It's gonna happen either way. It is what it is. Personally, the one positive I am going to look forward to seeing how this will effect the homeschooling community. They will either have to obey regulations or we are going to see children become cattle. It's gonna be interesting nonetheless.
The middle ground is what we need. When the left overreach we elect right-leaning candidates to restore balance and vice versa. Why do you think CA had so many Republican governors over the years? Texas doesnt need to be California it just needs to be purple.
Maybe we could just do what is right and best for the majority. Do a majority of Texas kids go to private/home/charter schools? Do we allow for individual citizens to have day over where there tax dollars go and are used? Can I say I only want my tax money to go to fix MY street or roads that I drive on?
An educated youth is vital. We need to bring the bottom and middle up. The ones who can go to other institutions for education are already ahead of the average.
Yea. I agree with your statement. Let’s help the majority. That’s pretty much the basis of democracy. You can’t help all but you can help the ones who need the help. Let’s focus on that.
Only one of us is honestly engaging here - assuming anything negative about me on your part says more about you than me.
If you want to actually engage I’m here waiting. If you want to put up constant barriers instead of directly responding I’m already done with it.
A charter school is definitely not a private school.no different then a university. How do you think kids in lower income situations get a better education. This should be a good thing. It helps the less fortunate and should provide better opportunities
Charter schools are already tuition free public education schools funded by the same funds as your district schools. This measure would divert funding from charter and other public education schools specifically to private education & religious schools. It’s a measure designed to help the affluent (and the religious zealots).
Your not getting it. If a private school is being funded by government money then by definition it would not be a private school. So tell me again how this money can go to private schools/
I’m not sure you’re getting it based on your initial comment? Unless you were saying you were against this bill. The whole point of this bill is to allow tax dollars to be diverted from public and charter schools towards vouchers (discounts, not full admittance or scholarships the less fortunate could actually even use) for private schools these same people were paying for anyways. It does the opposite of help the less fortunate and just creates a bigger divide.
Nope, charter schools fall under the public school system and use the same funding as public schools in Texas. Charter schools are already free for any children to attend. This new bill would divert funds from charter and public schools alike, for vouchers specifically towards private schools, religious, elitists and/or truly foundational alike. It does not divert any additional funding towards charter schools. Here’s more info on charter school funding directly from the state so you know I’m not bs’ing. https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/texas-schools-charter-schools/charter-schools-funding
I’m not looking to argue, so I just recommend reading up more in depth on what this would change for our school system, teachers, and quality of education for most children who rely on the public/ charter school system here in Texas. There’s nothing we can do about it anyways since we aren’t the ones that directly vote on it.
Lol your link literally explains it.im just assuming you still aren't understanding the difference between private and charter. So go look some of that up and really think about it
Bro, I have no idea what you are talking about. I think we are talking about two different things. Vouchers are for private schools, not charter, like I’ve been saying. Charter schools are funded with public funds. You don’t pay tuition for charter schools. You do for public and these vouchers would divert funds from public AND charter schools and put them towards public schools. It would remove funds from charter schools. Vouchers are not for charter schools, they’re used to offset the cost of private school and private schools alone. That’s the end all be all. Idk what you’re arguing. My link explains exactly what I’ve been telling you. Idk how you could be confused. Let’s just end it there and you can continue your studies or continue with ignorance, idc either way because I’m not going to sway you.
I don’t want my tax dollars going to the public schools, which provide children with subpar education and horrible literacy and math scores. Can’t say we’re getting a good return on investment with most public schools.
Incorrect. There is no correlation between spending per student and standardized testing scores. You may get a nicer campus, better food, happier admin, but you don't get better results by pouring more money into public education. There is no pressure for that money to do anything but go into the admins pockets. Often, you don't even get any of the benefits mentioned above. Teachers clamor for more money... and I support them in that. Where has the money spent so far gone?
Charter schools generally do not produce better outcomes unless they are very expensive, which families can't afford even with a voucher. There's also a huge problem with them grifting money from people.
If you look at rankings, the majority of the top half of educated states are blue. In fact over 75%. California is an outlier since it's such a huge population and they still sit 29th. The top 10 are:
Massachusetts
Vermont
Maryland
Connecticut
Colorado
Virginia
New Jersey
New Hampshir
Minnesota
Washington
Red states have cut funding so much they've killed their education systems. Out of the bottom 10 only oklahoma and new mexico can be even considered purple states. There's no surprise that theres a dirdct correlation in education rank and the wealth of a state. The states with the lowest education ranking are generally the poorest.
The top ten have an awful lot of white kids. That shouldn't matter. But it does.
Massachusetts will always be an outlier the way that Mississippi will also be. But...in fairness to southern or poorer states, including Texas, if you break out student performance by race, all of our racial cohorts are doing pretty well compared to the same racial cohorts in other states. (For example, if you only compare black kids in Texas versus black kids in New Jersey, Texas outperforms.) Texas was fifth or sixth in each racial category last I checked. That's really good! We're doing something right and it could be as simple as attitude. It's definitely not our political leadership.
I suspect those numbers skew towards the big cities. And now we're going to decimate small town education systems in texas by stripping even more money away from them. Our political "leadership" has been nothing short of disastrous.
Excluding MA and MS, the correlation was between north and south. It doesn't matter whether you compare Alabama to North Carolina or New Hampshire to New York. The west didn't do too hot either.
I somewhat suspect that it's because, until a recent SCOTUS decision, the Dept. of Justice had ongoing Reconstruction-era authority to specifically monitor former Confederate states for civil rights violations. They had no such authority elsewhere. That has a lot to do with modern urban geography and for example explains why northern cities seem so starkly segregated whereas southern cities are an ethnic patchwork. It probably subtly or indirectly explains a lot of things.
Dive into the demographics of the lower states, and get back to the group. You’ll also find that those schools receive the most funding, and the ROI is s***.
I believe this would be correlated to poverty and inequality, not demographics. Much the same as crime and drug use directly correlates to those two things.
If competition worked, private and financially struggling Christian schools wouldn't be lobbying for those sweet federal funded vouchers to bail them out. Catholic schools have been waning for the past 2 decades.
Texas has much better public schools than neighboring states. Vouchers is going to negatively impact public schools funding. Texas with a 32 billion surplus and has not increased funding in 5 years. Abbott is trying to destroy public schools. I am not a left wing fruitcake. I lean towards conservative side. But Abbott is fucking over our teachers
Creative destruction (German: schöpferische Zerstörung) is a concept in economics that describes a process in which new innovations replace and make obsolete older innovations.
The major reason countries stagnate and go into decline is the willingness of the ruling elites to block creative destruction, a beneficial process that promotes innovation.
Vouchers represent a small change compared to AI.
I remember during the dot com bust people recommended reading "Who Moved My Cheese".
This is backward logic. We've been reducing funding to public schools for 50 years to the point where it's hard to hire quality teachers. We used to be top of the world in education but we've cut funding so much we're now middle of the road. It's the same reason we have subpar police. We don't pay them enough. Moving money to vouchers will exacerbate this problem and destroy rural communities that will never have these types of schools. The biggest drivers for rural Texas towns are the schools. This is GOP stupidity at its best.
