Gov. Abbott Orders Lawmakers to do School Choice Again
How many special sessions will it take?
Last week, with only a few hours remaining in the third special legislative session, Governor Greg Abbott expanded the agenda to include not just “school choice,” but “universal school choice.” While you may ponder what the “universal” part means, Abbott reveals it has little to do with merely allowing underprivileged kids into better schools, but includes surplus funding (don’t we already have bond elections?) and abolishing the current standardized testing.
The Governor has now called a fourth special session, an unprecedented move during a year in which a regular session was held. Looking out for scams is a full time job at this point, and Abbott is completely obsessed with passing so-called school choice.
Children accessing better schools is always a positive, but it’s never defined, and those advocating “school choice” have wildly varying solutions as to how to achieve this goal. Among these proposals is vouchers.
With the amount of grifts, vague promises, and wild variations in policy, “school choice” may be devolving into the new “criminal justice reform;” another term politicians in both parties use that can mean whatever listeners want it to mean.
Whether or not lawmakers can agree on anything related to school funding remains to be seen. On the bright side, a voucher system may sap power and influence from bureaucrats like Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), which explains why said organization threw a tantrum the last time vouchers were proposed.
Regardless of your school choice opinions, you should acknowledge government money generally comes with strings attached, and even good causes can be easily abused. Even conservative Texas State Board of Education member Evelyn Brooks sounded the alarm about potential drawbacks from implementing vouchers.
All this said, there’s an aspect hardly anyone is talking about: how much education funding would really go to Texan children and how much will go to foreigners? This is not a dumb question, considering the multiplying population of border sneakers sending their kids to Texas schools. Most estimates have the number being $5-10 billion a year.
Insofar as the government isn’t actively covering up the actual number of foreigners in our public schools, you can see the districts enrolling random third-worlders suffer a plunge in academic performance. Perhaps the most glaring example is Cleveland ISD, home to the alleged Colony Ridge colonia, as well as one of the worst school districts in Texas.
How much additional funding your average colonia ISD will lose or gain under these plans remains to be seen. Ask your average Republican voter and they will tell you, these “students” have no legitimate right to any taxpayer funding. So far, there is no measure guaranteeing only Texas children get education funds.
Will the budget surplus be put to good use? What can lawmakers realistically do about the rapidly rising cost to educate millions of people from the third world? Spanish-to-English translators will not be the only matter schools would throw funds at; literally the entire world is overrunning the Texas border, and there is no way any school can accommodate them while also uplifting Texas kids academically.
The latest crop of invaders are from everywhere, including nations like Senegal (as in the below video) where the average IQ is 77.37 (average US IQ is around 96). When this fact is considered, along with language barriers, low assimilation, and sub-par literacy rates, these replacers will be an obvious burden on Texas schools. No amount of taxpayer money will make this work.
With the Brandon Occupation Government (BOG) treasonously bulldozing barbed wire, and deliberately having invaders “surge the border,” there is no limit to the physical and social destruction being wrought, and how much voucher money will get doled out for illegal aliens.
Unless lawmakers draw a line in the sand, more tax money is bound for alien children if vouchers pass without any terms or conditions. We imagine it will look like this.
School Choice is another scam on the stupid taxpayers. I mean stupid too. You have only to look at our most recent election to determine that. Or should I say the latest Selection we had purporting to be an 'election'. There are only 2 options to choose from... Stupid Voters or Fraudulent Elections. You are absolutely correct in that the surplus school monies and almost all of our State surplus is going to cover the costs attendant upon the parasite infection/invasion we are under in our State but I don't hold out hope that the voters will figure it out soon enough. Poor Texas.
Undocumented immigrant children already have right to free education under the 14th amendment of the US Constitution...HB1 will reduce the amount of $$ they get.
In the case Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruled that if children who are citizens have access to a free, public education, so should undocumented immigrant children. That is because the 14th Amendment says the government cannot “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Is what it is until the Supreme Court ruling gets overturned.