Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, once known as the Rush Limbaugh of Texas, has organized a group of pastors to push for school vouchers, in opposition to the dynamic Pastors for Texas Children, which has staunchly supported public schools.
Our friends, PTC, have helped to build a bipartisan coalition of urban Democrats and rural Republicans who don’t want their community schools defunded.
The Dallas Morning News reported:
Conservative Texas pastors and lawmakers have their eyes set on school vouchers to fight the “miseducation” of students ahead of the November elections and the upcoming legislative session.
“After COVID and after [critical race theory] and after pornographic books in libraries, parents deserve choices,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said during a call with about 50 Texas pastors Tuesday.
Patrick was joined by Rev. Dave Welch, founder and executive director of the Texas Pastor Council; Allan Parker, president of The Justice Foundation and former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige on the call that lamented the “crisis” facing K-12 education.
“We are educationally in a crisis of change,” Paige said. “The pandemic has changed the area of education in the United States of America. My suggestion would be that [Gov. Greg Abbott] assemble a good group of good thinkers and think about where we go from here.”
Amid the ongoing education culture wars over what’s taught in schools and students falling behind academically after pandemic disruptions, many families want more options and some believe the landscape is ripe for a renewed fight for vouchers or similar efforts that funnel taxpayer money for use on private school education.
You may recall Rod Paige as President George W. Bush’s first Secretary of Education. He called the NEA “terrorists.”
I am grateful for PTC, who have fought for adequate funding for the five million students in Texas public schools and stood strong against vouchers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Abbot assigning a “good group of thinkers…” Now that’s rich!
My guess is that Abbott put a notice on Breitbart and Newsmax looking for a “good group of thinkers.”
He is surrounded now by sadists and greed-hogs.
There was a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and Governor Abbott promised to send in armed officers.
He did not offer to discuss gun control or revoking the law that allows anyone to buy a gun and carry it openly without a permit.
This is part of the strategy, immediately go to the “rubber-glue” argument because the goals is to make the original meaning meaningless.
Pastors vs. Pastors, or, more actually, Pesterers vs. Pastors.
perfect analysis: the goal is to make the original meaning meaningless. That cover so much ground for the entire twenty years of “test and punish” reform invasions.
“After COVID and after [critical race theory] and after pornographic books in libraries, parents deserve choices,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said during a call with about 50 Texas pastors Tuesday.
Ironic (but not humorous in any way) how a theofascist MAGA RINO like Dan Patrick censors books that allegedly focus on critical race theory and/or pornography, TAKING AWAY THOSE CHOICES from everyone, and then says “parents deserve choices.”
Censorship and choice do not fit together in any way except in the mindw of MAGA-RINO theofascists. When someone like Dan Patrick says “parents deserve choices” he means MAGA parents and the rest of us shouldn’t be allowed to have choices.
Abbott and his new astroturf group plan to create a workaround to fund vouchers despite voters’ continuous rejection of this proposition. Conservatives don’t seem to care what voters want. They know they can manipulate their right wing supporters through fabricated crises and misinformation. The right has abandoned democracy.
“You may recall Rod Paige as President George W. Bush’s first Secretary of Education. He called the NEA “terrorists.””
Thanks for reminding us that the beginnings of the present day MAGA movement have analogous rhetoric in previous administrations that played to the base Republicans were at that time growing more and more into an addiction. W could no more do without the future Proud Boys than Trump. Neither tried to push back against the extremist takeover of the party, and the latter president came to depend solely on that group.
We can thank our lucky stars- those of us who support American democracy- that the almost 50 state Catholic Conferences which were created as a political arm of the Catholic Church haven’t been successful in initiating and passing legislation for school choice. Thank goodness that EdChoice didn’t decide it would be a good idea for a state VP to couple his efforts with his position as an associate director of a state Catholic Conference. Fortune was with us when state Catholic Conferences ignored the opportunity to co-host school choice rallies in state capitols with the Koch’s AFP.
It would be our misfortune if a journalist looked into and reported about the social Darwinists’ funding of religious organizations and school choice.
Praise the lord that Jefferson rejected a warning for the future like, in every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot.
Anyone remember Ron Paige getting caught lying about dropouts that were the actual source of the NCLB Texas Miracle.
Dropout fraud back then and now a deal with the devil Dan Patrick.
The devil Dan Patrick- supports creationism within the public school system. His religious views are listed in the final paragraph of a Wikipedia entry about him.
Sick, disgusting, dishonest