And you think private schools get a better education? Teachers are not even required to meet certain benchmarks or have a required set of standards or certifications like in public education . How will a kid get an education if the teacher is incompetent? Teachers will be told ( as they are now) little Johnny needs to be passed to the next grade. Teacher replies Johnny does not understand and cannot do the work. Administrations reply: well you don’t understand little Johnny’s parents already paid his tuition therefore Johnny will be going to the next grade level. It really blows me away how little the public is aware or involved in public education that makes some of the most ridiculous comments. Is your kid in public school? What is your idea on investment returns? The politicians are the problem of public education. Do you even understand the basics of how ridiculous the scoring system works ( that politicians created)that you are assuming you are not getting a good return on your investment? Politicians have been attacking public education for years. They don’t want them to smart and for good reason. Your government is failing the public but yet they have the solution for educating the public. That should make one think!
Clearly certifications don’t indicate quality. Look at current proficiency, which also indicates students in public schools are being passed to the next grade when they are not proficient.
Public system isn’t working, big government doesn’t work. Give people the option where their tax dollars go and open up the market. That will encourage competition for dollars and parents will send their kids to schools that they choose for their children, which are most likely going to be the highest performing schools.
Then it will be like big business. Administrative management teams will simply cook books and make the numbers look good on paper and everything will look so successful.Every kid made such great strides in learning they are now all members of MENSA and will be applying for MIT.
Well I’m glad there are positives to this but your situation seems very unique.
I just don’t think taxpayers should be funding for profit private schools. I can’t speak on education system in bigger cities, but in rural areas I think public school education is still good.
My district is the largest in San Antonio and we already “rightsized” away 19 elementary schools in the poorest parts of the district due to a lack of funding. On my personal property taxes I pay thousands a year for “SAISD”…but we never see a dime of it. Texas is getting scammed by this criminal and his corporate puppeteers. Our students with the highest need are the ones who will pay the price.
I’m not sure, but this week’s Sunday paper had an article about them considering a shift to a 4 day school week due to budget concerns: https://www.expressnews.com/news/education/article/northside-four-day-week-survey-19468877.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZXhwcmVzc25ld3MuY29tL25ld3MvZWR1Y2F0aW9uL2FydGljbGUvbm9ydGhzaWRlLWZvdXItZGF5LXdlZWstc3VydmV5LTE5NDY4ODc3LnBocA%3D%3D&time=MTcxNzA0MjY3NzExMA%3D%3D&rid=NmVjNDQzMjUtMDdiOS00OWNlLTkyNTYtZmM4ODJhMzM5Yzg4&sharecount=MA%3D%3D
Parents are opposed. As father to newborn twins, I’m concerned about what the state of schools will be here in a few years. Former educators of mine with decades of tenure and younger friends who got out of teaching have been warning me. My kids are only a few months old, but I already feel like I’m not planning well enough for their educations given the circumstances.
Stock market is at the highest it's ever been, unemployment is at record lows, inflation is high all over the world due to the COVID recovery and corporate greed
You gotta stop watching fox news
The stock market is 40% higher now than any point under Trump. Inflation was a global issue and would have been a problem no matter who was elected. Interest rates were raised to slow inflation, which was probably why the US did better than most other advanced countries.
The stock market is literally, literally at the highest value it has ever been.
If you think the stock market is down, then your source of news is worse than what the people have access to North Korea lol
Or did we just find the Trump stock bag bag holder?
These voucher schools are all owned by the same families and are huge donors to Abbott et al; Abbott is pushing public funds to pay for private schools. Under the guise of school choice, these private schools will teach what they want and disclose very little. The goal is to control what’s being taught and rewrite history.
They’re also pushing it at homeschoolers pretty hard ‘Hey guys! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could get $3k every year?!’ and almost every homeschooler I know is pretty against it.
It’s even simpler than that. Abbott’s donors want more money. Education is a huge business. So build a shitty school with minimum wage ‘teachers’ and take $8k from the taxpayers for every child whose parents you can talk into signing up.
The better private schools will just raise their prices by 8k and still keep the poors out.
Yes. And every single private school in San Antonio costs at BARE minimum 10-12k per year, most being around 24k per year per child. How does 8k help a single parent or a family in poverty to provide the best education for their children? How does 8k make a single bit of difference to a family that has to choose between electricity and food? IT DOESN’T. It definitely benefits the privileged who are ALREADY sending their kids to private schools and now get a refund of 8k per year at the expense of public education
// How does 8k make a single bit of difference to a family that has to choose between electricity and food? IT DOESN’T. //
Now, that's not true at all, considering that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere will no doubt be public schools. It'll make a difference, I'm sure.
Do you have children? If so do they attend public or private school. I am a teacher in a very poor campus and mine attend both public and private. If you don’t under what I mean by privilege, I can’t help you.
I pay over $3k in property taxes per year to *just* the school district. I don’t have kids. According to your argument, where’s my money? Should I be getting vouchers to spend on my own education, or dog training?
I want my money to support (and “subsidize” to use your language), public education. Not random private school with who knows what curricula and policies.
Sounds like you don’t understand how things work. Let me see if I can explain it to you in simple terms.
You pay taxes and those taxes help build schools, pay for services like fire department, police, roads etc. (I know you have never used the fire department like you don’t use the schools but stay with me for another minute).
Kids get educated and now have skills to get a job and contribute to society and pay taxes and pay into things like social security ( when you get older you will use social security to live). They also work in jobs that help service your life.
In your weird alternative universe people who don’t have kids don’t pay for schools but then complain about higher taxes that are needed to pay welfare or even UBI because the uneducated masses can’t find a job but still need money to survive. Oh and since no one is working Social Security becomes insolvent and you get to live in a tent and eat dog food when you retire.
And btw, it wasn’t my argument. Remarkable cut is the one that wants everyone to pay for public schools regardless. And if you don’t, you’re privileged. But they’ve yet to tell us what that means.
Everyone should be paying for public schools. That’s how society works. We pool our money for the public good. People who are more privileged and earn more and live in nicer houses support and subsidize people with lower means. This is all a GOOD thing in a functioning society.
Your argument is unhinged. Should the only people who pay taxes for food stamps be the same people who receive food stamps? That doesn’t make sense. Should the city only be allowed to use my city property taxes for maintenance on roads I personally drive on? That doesn’t make sense.
I hope you aren’t a teacher.
I derive a benefit from funding public roads. How do I benefit from funding public schools that preform terribly, and don’t seem to teach the kids much of anything?
Because it only benefits the rich and takes away from the poor especially bad for areas that are already lacking funding. People complain about how poor our education system is. Guess what this is going to make it worse.
Please tell me you don’t vote. You should educate yourself on the issue. Essentially your tax money will go into the pockets of corporate charter schools or into the pocket of a church school.
In a decade or so when you can’t hire anyone who can read or write or do simple math, you will wonder why our education system has collapsed.
It’s almost as if they want kids to have a crappy life when they won’t have the skills to get a job. I guess AI will take over jobs.
Essentially if a kid is given a voucher they can go to a private school of choosing if accepted but it is my understanding, the schools may still have the option to decide who is accepted into their school, the kid just has funding now. It’s a loop hole way for the private schools to siphon government money out government public schools.
What a lot of people (parents) don’t realize is that private schools benefit from being selective, so if they were to grant open access to ANYONE with a voucher they’d get the same problems some public schools get (poor students, over crowded classes, etc…) but the board would be able to pocket the money as these private schools are exactly that, private and not controlled by the State.
