day" fund. Despite what some are saying about the purpose of the fund being for emergencies, like hurricannes, tornados, invasions from outer space; the fund was created for economic downturns. This is a downturn!
In the same poll cited below, 20% of Texans said use all or most of the fund to help the budget deficit. 43% said take a bit of it and 36% say don't use any of it (but save it for the space invasion). That's 63% that say use all or some of the fund to help weather this crisis. If Texas is truly is the healthy State that Perry says in his promos, it will rebound. But, it will not rebound if these drastic cuts are made. It will be like starting over again.

The only thing other than health care for the elderly, children and mental health care that I feel is more important than education spending is immigrations. It is because of poor illegal immigration management by the Feds that Texas has many of it's problems now. Health and Education are suffering due to the dramatic increase in those who are here illegally. Many are paid poorly by those who seek to misuse them due to their illegal status and use public medical facilities and ever district is required to education a child, legal or not, and can't even ask the question as to their status. The Hispanic population has grown so rapidly, more than half the state is now Hispanic. That's not a bad thing if they were all legal.

But back to the topic of education. State politicians cannot seriously tout improvements in education in Texas and then rip the financial footing that has provided the improvement out from under those that have been in the trenches working to improve student learning.

Each person that has a child in school needs to make their voices heard with their representative. Our State Representative has already picked up the water bucket and is carrying it for the most conservative GOP element. He has told me that teachers are over paid for the  supply and demand job market in Texas. He has cited examples of districts that are $8-10,000 behind on the entry level job pay scale for the Metro-plex and thinks its time to , if not reduce pay, let it simmer where it is for a while. 


State leaders are also passing the buck back to local school boards by telling them they have other options for income such as property taxes and " fund balances" to fall back on. Of course, some districts have Nuclear power plants and shopping malls, and the Barnett Shale, if they are lucky. Those that don't will just take a piece of those that do. Interestingly, many of these same Legislators are the ones that set up the finance system that we currently have in Texas that only gave districts a 4 cent ceiling to raise revenue from property owners without having a vote. That four cents has had to last five years and may have to last another two. In the economic climate we have today, the chances of passage is very small especially when the local representative gets involve and casts doubt on the veracity of the need for such increase. That's playing dirty ball and leave a lot of grim on his hands and a sick feeling in my stomach.

Texans believe that education spending is second only to medical care for the elderly, children and the mentally ill.  This is from a poll taken of 700+ Texas last Fall about the priorities for the 2011 Texas Legislature (see below). Texas lawmakers are ignoring this opinion. Someone has to make them listen.

Be that someone.

Just Sayin...

AR

Says it all:

"In a place [Texas] where government is already lean, there aren't many areas to make up that kind of cash [$27-31 billion]. The budget blueprint Texas' Legislature is mulling would mean layoffs for tens of thousands of teachers, closure of community colleges, and a severe reduction in state services for the poor and those with mental health problems". By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times  -  February 7, 2011 - Reporting from Austin, Texas  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-texas-budget-20110207,0,348... (I am loathed to quote from the LA Times, but truth is truth. I wouldn't be any better than those Democrats I criticize for refusing to speak the truth when it doesn't match the party line they play for. )

Texas Lyceum – State Polling of Issue Facing the 82^nd Legislature 2011

Q. 36 Which of the following would be your FIRST priority for maintaining or increasing

funding during the next round of state budget negotiations?

First Choice Second Choice

27% 26% Aid to public schools (K-12)

20% 22% Supplements to local school districts to offset property tax reductions

13% 11% Funding for universities and junior colleges

30% 33% Funding health care for the elderly, the mentally ill, and poor children

3% 7% Funding for prisons

6% 2% Don’t know/Refused/NA

http://www.texaslyceum.org/media/staticContent/PubCon_Journals/2010/Lyceum_Poll_Results_FINAL.pdf

Executive Summary of State Attitudes -

http://www.texaslyceum.org/media/staticContent/PubCon_Journals/2010/State_Issues_Executive_Summary_with_Charts_FINAL.pdf

Texas State Budget Woes Answer to Child Obesity

The First Lady has made child obesity her project just as Lady Bird Johnson championed the Texas Highways in her beautification efforts as the wife of President LBJ. Texas has found a way to implement her plan without even knowing it. Starve the public schools. That's right. Slit the throats of our public schools and the teachers will join the ranks of the unemployed  and those they support will certainly reduce the size of the obesity epidemic.

