Texas Governor Greg Abbot said last year that voucher legislation was his top priority. Was it because Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass gave him $6 million to vouchers through the legislature? A score of Republicans from rural districts voted against vouchers. They knew that their district schools would be crippled by vouchers. Although Governor Abbot called multiple special sessions, although he offered bribes and threats, the rural Republicans defied him and said no to vouchers. The people who taught in their local public schools were their sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, children and friends.
So Governor Abbot took Jeff Yass’s $6 million and used it to fund extremist Republicans who would vote for vouchers, putting their local public schools at risk.
Many of the Yass extremists won, paving the way for Abbot to win his vouchers.
Democrats are challenging Abbot’s puppets in November, the ones that Jeff Yass paid for.
The Pastors for Texas Children have not given up the fight.
Their leader Charles Foster Johnson post the following on Twitter:
As we write this, we are in the hearing room with our pastors. We are told the committee will hear testimony tomorrow, too.
This written testimony by PTC Trustee Bill Jones is superb! It is a sterling example of what effective written testimony is. It is not too late for you to submit written testimony. You may do so here.
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I am Bill Jones, a resident of Collin County for the past 37 years. My state representative is Jeff Leach. I have three grandchildren in Frisco ISD and one in Allen ISD. My daughter is a schoolteacher in Frisco ISD and formerly taught for many years in Plano ISD. Both of my children grew up in Plano ISD schools. I am a trustee of Pastors for Texas Children, where I have served since 2013, and a member – since 2004 – of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, where I serve on the Christian Advocacy Committee.
With respect to your August 12 hearing on “educational opportunity” proposals, I testify to oppose any bill that would transfer public taxpayer funds to private entities. Public taxpayer funds should go ONLY to public schools that benefit all, not to private schools that benefit only a privileged few. Any bill that would give public funds for the support of private schools would drain funds from our children’s and grandchildren’s neighborhood public schools, which are already gravely underfunded.
Any claim by voucher proponents that vouchers benefit the underprivileged is an outright lie. The vast majority of parents who would take advantage of vouchers – as has been the case in other states – are those whose children are already in private schools. They go to parents who are able to afford the private school tuition, and the voucher is merely a supplement to reduce their expense. Voucher amounts are never even close to sufficient for those who cannot afford private schools in the first place. They benefit the well-to-do.
Above all, I do not want my tax money to go to support someone else’s religious indoctrination any more than I want the tax money of those of other faiths to support mine.
In addition, private schools are not accountable to the state – their teachers do not have to be certified; their curriculum is not subject to oversight; and they are free to refuse applications from, for example, special needs children, which they almost always do. Public schools, on the other hand, are required to meet state standards, and they must take ALL children, including those with special needs. We should not be further draining them of the resources needed to serve children of every type of need, every faith, every color, every ethnic background.
Voucher plans, no matter what name or euphemism is attached to them, are bad policy, hurting our children and grandchildren, and the dedicated public servants – schoolteachers, principals, superintendents, and other staff – who serve them.
Please vote against any bills that provide public taxpayer funds for the support of private schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is time for Democrats on a national level to take up this local issue. I know most educational expenditure originate at the state and local level, but the presence of national money in state and local levels that influences where money goes means that we must be vocal about our local purpose as it relates to our national identity. If we are not a government for all the people, how can we be a legitimate government for any of them? Schools fulfill that promise. Schools for all the people. Schools for the we the people idea.
Come on, Democrats! You chose a teacher. Now build on that.
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It would help public education if Democrats would stop incentivizing privatization. The wasteful charter school $40 million dollar slush fund needs to go. This money pays for many schools that never open or close shortly after they open. This is a waste of public dollars. It is a giveaway to the charter school lobby. Fortunately, most Democrats have not jumped on the voucher bandwagon which allows private entities to hoover up unaccountable public dollars from public school budgets and send those dollars to pay the education of affluent students whose parents already pay for their private schools.
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It is $400 million!!! Not $40 million.
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It’s an unnecessary waste of federal funds that would be better spent on Title 1 funds that should have to be spent in public schools, not vouchers. Turning unaccountable public dollars over to private companies often ends in waste, fraud and profiteering.
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The privatization of education is based on an array of false assumptions. Charter schools impede the efficiency of public schools. They waste funds by duplicating many of the same services that are available in public schools and leave public schools with fixed costs and the most expensive students to educate. Charters spend a lot more on administrative costs than public schools. Competition does not improve public schools, particularly when public lose money every time a new one opens. Charter schools increase segregation, and the federal government should be supporting more segregation. Unless charter schools select students, they do no better and often perform worse than public schools. The bottom line is that charter schools were merely a hook for vouchers, and the federal government fell for it hook, line and sinker. Vouchers are a tool to destabilize and ultimately dismantle public education. The federal government should not be in the business of undermining public education. It should work to strengthen public schools, a pillar of democracy.
In a recent post about Ohio’s voucher lawsuit, Jan Resseger quotes Derek Black’s book “School House Burning,” which says it best.
“In his powerful book, Schoolhouse Burning, about the history of public education as a primary responsibility of every state, the constitutional scholar, Derek Black describes the development of state constitutions, among whose primary purposes is protection for every child of the right to public education: “The framework is the same as it has always been… where we understand public education as a constitutional right. This means public education is the state’s absolute and foremost duty… This means the state must fully fund schools and reform policies unrelated to money when they impede adequate and equal opportunity. This means that the state cannot manipulate educational opportunity by geography, race, poverty, or anything else for that matter. This means the state cannot favor alternatives to public education over public education itself. This means the state must honor the constitution over its own ideologies and bias. This, finally, means that public education must be in service of our overall constitutional democracy. Every education policy we face must be filtered through these principles.” (Schoolhouse Burning, pp, 254-255)
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cx: the federal government should not be supporting segregation.
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Taxation/spending based on BELIEFS, no matter what name or euphemism is attached to them, (Religious beliefs or State beliefs) has yet to “Enlighten” the masses. Undeserved legitimacy thrives in the darkness. Belief spending doesn’t grind away the undeserved legitimacy of the best government money can buy. If it’s for sale, it’s NOT Democracy. Promoting falsehoods, State or Religious, is a gift to the rulers. So when it comes to pitching “saviors” (Religious or Electoral), who benefits?
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No one!
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Well, except maybe the saviors who stand to gain a lot of $$$$.
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Thank you, Diane, for your tireless amplification of our mission and message to your national readership. Texas vouchers are NOT a “done deal” as the media falsely has suggested. In fact, last week’s hearing indicated that support for vouchers among several House members may have waned. Additionally, we have good prospects to flip a few pro-voucher House seats to pro-public ed, anti-voucher State Representatives in the general elections in November. Keep the faith, everyone, and keep working like hell!
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