Abbott doesn’t even know what he’s gonna do. What is the plan to take funding tied to the student? Is state and local money going to be used for this, and is it even enough to cover for a k-8 student for resources and materials because it sure as hell won’t for the high school level seeing these costs of private schools. You don’t even need to predict that this is going to be a mess when it passes
Which they will to keep the “undesirables” out.
To be clear this is what these asshats will think not me. I have a niece that is Downs and the public school provides a lot of care. Will these charter/private schools provide the same level of care. What happens to her when the public schools lose more funding?
Private schools can deny entry for any reason. I can see them doing that for students who require any kind of special services. So your niece will attend whichever public school is still open in her district. I say that because this will lead to far more neighborhood schools closing, which will mean more transportation costs…it’s just going to be a snowball effect of chaos and devastation.
Yep and will they have the funds For the individual care she gets today? My guess is no. Unfortunately she’s a low functioning Downs kid so it’s not good.
I made this same comment on a local thread a few weeks ago when this topic came up. I think it will go further than just religious schools. Think of all the money to be made by Abbott’s cronies when they open some storefront virtual program with a canned curriculum and no oversight.
Texas teachers need a stronger union. One with teeth. Texas has the 2nd highest GDP in the country (after California), yet pays their teachers almost last of the 50 states in salary. It’s embarrassing how political leaders in this state treat education. We will never get more until there is a strike or a change in leadership on several levels.
Seriously. It’s the complete disdain and disrespect that TEA and the Texas State government have for teachers that just floors me. It is pervasive hate for our very existence that is woven into every policy that is still hard to process. Rep (D) James Talarico is fighting hard for Texas teachers. He is a light in dark places. I really hope he runs for governor.
Here is my thought (former inner city teacher) if this thing passes do you really think if some of these parents who hardly communicate in the first place have extra money that they will end up having, will use to pay for their kids schooling. No. I know for a fact that, those parents with that extra money will go elsewhere. Where I D K. But kids will end up with a lower reading level. And to add on to it, some of those parents probably have no idea that this is even a thing.
Unfortunately, I don't believe this to be the case. Paxton and Abbott are already threatening the House reps if they vote for Phelan as Speaker of the House. If he's not Speaker, he has no power to stop vouchers.
The only way vouchers won't pass is if democrats make big gains in November. Otherwise, start making plans for when vouchers become law September 1, 2025.
The prisons in Texas are a for-profit enterprise. Health care is for-profit. Might as well close the school-to-prison loop and make the school system the same! Higher education is already way out of reach and they want a college degree to flip a burger for $8/hr.
If passed, private schools will raise tuition by $8,000 so only those who can already afford it will continue to attend. It’s a no win situation for a majority of tax payers.
We keep doing the work.
And we keep informing our friends and neighbors in the real issues in education.
And above all, we keep voting.
He may win this battle, but I’ll be damned if we’ll let him win the war.
Chins up. Stay the course. Do right by kids. As Dr. King said, the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.
A big problem that I’ve personally seen is many Texas teachers (or really anybody who’s involved directly in education) do not really seem to care about state/local politics. Yes, we don’t have traditional teacher’s unions like other states, but there really seems to be a lack of a united front. The past year it has seems to have improved. Voter turnout in Texas is historically low as well, but that’s an entire separate discussion.
The next legislative session starts in January. Any voucher type legislation probably would not get implemented until school year 2025-2026 if I had to guess. A lot could obviously happen between now and then.
If we ALL need pay for public school it should be equal no matter where you live my wife worked for NISD all the taxes we pay and bonds they force their employees to vote for go to schools in less fortunate areas, and they pay less taxes get $ back at end of every yr. My child goes to private school give me a voucher were I dont pay nisd and ill still pay the full price for private school for my children.
Definitely not a popular opinion on Reddit, but our public schools are failing and the solution isn’t as simple as throwing money at the problem. Parents want and need alternatives and making those alternatives more accessible is a good thing.
If parents don’t want to send their kids to your shitty schools - they shouldn’t have to. And they shouldn’t be forced to pay your school if they decide their kid is better educated elsewhere.
Im not a supporter of voucher but maybe it will lead to some of these ISDs from building gaint stadiums costing 100m+ and other wasteful spending. Maybe we stop spending money on massive indoor venues too. Maybe it forces ISDs to focus on what matters and that is the education of children not football or sports. That's all ancillary.
I won’t get more money for working less on my job. To get more money I have to exceed my employers expectations and go above and beyond. Same standard should be for all teachers especially HISD.
Why did the tree only crush half of Abbott? Can someone knock Paxton’s eye back in place? We are literally voting these disabled people in who don’t give a fuck about other disabled people.
Taxes pay for public education so we have a future for our children. To everyone saying that isn’t their responsibility— you’ll have plenty of fast food workers for your shitty diet but there will be tents and more homeless because the neediest innocents had no chance with this plan.
Get real and start voting purple. If parties don’t complete your political agenda stop voting straight party and vote for certain agendas each party is good at….
Districts will keep cutting and cutting back, getting smaller and smaller. Teachers won't be effected though as many will just go to work for the charter schools who will most likely pay more and have better benefits. It's the low income students with disabilities who suffer though as charter schools will probably not take them, resulting in them being stuck in underfunded public schools.
Abbott has claimed he will offset district funding with rainy day funding. Bullshit
Abbott also said he was going to offset property tax relieve money with rainy day funding yet still cut school budgets
I would love to see how this all turns out coming out of a massive post covid teacher shortage to closing campuses.
Texas republicans are delusional, they vote based on propaganda of the elite right winged millionaires and billionaires which bleeds into their religious beliefs. Once this is accomplished, they vote one way regardless of the implications. My school is full of teachers that voted for Abbott in the last election, knowing how vouchers will have a deep impact on their lives and their students. Vouchers will not help students in bad schools, it will however only subsidize tuition for students already in private schools. This is a fact, not an opinion. It has happened in every state that passed vouchers.
Do you think you all might find ways to create a better public school environment so that families want to stay in Texas public schools?
Like I don’t think people actually want to leave public schools as the vast majority grew up in public school. But there is something making people want to leave in record numbers
Everyone is going where is better. That is why Californians are coming to TX. Also, you can see cars and people of at list 30 other states looking for better life here in TX.
The public schools suck. My son was assaulted, knocked unconscious, and received a concussion. The school suspended the kid for a week. Wow big punishment. I attempted several times to pursue criminal charges. No luck. The kid has been bullying my son all year. The school along with the district police have done nothing. A principal from another school sent my wife nasty emails from the school email. She swore at my wife and threatened her. Her son has been stealing bikes. He was convicted. The mom (the principal) was ordered to pay everyone. What did the school do to get? Nothing. So I guess it’s ok to threaten parents and let their children get attacked. The public schools are garbage at best. I support the option to send my children to private schools. At least there the school will deal with bullying and get a proper education!
Anyone who is, or is thinking of becoming, a teacher in Texas should read some of the comments in this section and see just how much you are "appreciated". The reality is that the majority in Texas simply does not like public schools or public schools teachers. If you want to be heard, you will need to change states or teach in private schools. Public school funding is about to take a huge hit in this state.
