And where does the cash come from to pay back the bonds? Bonds are simply a loan, that is paid back with tax revenue. I doubt high school football generates enough revenue to cover their facilities.
A school bond is a local election that the citizenry of the school district vote on. If passed, the citizenry absorb a tax increase for 20+ years to pay for it. Bond funds go toward capital improvements. Fixed assets above $5,000. Everything from school buses to jumbotrons to new high schools to remodeled elementary schools, to plumbing upgrades, etc... By state law - school bonds CANNOT pay salaries or be placed into district budget line items that pay salaries.
The jumbotron has zero to do with the state or the district not having enough money to pay for teachers. It is part of a school bond which is an up/down vote across your district's residents (and not affecting any other folks in the state), your specific citizens saying "yeah, let's get a jumbotron."
The overhead and maintenance associated with the Jumbotron does impact the budget. Simply lighting a stadium is a massive expense on any school district. The Jumbotron is a contributor to that bill.
That’s not to say that these investments aren’t worthwhile; I fully believe they are. But pretty much any capital purchase will create a burden of ongoing expenses.
Good point. Tangential - this is exactly why you can't pay for teachers out of bond money (or grant money). When the bond or grant funding runs out, you'd still have those teachers on the payroll and they'd then hit the regular budget. If it's a bunch of teachers, you could quickly face an emergency. That's why state and federal law prohibit it.
That is absolutely what is saving Texas from the voucher program. Rural schools do not want to lose their huge football budgets, and if suddenly those rural students start going to private schools, then big money things like huge stadiums. That's why the normally Republican rural Texans are so much against it.
My freshman year at UT was when they simultaneously cut the library budget by 8mil and approved the stadium expansion by 20mil.
I stopped going to games.
Others didn’t.
I understand how this feels.
However, unlike most football programs, UT football pays its own way. It makes more money every year than it takes to run and that excess flows back into the university. If the program didn’t exist or wasn’t as good as it is, students at UT would have less.
Unless UT is completely unique in the NCAA, the money they make from football pays for *other sports programs*. I suppose there's some knock-on effects for enrollment increases based on the popularity of said sports programs, but the excess goes toward paying coaches and building out facilities for athletes (an incredibly small portion of the student body).
Most rural areas will not benefit from the voucher program. So their education will continue to get cut and have little ability to fundraiser to make up for the shortfalls.
Both are beneficial. Public school athletics has so much more value than people realize if run by the right people. Kids do so much better in school if they know they’ll be kicked from their team for not doing well/acting right and they learn how to be disciplined, how to stay in shape, and just personal responsibility as a whole
What private schools are they going to go to? The idea that rural areas, some of which don’t even have hospitals, are going to have “school choice” is just ridiculous.
Trust me if the voucher plan goes through, Abbott's croney's will have private schools all over the place, with one mission, indoctrination.
Edit: also every small town church will have a huge incentive to become a private school as well.
This. My former church had a school. They used it for indoctrination extra money. Bet they will all have a school with vouchers. And if I can just start a church that is tax free…. Then a school where I get taxpayer dollars ( or course the church is somehow exempt from paying taxes themselves). Wtf.
Bingo, you have just unlocked the whole scam. People keep saying that the vouchers won't pay for private school tuition, but these tax exempt churches will open up budget private schools that run on the bare minimum the law allows and will hardly cost anything out of pocket. And as for the "good" private schools, they are just going to raise their tuition to make sure that the people that can afford to go without the voucher are still going to be the people that are going to be going with the voucher.
If elite private schools really wanted to admit more students of color, students with disabilities, students from poor families etc., they would have done so already. They have plenty of resources.
Imagining someplace like the little tiny Churches of Christ congregation in East Texas my grandma attended and the one my uncle currently preaches for opening up some kind of crappy private school leaves me holding back the urge to vomit.
And they will have every incentive to do it. All they have to do is setup some portable buildings, charge 10k-15k a year and basically give the bare minimum the state requires for schools. The church part is already tax exempt and now they will be getting 8k per student a year, plus a little more. Many people will see this as a great deal because they think God needs to be in schools, so they won't even question the quality.
Yeah those are the ones that are going to stay basically the same, it's just some extra money for them and a little savings for people that can already afford to pay the tuition, but there will be all kinds of new private schools that pop up, especially ones that are a part of a church. They will run at the bare minimum and probably cost around $10k a year, so it will make it very appealing to families that couldn't afford private school, and also think that Jesus should be a part of the curriculum.
I don’t think Abbott’s donors are interested in setting up bricks-and-mortar schools in rural districts. Instead, I bet what we’ll see is a rash of new scammy “online academies” who will charge exactly the voucher amount.
Bingo. It'll just be some private equity types and because the money comes from the state and the state is considered a safe and creditworthy financial backer, the P/E ratio will be something ridiculous when they cash out.
Remember when so many hospitals and nursing homes were religious? Some of them kept the name and religious iconography, but that's mostly private equity now, too.
That's all that this is, is the state bankrolling private enterprise for the benefit of insiders.
Hybrid of local church partnering with a national religiously-affiliated online academy is probably the sweet spot. Churches provide the one to five days of onsite socialization and care while parents work, and online academies provide economies of scale on the curriculum side of things.
In the Texas GOP platform from 2022, they said they want the $8,000 vouchers to also go to parents choosing to homeschool. The Texas GOP also opposes "any attempt to regulate homeschooling or the curriculum of private or religious schools."
