Governor Rick Perry of Texas told a gathering of Tea Party faithful that he felt bad about what happened in Connecticut but warned that people should not have a “knee-jerk reaction” by trying to restrict guns. he made clear that Texas had no intention on changing its gun laws, which allow a person with a license to carry a handgun anywhere in the state.
The meeting was picketed by 30 members of the Save Texas Schools group protesting the cuts of $5.4 billion in state funding in the last legislative session.
In the new session this coming spring, the Legislature plans to restore some cuts but will increase the burden of testing and will take up vouchers.
Save Texas Schools plans a massive rally at the state Capitol in Austin on February 23.
I will be there to speak as will the great Texas superintendent John Kuhn.
If you care about public education in Texas, please join us.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Texas is totally insane. Book publishers have divisions just for Texas as they are crazy. The head of the committee for choosing Texas school books believes that Noah had dinosaurs on the ark. I have seen the videos on You Tube. Maybe we also rode raptors as they are our friends also. We don’t need science or history, what for. If we have those subjects we will just make up what we want who cares about what is real. If someone looks at you a way you do not like well just blast them with your .45 with hollowpoints what’s the big deal. Is this what we really want for the future?
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Chicago has a gun ban, yet men, women, and children are shot and killed daily. All of the gun massacres have happened in “gun free zones.” Banning guns and tightening gun laws do nothing. They only, apparently, keep honest people honest. And enable dangerous lunatics (sorry for name call) to shoot people, because they know that no one will have a gun to defend themselves.
Arming school personnel sounds repugnant and upsetting, but it may be an answer. Many schools already have fair security systems, but put an armed security guard (a retired cop?)near the front door could work. Give the principal a gun. I’m don’t think that arming teachers would be good, kids could get into them.
It’s touching, inspiring, and heart-rending how brave teachers did what they could to protect their students. And a dad of a slain child, whose family just moved to CT from my state extended forgiveness to shooter and prayers for his family. Times like this brings country together.
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I am a teacher, and I am also familiar with, comfortable with, and competent with firearms. I think guns in school are a bad idea; partly because of the potential for terrible accidents, and also because 99% of my colleagues wouldn’t want to handle even a Nerf gun. Also, a school transformed into a fortified bunker bristling with weaponry would be no school at all, but a monument to a failed civilization.
Maybe something like tasers or bear spray carefully stored is a compromise?
I have been thinking about and discussing various kinds of gun restrictions ever since That Day, and I can’t think of a practical solution. The last assault weapons ban was useless; no high capacity magazines (so what – you can change a mag easily in three seconds), and certain forbidden features that were mainly cosmetic rather than functional (flash suppressors bayonet lugs, pistol grip stocks, etc.).
I have heard that AR style weapons are just flying off the shelves of dealers as people try to cash in on the future price spikes that will be caused by potential bans. It’s nuts.
Civilians have no need for assault rifles (although I know that gun hobbyists enjoy them), but what to do about the millions already out there?
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Where are the religous leaders?
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Thank God this dithering buffoon didn’t stand a chance in hell of becoming president. The last buffoon from TX was a disaster for this country of incalculable proportions. A school in Harrold, TX, has had its teachers armed for years. They conceal and carry but not 100% of the staff. They keep secret who are the staff who are actually carrying guns. One school in the mid-west is contemplating installing bulletproof windows in the whole school. Where will the money come from for this enormous undertaking?
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Is it really a “knee-jerk” reaction if there have been 19 mass shootings in the past 5 years totaling around 230 deaths and 120 injured, not to mention the more than 11,000 firearm deaths each year in America?
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Diane: Are you now explicitly connecting support for a new federal gun law, in whatever form President Obama calls for it, to your support for public schools? Do you see the two issues as essentially connected now?
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How is it that one failed shoe-bomb attempt forces millions of travelers to take off their shoes to go through an airport, but slaughtering school children again and again gets no reaction? We MUST do something to stop the insanity. This is not who we are.
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According to Texas State Senator Dan Patrick on his radio show, the Texas economy has been doing so well that there is more in the coffers, especially the Permanent School Fund, than the 5+ billion that was cut in 2011. All could and should be restored.
The next step is to recoup the nearly 500 million that was awarded to Pearson to create, administer, score and report the new state standardized exams. Under the current law passed in 2009 and implemented last year students are required to pass 5 each year for a total of 15 to graduate. During testing and the re-testing in July and the first week on December, thousands of kids across the state could not take the exams they had been preparing for in class, after school, at home, etc. as Pearson’s online system failed again and again. The failures have been happening for at least 2 years through its trial and testing phases. Sounds like breach of contract to me.
However, I am happy to report that in fact we may see the testing regime reduced and rolled back not increased. Gov. Perry already supported canceling the 15% exam as part of the final course grade again this year. By my count using the Texas Tribune’s Bill Tracker on its web site, 9 bills have already been filed that will reduce, amend or even scrap the testing system all together. Several bills are using the same argument as the lawsuit against the state brought by various districts that the State passed a law and failed to fund it, the unfunded mandate. Not to mention that funding is radically unequal across our state with some districts receiving a little over 3k and some over 10k which violates the Texas Constitution’s mandate of equal diffusion of education.
Check out the bill tracker here:http://www.texastribune.org/session/83R/bills/
As for Texas being insane, my experience is different. There were some quirky changes to our curriculum a few years ago that made headlines, but I’ve always appreciated that what I read about in other states and communities was and is not happening here. The issues brought forward in Chicago and New Orleans come to mind and I’ve always thought I’m glad I don’t teach in Kansas. As for publishers, it’s because we’re big and can’t help that. We have a democratically elected State Board of Education and in Houston our Board is elected as well. Nor mayoral, Broad issues here.
As for the guns on campus issue, Houston ISD has had its own police force on campuses for decades. Every officer that I have worked with has been professional and gone beyond their mandate helping to stuff envelopes, answer phones, render aid and much more. They’ve always been an integral part of the campus community and I for one have always felt safer with them around. No guns on teachers and in classes for me, but a trained pro is helpful.
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Would Perry be willing to come to Connecticut and tell the 40 parents who lost their young children and the families of the six murdered teachers his views on his right to own guns? Would he be willing to come to my classroom and reassure the little girl with her parents’ phones numbers stuffed in her pocket “just in case” or the little boy who interrupted my lesson because he “heard a sound”? Has he seen the photographs of the victims of this tragedy? Gun lovers, your right to own weapons does not supersede parents’ rights to have their children survive a school day.
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as a skinny person, I feel that too many people who would normally be healthy are being poisoned and fattened by stainless steel spoons. Fat people would be skinny if spoons wouldn’t deliver the food to these peoples mouths. Heart attacks, diabetes… think of all the medical problems that would be solved if spoons were banned!!! This issue hits close to home for me because my father had a quadruple bypass a few years ago… if he had just never had access to that spoon…..
do people really think that banning guns removes evil from our society?
did you know that more people died falling out of beds than what did at the end of a rifle barrel??
are people really this stupid?
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If the Perry is so pro 2nd Amendment then he should stop being such a hypocrite and repeal the State Laws that prohibit firearms from being carried state government offices, courts, and most importantly the State Capitol. Come on! if more guns make it safer then why not require them to enter a bar and sporting event? While he and his Liberty Tea Patriots are at it they can forgo the teachers being armed and just allow no strike that require each child to be armed at all times. What a load of BS the Texas repubs are. Crying foul and pointing fingers at the President while hiding behind state troopers with guns woking in gun free zones.
By the way, I have a CHL and have no problem with the Federal Government trying to improve gun safety and protect our children.
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