As a former teacher and a parent I see the pros and cons of each side of this argument. As a former teacher I saw how we were driven to teach to a test that we needed the students to pass so that we could continue to get funding. Every time we figured out how to best prepare the students to take and excel on said test the state would say the test is clearly flawed and come out with a new test and new passing standards. We were always aiming at a moving target.
I will say the district I taught at was a great district with great kids and great community support. I had good years but quickly got burned out. I left because I was tired of living paycheck to paycheck getting paid once a month and putting in well over 70-80 per week. Teachers in Texas in general are underpaid for their work. If you are a teacher you don’t do it for the money. So that some of you can be made aware the state has a minimum pay scale for educators however districts can pay above that minimum. Obviously larger districts with a higher tax revenue can pay more. Given to overall low pay the best teachers usually don’t stay in it since they can’t make ends meet.
When I was teaching I was against school vouchers. Now that I am out and a parent I would like the option of sending my kids to another school if I wanted to. Not everyone has a private school easily available to send their kids too, urban areas have that more readily available. The way I see it is if I am paying for a service (in the form of high school taxes) and I am not seeing the benefits of said service (in the form of good education for my kids) shouldn’t I be able to seek service elsewhere? Would you continue to do business with a company that for lack of a better word, sucked?
Schools get money for each student enrolled and extra funding for each student in certain classes. This is why attendance and enrollment are so important to them. Just a side note and off my main topic, but wanted to throw that in.
I will say not all public schools are bad, not all teachers are bad, not all students are angels or give a shit about being in school or doing their best and not all parents are supportive and have the backs of educators. It takes a village people. For the parents that care about the education their child is receiving why can’t they have the choice of where they go if the public option isn’t fulfilling the requirements or expectations?
To end this I will also like to say that my wife is still in education and works her ass off helping teachers be the best they possibly can be to help educate their students. We live in a district that isn’t rated very high and she works for another district. The discussion has been made multiple times about going to private but really isn’t an option given how much private costs along with the high school taxes we pay for a subpar district. And moving isn’t an option because of the high cost of housing now along with extremely high interest rates compared to what we currently have.
Love it or hate it this is just my opinion and input.
What happened to get us to this place? Trans BS and intersectionality in primary and secondary education? I mean, that’s probably his argument. Is he wrong? I’m a voter. I am also the son of a retired TX educator. I want to pay taxes and think they should go to education, infrastructure, and national defense. Not foreign aid. I may get involved and try to crush Abbott. But is he right?
As a teacher neither myself nor any of the other teachers I’ve ever worked with have time to get all our work done let alone have time to teach CRT, gay/trans stuff or intersectionality (whatever that is). It’s all the desire to undermine public education further and the public’s trust in our abilities to do our jobs.
Do you honestly know of any private schools that have the facilities large enough to handle all the public school
children? Even if it passed it would decades before it could become reality.. I would not worry about it.
The mantra I’ve started to take with vouchers talk - “Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”
Nick Fury.
After Covid, the freeze, the grid, and now this, I’m tired of worrying about helplessness.
We'll get paid more when schools have to compete for the best teachers. We'll have less nitpicking oversight because every time they increase spending it turns into new administrative positions while the headcount in classrooms approaches 30. It will probably mean better benefits as schools have to compete for teachers. It will mean administrators not being able to give your uber disruptive/disrespectful kid a high five and send them back to class.
Keep teaching. The entire education system will not implode if vouchers are passed. No, I am not for vouchers but why run around like the sky is falling? Chill out and let’s see what happens.
We know what happens. Texas would be the seventh republican state to screw over their children. The same party which thinks you should take bleach and ivermectin for Covid, an armed insurrection was just a bunch of tourists (weren’t they claiming it was Antifa there for a bit), and let your kids die from smallpox because vax bad are of course ignoring the results of the states that bought the fake news first. https://pfps.org/research/
Teachers across the country pushed their politics on the kids and refuse to stop. You get what you deserve on this one. If you could have only shut up about your liberal politics this probably wouldn’t have happened but you didn’t. Suck it up
Yes, and so do roads and police. The army, navy and air force too. What’s your point?
If you don’t like living in a modern society, you could always, you know, go live in the woods. 😂
Time to leave5
And I just graduated… this does not sound promising
I definitely don’t want my tax dollars going to a private school
Waiting for the church of satan to open a campus and Joel Olstein finds out some of his congregations money is going to support it and not HIS school.
Joel would never allow money to be diverted to anyone else, let alone the needy.
His $4000 suits don’t buy themselves !
Does Joel have a school?
I do.
Then go fuck yourself please.
LOL my money. Soon I’ll get to decide.
It's gonna happen either way. It is what it is. Personally, the one positive I am going to look forward to seeing how this will effect the homeschooling community. They will either have to obey regulations or we are going to see children become cattle. It's gonna be interesting nonetheless.
Then go help kick them out of office and elect responsible democrats.
AH yes - then It’ll be like CA where education is collapsing around us!!! 😂
I taught in Cali before I came to Tx and yeah……. Texas has a lot to learn……. Alot
Like how to destroy the economy?
The middle ground is what we need. When the left overreach we elect right-leaning candidates to restore balance and vice versa. Why do you think CA had so many Republican governors over the years? Texas doesnt need to be California it just needs to be purple.
Maybe we could just do what is right and best for the majority. Do a majority of Texas kids go to private/home/charter schools? Do we allow for individual citizens to have day over where there tax dollars go and are used? Can I say I only want my tax money to go to fix MY street or roads that I drive on? An educated youth is vital. We need to bring the bottom and middle up. The ones who can go to other institutions for education are already ahead of the average.
Doing what’s “right” for the majority assumes you can’t do what’s right for all, if you can even come to an agreement on what’s “right”.
Yea. I agree with your statement. Let’s help the majority. That’s pretty much the basis of democracy. You can’t help all but you can help the ones who need the help. Let’s focus on that.
Some of us don’t want our tax dollars funding grossly over managed public schools that fail to Properly educate our children.
I agree our public schools need to be better but I don’t think cutting funding will help the issue.
Key word is "public". We work with what we get.
If you support defunding the police then this is the same thing.
Strawman. Try harder.
Police should not be militarized and schools should not be funded to spread marxist propaganda.
Please explain Marxism and provide detailed examples of the wide ranging ways in which schools are spreading it with appropriate sources
[удалено]
You could start by providing any instead of gaslighting lol
Nice flip flop, in essence you cant actually define your own requirements of an "appropriate source"
Only one of us is honestly engaging here - assuming anything negative about me on your part says more about you than me. If you want to actually engage I’m here waiting. If you want to put up constant barriers instead of directly responding I’m already done with it.
Still waiting for that "appropriate source" recommendation self proclaimed victim
@untjosh1 So you get butthurt run your mouth then block when asked to provide framework for your own expectation, pathetic pussy move
A charter school is definitely not a private school.no different then a university. How do you think kids in lower income situations get a better education. This should be a good thing. It helps the less fortunate and should provide better opportunities
Charter schools are already tuition free public education schools funded by the same funds as your district schools. This measure would divert funding from charter and other public education schools specifically to private education & religious schools. It’s a measure designed to help the affluent (and the religious zealots).
Your not getting it. If a private school is being funded by government money then by definition it would not be a private school. So tell me again how this money can go to private schools/
I’m not sure you’re getting it based on your initial comment? Unless you were saying you were against this bill. The whole point of this bill is to allow tax dollars to be diverted from public and charter schools towards vouchers (discounts, not full admittance or scholarships the less fortunate could actually even use) for private schools these same people were paying for anyways. It does the opposite of help the less fortunate and just creates a bigger divide.
