The upcoming Texas legislative session is going to be interesting, to put it mildly. Even though our governor assured us during his campaign that Texas was in great shape and there’s lots of money coming in, it turns out that if we spent this next fiscal year at the same level we did last year, we’d be $27 BILLION short over the next two years. Texas does biennial budgets, so we have to look ahead a bit. Here’s the proposed budget. One of the things that’s going to happen is that school districts are going to lose funding. The Dallas Independent School District is bracing for a loss that could be $250 million. Of course, having to cut school spending doesn’t seem to bother our governor that much. In a speech to conservative business leaders in Houston sponsored by the U. S. chamber of commerce, Perry said, “Do we really need free school bus service, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, ESL, special needs and enrichment programs like music, art or math Olympiad? I think we should get back to the basics of the three Rs, reading writing and arithmetic. I mean when is the last time a 6th grade science fair project yielded a cure for a disease?”
To rub more salt into this particular wound, Perry also stated that he wanted to make private schools more affordable. Think about that for a second.
How can a governor decide we don’t need public services, but we should make private ones more available? To me, this is just another example of the state trying to transfer money to either religious organizations (Christian or other religiously-based private schools) or corporations that haven’t really shown they can do any better than a regular school can (charter schools). While I applaud the ideas of both types of schools, giving state money to support them is ludicrous. We pay for roads, hospitals, and other public works so the ENTIRE public can benefit, not just those who can afford it. I don’t mind paying more taxes when the entire system benefits, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the state legislature.
On the educational side, with all of the cuts that are coming, how are we supposed to continue the No Child Left Behind policy? A lot of the services that would be cut are special needs kids, that extra tutoring for someone who needs it, or an individual tutor to get a child up to speed. Districts that are already in trouble will fall further behind, and districts that are holding their own will be faced with difficult choices.
When people look to cut their budgets, there are a few things that are sacrosanct: you have to eat, you have to have a roof over your head, etc. It’s my belief that education in Texas should be just as sacred. If we cut those services that are helping us meet mandates, then we WILL be left behind. When you cut school funding, you deliberately hamper the future. Those students that could be productive to society and get college degrees to earn more money and afford homes to pay more taxes…won’t. They’ll be stuck in the service industries, living hand to mouth. I can’t state it passionately enough: if you live in Texas, call your legislators and demand accountability for those cuts.
Of course, there is the entire issue of those mandates and why we follow them, but that’s another story. They’re here; we can’t change them (yet), so let’s deal with this particular reality.