I somehow got on a list on Nextdoor for a call to let our state pols know to vote against vouchers. I posted that people should read the bill and understand what it would do and not do. They removed me from list.
I'm not sure that reading the bill would help that much. I would still support it because it's better than the status quo, but it leaves and creates significant room for problems that could make the program easy to attack in the future. I'd give the legislation maybe a B- effort. It's not a dumpster fire, but they could do a lot better.
The people who don't want vouchers support the status quo. I wonder how many are parents with kids in public schools.
They support the status quo, but that doesn't always mean the same things. In Texas, you've got the teacher union and school district hacks who are partisan, ideological liberals. They like the left wing status quo, but they haven't had the power to stop vouchers in 20+ years. That ended after 2001. What has really killed vouchers is rural lawmakers (almost entirely Republicans) who don't want to disrupt the economic status quo. These members are usually hard-line social conservatives, but they fear the job losses if their school district's funding is disrupted.
The fears look illegitimate to me. There have to be alternatives for a parent to go to. If there is a private school in a small town it will just shift students between schools. Sounds more like the public school unions have more sway over Republicans in rural areas than others.
It isn't just shifting the student. It's shifting the money. That leaves less for hiring school district employees and sleazy government contracts.
Ok, but job losses for the community wouldn't be affected. Just for the public schools. That points to them being captured by public unions not the actual economics of their town.
Public schools are easily the largest employer in most towns under 10k population. I'm guesstimating on the population cutoff, so let's not quibble over that. The point is, a representative who has a number of those small towns within his district needs to be very, very careful before throwing support to a plan that could upset those apple carts. It's a whole lotta voters he's liable to piss off.
But in the small, rural areas public schools are usually the biggest employers. It's possible that nobody will lose their jobs, but those who do will be able to very easily assign blame to their member if he votes for it. There is a real political gamble.
Yes. That means even conservative Republicans in rural areas are doing the bidding of public school unions.
If a large swath of their constituents are in the public schools, maybe their interests are intertwined
So the opinion seems to be that pols in rural districts will vote against vouchers since they and schools are afraid of losing fed funds if vouchers are used. I wonder,are schools in rural areas failing? Drug and violence overwhelmed?
6721, It would seem all the failed and under performing districts have one thing in common and it ain't agri-business
Interesting Charlotte ISD (419 students k-12). That is rural.Guess they would not be for vouchers. There are 125 in High School. How many needing private chat with strangers about LGBTQ could there be? "The Charlotte Independent School District in Charlotte, a rural town in Texas, wants to indoctrinate your children under the guise of mental health. The page contains links to chat rooms where students are encouraged to seek advice from strangers. Q Chat Space is one of the recommended websites. It purports to provide online discussion groups for LGBTQ+ teens ages 13-19, facilitated by staff who are not mental health professionals. LGTBQ Youth Chatrooms is also included as one of the schools mental health resources. Their chat rooms are open to teens ages 19 and younger to “talk in a safe space and be able to express themselves without fear of being judged.” Both websites contain a “quick escape” button that prompts the page to shut down so that parents cannot see what their children are up to. Charlotte ISD is encouraging students to talk to strangers about their gender Not their parents Rural Texas school promotes chatrooms for children to talk to strangers about gender, tells parents to affirm trans kids
I get why the reps would be concerned. But it is based on surface level thinking. First, rural towns don't really have many options outside of the public school. Most would have 0 or maybe 1 other private/church school. So the ability for parents to move their kids out is very minimal. Their situation basically stays the same with or without the voucher program. If the union is able to scare the R rep into voting along their interests that tells me the rep is under average IQ or cowardly. Second, from a total employment perspective it is also a wash. Say the small town church school gets 60 more kids in due to the voucher program. Where do you think they add teachers from? Most likely they pull teachers from the public school. Private schools tend to want lower teacher to student ratios so they may need more teachers to teach those 60 than the public school would use. So the rep won't be voting against vouchers because it hurts educating students or because teacher unemployment goes up. It is strictly to vote in line with public union interests. Hypocritical and self defeating.
I agree that the economic fear is overblown in rural areas. It is a political dilemma first and foremost, but that dilemma is real. If a rural member decides to back vouchers, he's going to be taking a significant political gamble that members from the suburbs aren't taking.
How about they approve a bill that allows tax payers to deduct the amount of private school tuition from their ISD taxes?
School choice defeated in the Texas House. See what I mean about the power of teacher groups and how politically shrewd they've been during primaries? They have 21 Republicans willing to do their bidding - almost 1/4 of their caucus. That's not true in many states. And of course, most of these members are from rural districts. And to make matters worse, the MoFo who led the charge is a friggin' Aggie.
I'm with you. Abbott set this up as a priority to pass. The Senate passed the school choice bill. Then the House subversives sabotaged the bill using Republicans. School choice is a conservative, libertarian, Christian priority but it's killed in Texas government time after time because school unions are evil and Republicans sell out for Communists all the time.
What's a bit strange is that opposition among Republicans is largely coming from the most socially conservative rural areas. Plenty of other states that also have significant rural areas are able to pass school choice with no problem. It makes me wonder if the teacher groups are more politically effective in Texas or if conservative activists are less effective in Texas than in other states.
It is strange. But despite teacher's unions and public schools being oriented left many conservatives, especially in small towns identify their town identity with the school. It is who runs the football team.
The wife and I were at the Academy sports store in Mansfield the other day. As I'm putting our cart away, I noticed a vehicle with two stickers. One said, "Mom's against Greg Abbott", the other "Vote against School vouchers." I said to my wife, that is probably a public-school teacher. Teaching was and, I think, still is an honorable profession but with their leadership and all the craziness, has gone off the rails. I'm glad we moved our son to private school for 8th to 12th grade when we realized that AISD was failing him and not the other way around. Took all of my annual bonus money each year but it was worth the investment in his future.
That's undoubtedly a factor. Same goes for college. How many right-leaning people give money to and generally advocate for schools like UT while it drills Marxism into students just because those right leaning people identify with it as alumni?
I think the small town fear is take my kid five minutes to the public school or 45 minutes to the larger but certainly not large town with a private school.
But somehow this mentality hasn't prevailed in other states that have adopted school choice. It's somewhat unique to Texas.