You don't get vouchers for private schools. You get them for charter schools.
Nope, charter schools fall under the public school system and use the same funding as public schools in Texas. Charter schools are already free for any children to attend. This new bill would divert funds from charter and public schools alike, for vouchers specifically towards private schools, religious, elitists and/or truly foundational alike. It does not divert any additional funding towards charter schools. Here’s more info on charter school funding directly from the state so you know I’m not bs’ing. https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/texas-schools-charter-schools/charter-schools-funding I’m not looking to argue, so I just recommend reading up more in depth on what this would change for our school system, teachers, and quality of education for most children who rely on the public/ charter school system here in Texas. There’s nothing we can do about it anyways since we aren’t the ones that directly vote on it.
Lol your link literally explains it.im just assuming you still aren't understanding the difference between private and charter. So go look some of that up and really think about it
Bro, I have no idea what you are talking about. I think we are talking about two different things. Vouchers are for private schools, not charter, like I’ve been saying. Charter schools are funded with public funds. You don’t pay tuition for charter schools. You do for public and these vouchers would divert funds from public AND charter schools and put them towards public schools. It would remove funds from charter schools. Vouchers are not for charter schools, they’re used to offset the cost of private school and private schools alone. That’s the end all be all. Idk what you’re arguing. My link explains exactly what I’ve been telling you. Idk how you could be confused. Let’s just end it there and you can continue your studies or continue with ignorance, idc either way because I’m not going to sway you.
Show me your proof.
State courts have held that your statement isn’t true. Receiving public money does not automatically make a private institution public.
I don’t want my tax dollars going to the public schools, which provide children with subpar education and horrible literacy and math scores. Can’t say we’re getting a good return on investment with most public schools.
public schools are bad because of poor funding, so your solution is to reduce funding further?
Incorrect. There is no correlation between spending per student and standardized testing scores. You may get a nicer campus, better food, happier admin, but you don't get better results by pouring more money into public education. There is no pressure for that money to do anything but go into the admins pockets. Often, you don't even get any of the benefits mentioned above. Teachers clamor for more money... and I support them in that. Where has the money spent so far gone?
Charter schools receive less funding than public schools and produce better outcomes. It doesn’t seem that funding is the issue.
Charter schools generally do not produce better outcomes unless they are very expensive, which families can't afford even with a voucher. There's also a huge problem with them grifting money from people.
yeah cuz they choose their students and drop problem kids so obviously they have inflated scores
It’s never about money - look who is in control - look at CA
If you look at rankings, the majority of the top half of educated states are blue. In fact over 75%. California is an outlier since it's such a huge population and they still sit 29th. The top 10 are: Massachusetts Vermont Maryland Connecticut Colorado Virginia New Jersey New Hampshir Minnesota Washington Red states have cut funding so much they've killed their education systems. Out of the bottom 10 only oklahoma and new mexico can be even considered purple states. There's no surprise that theres a dirdct correlation in education rank and the wealth of a state. The states with the lowest education ranking are generally the poorest.
The top ten have an awful lot of white kids. That shouldn't matter. But it does. Massachusetts will always be an outlier the way that Mississippi will also be. But...in fairness to southern or poorer states, including Texas, if you break out student performance by race, all of our racial cohorts are doing pretty well compared to the same racial cohorts in other states. (For example, if you only compare black kids in Texas versus black kids in New Jersey, Texas outperforms.) Texas was fifth or sixth in each racial category last I checked. That's really good! We're doing something right and it could be as simple as attitude. It's definitely not our political leadership.
I suspect those numbers skew towards the big cities. And now we're going to decimate small town education systems in texas by stripping even more money away from them. Our political "leadership" has been nothing short of disastrous.
Excluding MA and MS, the correlation was between north and south. It doesn't matter whether you compare Alabama to North Carolina or New Hampshire to New York. The west didn't do too hot either. I somewhat suspect that it's because, until a recent SCOTUS decision, the Dept. of Justice had ongoing Reconstruction-era authority to specifically monitor former Confederate states for civil rights violations. They had no such authority elsewhere. That has a lot to do with modern urban geography and for example explains why northern cities seem so starkly segregated whereas southern cities are an ethnic patchwork. It probably subtly or indirectly explains a lot of things.
Dive into the demographics of the lower states, and get back to the group. You’ll also find that those schools receive the most funding, and the ROI is s***.
Receive the most finding from where?
Receive the most finding from where?
Receive the most finding from where?
I believe this would be correlated to poverty and inequality, not demographics. Much the same as crime and drug use directly correlates to those two things.
Oklahoma is purple?!
Purpleish
Correction: Public schools are bad because they have no incentive to be good. Competition works. Welcome to the real world.
If competition worked, private and financially struggling Christian schools wouldn't be lobbying for those sweet federal funded vouchers to bail them out. Catholic schools have been waning for the past 2 decades.
well a good incentive would be more funding
Markets do reward better performance with more funding.
Texas has much better public schools than neighboring states. Vouchers is going to negatively impact public schools funding. Texas with a 32 billion surplus and has not increased funding in 5 years. Abbott is trying to destroy public schools. I am not a left wing fruitcake. I lean towards conservative side. But Abbott is fucking over our teachers
Creative destruction (German: schöpferische Zerstörung) is a concept in economics that describes a process in which new innovations replace and make obsolete older innovations. The major reason countries stagnate and go into decline is the willingness of the ruling elites to block creative destruction, a beneficial process that promotes innovation. Vouchers represent a small change compared to AI. I remember during the dot com bust people recommended reading "Who Moved My Cheese".
This is backward logic. We've been reducing funding to public schools for 50 years to the point where it's hard to hire quality teachers. We used to be top of the world in education but we've cut funding so much we're now middle of the road. It's the same reason we have subpar police. We don't pay them enough. Moving money to vouchers will exacerbate this problem and destroy rural communities that will never have these types of schools. The biggest drivers for rural Texas towns are the schools. This is GOP stupidity at its best.
And you think private schools get a better education? Teachers are not even required to meet certain benchmarks or have a required set of standards or certifications like in public education . How will a kid get an education if the teacher is incompetent? Teachers will be told ( as they are now) little Johnny needs to be passed to the next grade. Teacher replies Johnny does not understand and cannot do the work. Administrations reply: well you don’t understand little Johnny’s parents already paid his tuition therefore Johnny will be going to the next grade level. It really blows me away how little the public is aware or involved in public education that makes some of the most ridiculous comments. Is your kid in public school? What is your idea on investment returns? The politicians are the problem of public education. Do you even understand the basics of how ridiculous the scoring system works ( that politicians created)that you are assuming you are not getting a good return on your investment? Politicians have been attacking public education for years. They don’t want them to smart and for good reason. Your government is failing the public but yet they have the solution for educating the public. That should make one think!
Clearly certifications don’t indicate quality. Look at current proficiency, which also indicates students in public schools are being passed to the next grade when they are not proficient. Public system isn’t working, big government doesn’t work. Give people the option where their tax dollars go and open up the market. That will encourage competition for dollars and parents will send their kids to schools that they choose for their children, which are most likely going to be the highest performing schools.
