Republicans’ push to enact a school choice system of private schools funded indirectly by the state and Speaker Dade Phelan’s refusal to bar Democrats from chairing Texas House committees are keeping the water hot in Austin.
Ector County Republican Chairman Tisha Crow and former Democratic congressional candidate Jon Mark Hogg of San Angelo are at loggerheads on the issues.
Noting the results of a statewide referendum on private schools in the general election last Nov. 8, Crow said, “Over 90 percent of the voters agreed that school choice was a good idea, which was a tremendous response.
“I think people see that the public schools aren’t working the way they once did and the students are being taught things they shouldn’t like critical race theory.”
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, critical race theory is an intellectual and social movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of people but a socially constructed or culturally invented category used to oppress and exploit people of colour.
Crow said one change the new private schools should make is the abolition of the standardized STAAR Test, which she said prevents teachers from helping students achieve their full potential.
“These poor teachers are forced to teach to the test and parents need the opportunity to send their children to whatever institution best meets their families’ criteria,” the Odessa insurancewoman said. “Right now the state is sending $13,000 per child to the public school districts before the districts touch any local dollars.”
Hogg noted that Texas Republicans for 20 years have tried to institute a school choice, or “vouchers,” program that would give parents money to send their children to private schools. “I’m not surprised that they quit calling it vouchers,” the attorney said. “They brought it back because they campaigned on it and apparently the voters elected them on it. It’s unfortunate because it appears they can get something done now and it would be a disaster for the public schools.
“It would end up benefitting the upper middle class and wealthy more than than anyone else. There’s no question it would take money out of public education and send tax dollars to private individuals without any public accountability for those expenditures.”
Hogg said new private schools will be constructed all over the state if the proposal is enacted. “I anticipate that a lot of for-profit schools will pop up as people with impure motives jump in to take advantage of the free government money with no strings attached,” he said.
Hogg said the STAAR Test should be retained to help ascertain “if kids are actually being educated properly.
“The rural Republican representatives helped defeat vouchers in the past,” he said. “The question is whether the intense pressure being put on them by the right wing Republicans will overwhelm their ability to resist.
“The governor and lieutenant governor are backing it and the State Board of Education has withdrawn its opposition. There is a huge groundswell pushing vouchers right now and they may be inevitable. It will be a sad day for Texas.”
Crow said Phelan “should be willing to hear the voice of the people” and not name any Democrats to chair committees in Austin.
“Speaker Phelan ran as a Republican and we Republicans have overwhelmingly requested that no Democrats be placed in committee chairmanships,” Crow said. “It was in the platform we approved at the last state convention.”
Hogg said prohibiting Democratic chairmen, as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has done in the Senate, would make Austin like Washington, D.C. “The right wing Republicans want the Texas Legislature to be just like the U.S. Congress and that’s absolutely the last thing we want,” he said.
“Back in the days when the Democrats ruled, they looked past that partisanship and appointed people to committee chairs from the other party. It’s a long tradition.
“The Republicans certainly don’t have anything to fear from a few chairs that are Democrats because they are in control by a large majority. I feel sorry for the rural Republicans because they have to kowtow to the right wing or get opposed in their primaries, which never would have happened in the old days.
“In this day and age in both parties, there is almost no place for anybody with moderate positions or views anymore. It’s like compromise is a dirty word.”