I don't usually highlight Democratic leaning quotes, but this one says exactly what I have been feeling for some time about the state of our Texas government leadership.

"In a place [Texas] where government is already lean, there aren't many areas to make up that kind of cash. [$27-31 billion]. The budget blueprint Texas' Legislature is mulling would mean layoffs for tens of thousands of teachers, closure of community colleges, and a severe reduction in state services for the poor and those with mental health problems." By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times

This is a quote that says it all for me. IF we are talking about the feds, there is real concern about what they have been spending millions on but that isn't true in Texas! Texas is not a "touchy freely" kind of state. When Grandma ends up living in your back bedroom and you have to lift her out of bed and to the toilet, you might rethink your battle cry of "no new taxes". You might also want to re-think your night time activities as it could be unsafe to go out at night when the prison population is reduced  by releasing "non-violent" offenders as part of the State budget deficit. You know, Al Capone was in prison due to tax evasion but it didn't mean he wasn't a bad guy.

This is the kind of thing that will silence loud mouth tea party conservatives over night.  Many "independents" can turn their vote on a dime and the State Legislature will be Bright Blue by the time they meet again. Most of our county officials are just RINO's, waiting for a chance to change their party affiliations back to Democrat. The Republicans take away and the Democrats give it back. You know what they say, "You only miss it when its gone". We'll all be saying that by the end of the summer and the politicians leave Austin.

 I am a Republican that has voted that way since Ronald Reagan. But, I believe there is a place for indigent care and I believe that the State has a constitutional responsibility to fund education. Certainly to fund education to the extent that they make laws requiring performance at a certain level and tasks beyond their mandate..

Take one of hundreds of examples: State required testing. Texas is changing to an "end of course" testing structure starting with next year's Freshman class, I believe. I sat in a meeting in our local district that gave an overview of the expected cost to implement that system, STARS, I think it is called. It was outrageous  how much expense is associated with implementing this new program across all grade levels. There are multiple times for students to test and each testing opportunity costs money-and lots of it.

So, are they going to just suspend testing? Is that what we want? Well, that would eliminate some administrative jobs but how are we going to know if students know what they are supposed to know? Do we really care? The state has made gains in the last few years in the area of student learning, but we still rank well below many other states; 45th in students completing high school and 47th in SAT scores according to a Democrat report on how Texas ranks in various areas of public services. called, "Texas on the Brink". (If the Repubs come out with something that conflicts with this information, I'll use their numbers. I seriously don't think they can find any numbers that will be any better than this, however.)

I had a conversation yesterday with a long time educator, now retired. His main concern was his retirement benefits and of course that is human nature and I'm sure I wouldn't be much different if I were in his shoes. (I'm just a step behind him). His opinion was that we can do without the 22-1 if we just got rid of all the needless requirements put on the schools by the State and the Federal government. He talked about having 35 kids in his class when he was a young teacher. He doesn't think today's teachers could deal with that because they are too soft( my interpretation). He may be right. I countered with my viewpoint that having 35 kids in an elementary classroom wouldn't leave much room for individualized attention and lead to drop outs. He countered back that we still have drop outs, not because of the class room attention they get, but because of the home environment that they are influenced by. That may be true.

Why do we still have dropouts when our system is geared to address every learning disability that a child evidences. Countless dollars are spent insuring that each child is offered instruction in the most meaningful way to them. One child can have one to two FTE's dedicated to their own personal educational effort. How is that equitable? Have we gone too far? Some say that "special education " is a scared word. I say, it should give a child an opportunity but not to the point that resource cost double or triple  per child  to the cost of a regular student unless completely compensated. We know that isn't going to happen.

Well, I don't have the answer, but I do know, the schools cannot be cut to the extent our state leaders are proposing and still provide the endless array of "services" that they are currently charged with providing.

The running joke used to be when one felt they were being blamed for more then they are responsible for, they would say, "I guess I'm now responsible for ending world hunger". Well, the schools have been told they are now responsible for curing world obesity -  by throwing them the bones in the state budget.

Just sayin...
AR