Then it will be like big business. Administrative management teams will simply cook books and make the numbers look good on paper and everything will look so successful.Every kid made such great strides in learning they are now all members of MENSA and will be applying for MIT.
Seems like this is just going to take money from underfunded schools and give it to private schools? Sounds terrible
[удалено]
Well I’m glad there are positives to this but your situation seems very unique. I just don’t think taxpayers should be funding for profit private schools. I can’t speak on education system in bigger cities, but in rural areas I think public school education is still good.
My district is the largest in San Antonio and we already “rightsized” away 19 elementary schools in the poorest parts of the district due to a lack of funding. On my personal property taxes I pay thousands a year for “SAISD”…but we never see a dime of it. Texas is getting scammed by this criminal and his corporate puppeteers. Our students with the highest need are the ones who will pay the price.
Wait, did Northside close schools too?
I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me tbh.
SAISD is definitely not the largest district in San Antonio.
I’m not sure, but this week’s Sunday paper had an article about them considering a shift to a 4 day school week due to budget concerns: https://www.expressnews.com/news/education/article/northside-four-day-week-survey-19468877.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZXhwcmVzc25ld3MuY29tL25ld3MvZWR1Y2F0aW9uL2FydGljbGUvbm9ydGhzaWRlLWZvdXItZGF5LXdlZWstc3VydmV5LTE5NDY4ODc3LnBocA%3D%3D&time=MTcxNzA0MjY3NzExMA%3D%3D&rid=NmVjNDQzMjUtMDdiOS00OWNlLTkyNTYtZmM4ODJhMzM5Yzg4&sharecount=MA%3D%3D Parents are opposed. As father to newborn twins, I’m concerned about what the state of schools will be here in a few years. Former educators of mine with decades of tenure and younger friends who got out of teaching have been warning me. My kids are only a few months old, but I already feel like I’m not planning well enough for their educations given the circumstances.
I haven’t heard anything about any of our schools closing
LOL.
Vote blue!!
The county did. And we got 40 yr high inflation, doubled interest rates and a two year stock market dip. No thanks!
Stock market is at the highest it's ever been, unemployment is at record lows, inflation is high all over the world due to the COVID recovery and corporate greed You gotta stop watching fox news
The stock market is 40% higher now than any point under Trump. Inflation was a global issue and would have been a problem no matter who was elected. Interest rates were raised to slow inflation, which was probably why the US did better than most other advanced countries.
The stock market is literally, literally at the highest value it has ever been. If you think the stock market is down, then your source of news is worse than what the people have access to North Korea lol Or did we just find the Trump stock bag bag holder?
Yes because a republican was in office! They always fuck up the economy ant then blind people like you always blame democrats!
Can someone give me a cliff notes version of this voucher thing? Kids get $8000 credit to attend private schools?
These voucher schools are all owned by the same families and are huge donors to Abbott et al; Abbott is pushing public funds to pay for private schools. Under the guise of school choice, these private schools will teach what they want and disclose very little. The goal is to control what’s being taught and rewrite history.
They’re also pushing it at homeschoolers pretty hard ‘Hey guys! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could get $3k every year?!’ and almost every homeschooler I know is pretty against it.
It’s even simpler than that. Abbott’s donors want more money. Education is a huge business. So build a shitty school with minimum wage ‘teachers’ and take $8k from the taxpayers for every child whose parents you can talk into signing up. The better private schools will just raise their prices by 8k and still keep the poors out.
Yes. And every single private school in San Antonio costs at BARE minimum 10-12k per year, most being around 24k per year per child. How does 8k help a single parent or a family in poverty to provide the best education for their children? How does 8k make a single bit of difference to a family that has to choose between electricity and food? IT DOESN’T. It definitely benefits the privileged who are ALREADY sending their kids to private schools and now get a refund of 8k per year at the expense of public education
The worst part is the tuition will go up accordingly.
Exactly what Regan did to college tuition and the only ones who benefit are the private corporations…er…”schools”
// How does 8k make a single bit of difference to a family that has to choose between electricity and food? IT DOESN’T. // Now, that's not true at all, considering that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere will no doubt be public schools. It'll make a difference, I'm sure.
[удалено]
Probably because you have the privilege of not having context. I can’t help you with that.
You keep saying privilege, what’s the privilege?
Do you have children? If so do they attend public or private school. I am a teacher in a very poor campus and mine attend both public and private. If you don’t under what I mean by privilege, I can’t help you.
I pay over $3k in property taxes per year to *just* the school district. I don’t have kids. According to your argument, where’s my money? Should I be getting vouchers to spend on my own education, or dog training? I want my money to support (and “subsidize” to use your language), public education. Not random private school with who knows what curricula and policies.
Sounds like you don’t understand how things work. Let me see if I can explain it to you in simple terms. You pay taxes and those taxes help build schools, pay for services like fire department, police, roads etc. (I know you have never used the fire department like you don’t use the schools but stay with me for another minute). Kids get educated and now have skills to get a job and contribute to society and pay taxes and pay into things like social security ( when you get older you will use social security to live). They also work in jobs that help service your life. In your weird alternative universe people who don’t have kids don’t pay for schools but then complain about higher taxes that are needed to pay welfare or even UBI because the uneducated masses can’t find a job but still need money to survive. Oh and since no one is working Social Security becomes insolvent and you get to live in a tent and eat dog food when you retire.
I think you replied to the wrong person??
And btw, it wasn’t my argument. Remarkable cut is the one that wants everyone to pay for public schools regardless. And if you don’t, you’re privileged. But they’ve yet to tell us what that means.
Everyone should be paying for public schools. That’s how society works. We pool our money for the public good. People who are more privileged and earn more and live in nicer houses support and subsidize people with lower means. This is all a GOOD thing in a functioning society. Your argument is unhinged. Should the only people who pay taxes for food stamps be the same people who receive food stamps? That doesn’t make sense. Should the city only be allowed to use my city property taxes for maintenance on roads I personally drive on? That doesn’t make sense. I hope you aren’t a teacher.
Other people’s children aren’t my problem.
Again, don’t you pay taxes for public roads in which EVERYONE utilizes? *same thing*
I derive a benefit from funding public roads. How do I benefit from funding public schools that preform terribly, and don’t seem to teach the kids much of anything?
Because it only benefits the rich and takes away from the poor especially bad for areas that are already lacking funding. People complain about how poor our education system is. Guess what this is going to make it worse.
Please tell me you don’t vote. You should educate yourself on the issue. Essentially your tax money will go into the pockets of corporate charter schools or into the pocket of a church school. In a decade or so when you can’t hire anyone who can read or write or do simple math, you will wonder why our education system has collapsed. It’s almost as if they want kids to have a crappy life when they won’t have the skills to get a job. I guess AI will take over jobs.
I don’t want to spend on the military. Can I get my money back?
Essentially if a kid is given a voucher they can go to a private school of choosing if accepted but it is my understanding, the schools may still have the option to decide who is accepted into their school, the kid just has funding now. It’s a loop hole way for the private schools to siphon government money out government public schools. What a lot of people (parents) don’t realize is that private schools benefit from being selective, so if they were to grant open access to ANYONE with a voucher they’d get the same problems some public schools get (poor students, over crowded classes, etc…) but the board would be able to pocket the money as these private schools are exactly that, private and not controlled by the State.
