My state representative, Roy Blake, has sold out his local school districts again. This time he voted again for HB2, which will allow property rich school districts (including the home districts of the bill's author) to raise massive amounts of money while property poor school districts go without. 41 of the 42 school districts in Blake's home district are considered property poor by the state.
He also voted against a Democractic sponsored amendment which would have fixed many of the financing problems with Texas schools. The actual vote was a tie, with the Speaker of the House Tom Craddick, no friend of public education, casting the tie breaker. I'm sure HB2 is also loaded with lots of other anti-public school provisions. The "increase" in funding for Texas schools will be $2.5 billion less per year than a state judge ruled the state needs to put into education. In fact, most critics agree the "increase" will not even keep pace with inflation and rising student enrollments.
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5 comments:
How many of the "property poor" school districts are "fertility rich?"
As another Mike who will begin my fifth year teaching high school English at a medium sized Texas district, I'm enjoying your blog, which I found only last week.
Like you, I'm utterly disgusted at far too many of our legislators who seem to be utterly bent on damaging, if not destroying, education in Texas. Sure, I'd like a raise, but if you can't or won't do that, and if you can't or won't make things better, at least don't make it harder for us to teach.
Mike McDaniel
superdestroyer,
By "fertility rich" do you mean having large amounts of new students? Or are you referring to the ability to grow crops?
Mike,
One of the reasons some school districts are poor is family size. I would guess that in a property rich district like Highland Park that family size is much smaller than a property poor district like Yselta District.
The opposite question from why should children in property poor districts suffer is Why should tax payer who decided to have one or two children have to pay extra because others decided to have four or five children?
Its a good question, SD, and the answer is they shouldn't. The state should find an equitable way to pay for the schoolig of all children, and make sure all children in Texas have an adequate education
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