Competing priorities for public education

Date Posted: 10/21/2016 | Author: Monty Exter
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick held a press conference yesterday to lay out his priorities for the 85th Legislative Session. To no one's surprise, those priorities were heavily centered on the privatization of public education and the defunding of neighborhood schools through passage of the latest voucher fad. Certainly, there are many priorities the state can and should address to improve the way we meet our constitutional obligation to make available a system of free public schools to the state's roughly 6 million school-aged children, but vouchers are not one of them. In addition to costing the state potentially billions of dollars, the consensus of the research finds that voucher programs don’t, in any uniform or significant way, increase educational outcomes for the students who use them. Additionally, despite voucher proponents' claims to the contrary, the research does not find any competition-driven boost to the public system. The competitive effect that can be observed is a diversion of money from the classroom into marketing budgets. Instead of continuing to focus on this perennial distraction on behalf of those few but influential interests who stand to gain from the privatization of our public schools, the lieutenant governor and the legislature should work on behalf of all students and parents to address the state's real educational priories. To highlight a few, they could:
- address the preparation, retention, and equitable distribution of classroom educators, the single most influential factor on a child’s educational attainment;
- address the stress-inducing drill-and-kill environment in many of our struggling schools created by the state accountability system, which makes it virtually impossible for these children to learn according to neuroscience;
- address the state’s continuing struggle to attain universal, full-day, and high-quality prekindergarten; and
- address our flawed system of school finance; address its inadequate weights for low-socioeconomic groups, English language learners, and special education populations; address the layer upon layer of inefficient and inequitable "hold harmless" provisions.
CONVERSATION
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

06/02/2023
Teach the Vote’s Week in Review: June 2, 2023
The HB 100 voucher scheme dies at the end of regular session, plus a special session and the TEA takeover of Houston ISD begin.

06/01/2023
From The Texas Tribune: Tension over property taxes produces rare public clash between Dan Patrick, Greg Abbott
Always happy to castigate the Texas House, Patrick breaks form to criticize the governor as misinformed and unsympathetic toward homeowners.

School Finance, Retirement | TRS | Social Security, Texas Legislature, Privatization | Vouchers, Educator Compensation | Benefits
05/30/2023
Voucher dies as final weekend of 88th Legislature brings conflict between House and Senate
HB 100 was a casualty of a breakdown in communications between the House and Senate as the regular session drew to a close.