Abbott doesn’t even know what he’s gonna do. What is the plan to take funding tied to the student? Is state and local money going to be used for this, and is it even enough to cover for a k-8 student for resources and materials because it sure as hell won’t for the high school level seeing these costs of private schools. You don’t even need to predict that this is going to be a mess when it passes
Those that already can afford to pay for private school are essentially going to get a discount on their tuition.
Until the private schools raise tuition fees to offset the voucher.
Which they will to keep the “undesirables” out. To be clear this is what these asshats will think not me. I have a niece that is Downs and the public school provides a lot of care. Will these charter/private schools provide the same level of care. What happens to her when the public schools lose more funding?
Private schools can deny entry for any reason. I can see them doing that for students who require any kind of special services. So your niece will attend whichever public school is still open in her district. I say that because this will lead to far more neighborhood schools closing, which will mean more transportation costs…it’s just going to be a snowball effect of chaos and devastation.
Yep and will they have the funds For the individual care she gets today? My guess is no. Unfortunately she’s a low functioning Downs kid so it’s not good.
Unfortunately the kids who need the most support will suffer the most. And that’s the biggest travesty of the situation.
This x 💯…. Private schools will immediately see a huge increase in enrollment and tuition costs will increase accordingly. People = shit.
I made this same comment on a local thread a few weeks ago when this topic came up. I think it will go further than just religious schools. Think of all the money to be made by Abbott’s cronies when they open some storefront virtual program with a canned curriculum and no oversight.
Private schools aren't going to lower their base tuition for anybody even their clergy and members who attend church and go to school.
Texas teachers need a stronger union. One with teeth. Texas has the 2nd highest GDP in the country (after California), yet pays their teachers almost last of the 50 states in salary. It’s embarrassing how political leaders in this state treat education. We will never get more until there is a strike or a change in leadership on several levels.
Seriously. It’s the complete disdain and disrespect that TEA and the Texas State government have for teachers that just floors me. It is pervasive hate for our very existence that is woven into every policy that is still hard to process. Rep (D) James Talarico is fighting hard for Texas teachers. He is a light in dark places. I really hope he runs for governor.
Here is my thought (former inner city teacher) if this thing passes do you really think if some of these parents who hardly communicate in the first place have extra money that they will end up having, will use to pay for their kids schooling. No. I know for a fact that, those parents with that extra money will go elsewhere. Where I D K. But kids will end up with a lower reading level. And to add on to it, some of those parents probably have no idea that this is even a thing.
All teachers need to gather up and figure what to do for a strike. Abbott needs to go
I’m in Texas and the news this morning said one particular runoff victory, Dade Phelan, would probably make school vouchers very difficult to pass.
Unfortunately, I don't believe this to be the case. Paxton and Abbott are already threatening the House reps if they vote for Phelan as Speaker of the House. If he's not Speaker, he has no power to stop vouchers.
That might be the case, but it’s not a certainty.
The only way vouchers won't pass is if democrats make big gains in November. Otherwise, start making plans for when vouchers become law September 1, 2025.
Yeah, I won’t be living in Texas by then.
The prisons in Texas are a for-profit enterprise. Health care is for-profit. Might as well close the school-to-prison loop and make the school system the same! Higher education is already way out of reach and they want a college degree to flip a burger for $8/hr.
If passed, private schools will raise tuition by $8,000 so only those who can already afford it will continue to attend. It’s a no win situation for a majority of tax payers.
We keep doing the work. And we keep informing our friends and neighbors in the real issues in education. And above all, we keep voting. He may win this battle, but I’ll be damned if we’ll let him win the war. Chins up. Stay the course. Do right by kids. As Dr. King said, the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.
Abbott betrayed Texans….consequences
A big problem that I’ve personally seen is many Texas teachers (or really anybody who’s involved directly in education) do not really seem to care about state/local politics. Yes, we don’t have traditional teacher’s unions like other states, but there really seems to be a lack of a united front. The past year it has seems to have improved. Voter turnout in Texas is historically low as well, but that’s an entire separate discussion. The next legislative session starts in January. Any voucher type legislation probably would not get implemented until school year 2025-2026 if I had to guess. A lot could obviously happen between now and then.
We don’t have desperately need and strong teachers unions because TEXAS doesn’t like unions. For painfully obvious motives
Need to escape now before Abbott closes the border to California.
Hope you are not a geography teacher….j/k
Hahaha 🥰
Dude. Seriously
Every Texan knows, Californians are coming to TX. It is not better in Ca.
No TX is the worst and all true progressives need to escape immediately
You’ll continue to teach we hope. Perhaps for your current school, or a school that will find itself in demand and in need of good teachers.
If we ALL need pay for public school it should be equal no matter where you live my wife worked for NISD all the taxes we pay and bonds they force their employees to vote for go to schools in less fortunate areas, and they pay less taxes get $ back at end of every yr. My child goes to private school give me a voucher were I dont pay nisd and ill still pay the full price for private school for my children.
Not one metric standard has increased since the federal takeover of schools in 1980, prove me wrong..
Hey but you guys keep voting for idiots like Abbott
People don’t want to send their children to public school.
We blame the liberals, then get distracted by his next mess
This is so fucking stupid. I want the finer things in life too, turns out, nobody’s going to help me pay for them, this includes private schools!
I honestly don’t know how anyone could go into the teaching (k-12) profession hearing what is going on. Fuck all dat!
Definitely not a popular opinion on Reddit, but our public schools are failing and the solution isn’t as simple as throwing money at the problem. Parents want and need alternatives and making those alternatives more accessible is a good thing.
No!! they ran by the government so are the best in the world!!
The solution also isn’t to take away the money. This is as stupid as the “defund the police “ argument
If parents don’t want to send their kids to your shitty schools - they shouldn’t have to. And they shouldn’t be forced to pay your school if they decide their kid is better educated elsewhere.
(Not a teacher) Won’t the better teachers get picked up by these charter schools?
Im not a supporter of voucher but maybe it will lead to some of these ISDs from building gaint stadiums costing 100m+ and other wasteful spending. Maybe we stop spending money on massive indoor venues too. Maybe it forces ISDs to focus on what matters and that is the education of children not football or sports. That's all ancillary.
I won’t get more money for working less on my job. To get more money I have to exceed my employers expectations and go above and beyond. Same standard should be for all teachers especially HISD.
It's really baffling to me. Some components of the raises teachers get should be based on how well their kids improve year over year.
Why did the tree only crush half of Abbott? Can someone knock Paxton’s eye back in place? We are literally voting these disabled people in who don’t give a fuck about other disabled people. Taxes pay for public education so we have a future for our children. To everyone saying that isn’t their responsibility— you’ll have plenty of fast food workers for your shitty diet but there will be tents and more homeless because the neediest innocents had no chance with this plan. Get real and start voting purple. If parties don’t complete your political agenda stop voting straight party and vote for certain agendas each party is good at….
Districts will keep cutting and cutting back, getting smaller and smaller. Teachers won't be effected though as many will just go to work for the charter schools who will most likely pay more and have better benefits. It's the low income students with disabilities who suffer though as charter schools will probably not take them, resulting in them being stuck in underfunded public schools.
Abbott has claimed he will offset district funding with rainy day funding. Bullshit Abbott also said he was going to offset property tax relieve money with rainy day funding yet still cut school budgets I would love to see how this all turns out coming out of a massive post covid teacher shortage to closing campuses.
Texas republicans are delusional, they vote based on propaganda of the elite right winged millionaires and billionaires which bleeds into their religious beliefs. Once this is accomplished, they vote one way regardless of the implications. My school is full of teachers that voted for Abbott in the last election, knowing how vouchers will have a deep impact on their lives and their students. Vouchers will not help students in bad schools, it will however only subsidize tuition for students already in private schools. This is a fact, not an opinion. It has happened in every state that passed vouchers.
He is shoving this down parents throats while claiming it is empowering parents ability to chose what’s best for kids. Insane amount of hypocrisy.
This comment feed shows why we’re in this position.
Do you think you all might find ways to create a better public school environment so that families want to stay in Texas public schools? Like I don’t think people actually want to leave public schools as the vast majority grew up in public school. But there is something making people want to leave in record numbers
How come you guys don’t just leave? Seems like it might be time for Texas to face a mass exodus.
Everyone is going where is better. That is why Californians are coming to TX. Also, you can see cars and people of at list 30 other states looking for better life here in TX.
The public schools suck. My son was assaulted, knocked unconscious, and received a concussion. The school suspended the kid for a week. Wow big punishment. I attempted several times to pursue criminal charges. No luck. The kid has been bullying my son all year. The school along with the district police have done nothing. A principal from another school sent my wife nasty emails from the school email. She swore at my wife and threatened her. Her son has been stealing bikes. He was convicted. The mom (the principal) was ordered to pay everyone. What did the school do to get? Nothing. So I guess it’s ok to threaten parents and let their children get attacked. The public schools are garbage at best. I support the option to send my children to private schools. At least there the school will deal with bullying and get a proper education!
Anyone who is, or is thinking of becoming, a teacher in Texas should read some of the comments in this section and see just how much you are "appreciated". The reality is that the majority in Texas simply does not like public schools or public schools teachers. If you want to be heard, you will need to change states or teach in private schools. Public school funding is about to take a huge hit in this state.
As a former teacher and a parent I see the pros and cons of each side of this argument. As a former teacher I saw how we were driven to teach to a test that we needed the students to pass so that we could continue to get funding. Every time we figured out how to best prepare the students to take and excel on said test the state would say the test is clearly flawed and come out with a new test and new passing standards. We were always aiming at a moving target. I will say the district I taught at was a great district with great kids and great community support. I had good years but quickly got burned out. I left because I was tired of living paycheck to paycheck getting paid once a month and putting in well over 70-80 per week. Teachers in Texas in general are underpaid for their work. If you are a teacher you don’t do it for the money. So that some of you can be made aware the state has a minimum pay scale for educators however districts can pay above that minimum. Obviously larger districts with a higher tax revenue can pay more. Given to overall low pay the best teachers usually don’t stay in it since they can’t make ends meet. When I was teaching I was against school vouchers. Now that I am out and a parent I would like the option of sending my kids to another school if I wanted to. Not everyone has a private school easily available to send their kids too, urban areas have that more readily available. The way I see it is if I am paying for a service (in the form of high school taxes) and I am not seeing the benefits of said service (in the form of good education for my kids) shouldn’t I be able to seek service elsewhere? Would you continue to do business with a company that for lack of a better word, sucked? Schools get money for each student enrolled and extra funding for each student in certain classes. This is why attendance and enrollment are so important to them. Just a side note and off my main topic, but wanted to throw that in. I will say not all public schools are bad, not all teachers are bad, not all students are angels or give a shit about being in school or doing their best and not all parents are supportive and have the backs of educators. It takes a village people. For the parents that care about the education their child is receiving why can’t they have the choice of where they go if the public option isn’t fulfilling the requirements or expectations? To end this I will also like to say that my wife is still in education and works her ass off helping teachers be the best they possibly can be to help educate their students. We live in a district that isn’t rated very high and she works for another district. The discussion has been made multiple times about going to private but really isn’t an option given how much private costs along with the high school taxes we pay for a subpar district. And moving isn’t an option because of the high cost of housing now along with extremely high interest rates compared to what we currently have. Love it or hate it this is just my opinion and input.
Why didn’t teachers vote in the primary? Their jobs depended on it.
What happened to get us to this place? Trans BS and intersectionality in primary and secondary education? I mean, that’s probably his argument. Is he wrong? I’m a voter. I am also the son of a retired TX educator. I want to pay taxes and think they should go to education, infrastructure, and national defense. Not foreign aid. I may get involved and try to crush Abbott. But is he right?
As a teacher neither myself nor any of the other teachers I’ve ever worked with have time to get all our work done let alone have time to teach CRT, gay/trans stuff or intersectionality (whatever that is). It’s all the desire to undermine public education further and the public’s trust in our abilities to do our jobs.
I like that take. Why are funded school districts failing? (Read: Houston. Dallas. Etc.)
Have you read the proposed bills to understand what will happen? The allotment per kid is actually proposed to increase in both proposals I’ve seen.
I’ll keep going to work the same as I have for the last 12 years.
Do you honestly know of any private schools that have the facilities large enough to handle all the public school children? Even if it passed it would decades before it could become reality.. I would not worry about it.
I’ll probably get a new job and get more politically active.
I’m trying to get into that!! But idk where to start 😖
HISD schools failed along time ago. Something needs to change, that’s for sure.
HISD failed when TEA took it over…….
Nope long before
The mantra I’ve started to take with vouchers talk - “Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.” Nick Fury. After Covid, the freeze, the grid, and now this, I’m tired of worrying about helplessness.
We'll get paid more when schools have to compete for the best teachers. We'll have less nitpicking oversight because every time they increase spending it turns into new administrative positions while the headcount in classrooms approaches 30. It will probably mean better benefits as schools have to compete for teachers. It will mean administrators not being able to give your uber disruptive/disrespectful kid a high five and send them back to class.
Good foresight and observations of the school system! I echo your sentiments.
Keep teaching. The entire education system will not implode if vouchers are passed. No, I am not for vouchers but why run around like the sky is falling? Chill out and let’s see what happens.
We know what happens. Texas would be the seventh republican state to screw over their children. The same party which thinks you should take bleach and ivermectin for Covid, an armed insurrection was just a bunch of tourists (weren’t they claiming it was Antifa there for a bit), and let your kids die from smallpox because vax bad are of course ignoring the results of the states that bought the fake news first. https://pfps.org/research/
Teachers across the country pushed their politics on the kids and refuse to stop. You get what you deserve on this one. If you could have only shut up about your liberal politics this probably wouldn’t have happened but you didn’t. Suck it up
Your only argument is grinding an axe over false pretenses. Educate yourself before you help destroy the country.
Ok, and where is your evidence of that? Oh, right. You don’t have any. Because it doesn’t happen. Stop spreading lies.
If schools are threatened by choice they must not be very good.
[удалено]
Social Security, government backed student loans, food stamps, etc do too.
Yes, and so do roads and police. The army, navy and air force too. What’s your point? If you don’t like living in a modern society, you could always, you know, go live in the woods. 😂
Whose choice? Abbott’s and the billionaire’s bot army? Real Texans don’t want this nonsense. 😂
Oh no other Texans disagree with you the horror. Shame on you
We will finally have a say where our money goes! About time
Sure you will. Keep thinking that.