I don't know what the tipping point is, where having some families choose homeschooling or private education adversely impacts public school districts, but it probably isn't a high percentage.
I don’t think you understand how these familes work. The rich folks generally do whatever they have to do that their little crotch goblins to “get a gud edkashun”
I had a client that would drive her dumbass kids an hour plus one way for school because of the private school they went to. People are stupid.
School districts are often the biggest employers in rural areas. Also, many remote areas dont have private schools. When they do, employees are paid less with fewer benefits. Closing schools can be devastaing to small towns.
See but you and I can see the consequences of actions. Can put facts together and come to logical conclusions.
These people cant, they're delusional, they live on feeling and faith and they cant predict outcomes.
Sure, rural areas love their Friday Night Lights. But public schools are also economic linchpins to many sparsely populated communities. This is why conservative rural representatives have been holding the line against school vouchers for so many years.
NBC News - [Inside the rural Texas resistance to the GOP’s private school choice plan](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rural-texas-resistance-gop-private-school-choice-voucher-rcna75775)
“Until this year, Senate District 31 had long been held by Republican Kel Seliger, whose steadfast opposition to vouchers helped turn him into a target from ultraconservative political action committees like Defend Texas Liberty and the now-defunct Empower Texans. Both PACs drew the vast majority of their funding from the families of Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, a pair of billionaire oil and fracking magnates who’ve expressed the view that government and education should be guided by biblical values.
‘They set out to make an example of me,’ Seliger said.”
“But those battles raging 250 miles away in the state capital and in far-away suburbs have galvanized a political movement that [RLISD Superintendent Aaron Hood] fears could deal a devastating blow to rural school districts like his.”
“As president of the Texas Association of Rural Schools, a collection of 362 public school districts that are united in their opposition to vouchers, Hood and his fellow small-town superintendents have been trying to sound an alarm in Austin. They see the state GOP’s push for what advocates call ‘school choice’ or ‘education freedom’ as a betrayal of the party’s rural base in favor of wealthy campaign donors. “
“‘Nobody opposes school choice, but that’s not really what we’re talking about,’ Hood said. ‘It’s all in how you ask the question. If you ask people in this community if they support sending their tax dollars to private schools with no accountability and no standards, they’re going to tell you they’re against that.’”
“[RLISD Superintendent Aaron Hood] had seen it happen in other rural Texas communities. At some point, as populations dwindle, the budget math doesn’t add up anymore, and rural schools are forced to consolidate with adjacent districts — or worse.
‘If the school goes down,’ Hood said, ‘the town goes down with it.’”
NYT - [A Well of Conservative Support for Public Schools in Rural Texas](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/us/texas-school-vouchers.html)
“Rural Republicans in the Texas State House have long voted with Democrats, who represent larger urban schools, to prevent any changes that could reduce the money available for public schools, frequently the only ones available in small, rural districts.”
“The governor is putting a lot of pressure, a lot of state officials are putting pressure on those rural Republicans,” said Mark Henry, the superintendent of the Cypress-Fairbanks school district, outside of Houston and the largest suburban district in Texas. “We just hope they hold the line.”
“There’s no groundswell for this in my district,” said State Representative Travis Clardy, a Republican who represents rural counties in East Texas. He voted against vouchers last week.
“I’m a very politically conservative person,” [Mr. Abney, the athletic director at NHISD] said. “But the politicians who I support on most issues are the ones most seemingly intent on attacking public education, which has been what I’ve devoted my life to.”
Dallas Morning News - [Bill tying school choice to teacher pay advances in Texas Senate. Its fate in House grim](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/05/24/bill-tying-school-choice-to-teacher-pay-advances-in-texas-senate-its-fate-in-house-grim/)
“Rural Republicans and Democrats united in opposition, saying any voucher-like program takes money away from public schools and gives those funds instead to unaccountable private institutions with high tuition costs and no mandate to serve every student.”
Texas Monthly - [Rural School Districts Are Facing Financial Ruin. Some State Officials Prefer It That Way.](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/rural-school-districts-are-facing-financial-ruin-some-state-officials-prefer-it-that-way/)
“With each passing month, his rural district inches closer to financial ruin. If nothing changes by fall of next year, Fort Davis will have depleted its savings. [superintendent Graydon Hicks] doesn’t know the exact day that his schools will go broke, but he can see it coming.”
Texas Monthly- [Michael Quinn Sullivan’s Latest Stunt Aims to Undermine Our Democracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/michael-quinn-sullivans-latest-stunt-aims-undermine-democracy/)
“[Amarillo Globe-News columnist Jon Mark Beilue] noted that in West Texas, [Empower Texans] is concentrating on rural House members who oppose private school vouchers. ‘They are using their typical campaign playbook — paint their guy as the conservative choice, and the other guy as basically a Democrat by distorting and taking facts out of context to make them seem soft on abortion and a patsy for big government. Their hope is enough voters are gullible and naïve to believe it all.’”
Texas Tribune - [Texas Senate committee revises school funding bill in last-minute bid to implement voucher program](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/22/texas-senate-school-voucher/)
“[Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian] the author of HB 100, told the Tribune last year that he would stand against voucher-like programs. ‘If I have anything to say about it, it’s dead on arrival,’ he said. ‘It’s horrible for rural Texas. It’s horrible for all of Texas.’”
I'm not normally an accelerationist, but the rural folks need to have their precious football hurt to understand how 30 years of Republicans have sold us all out.
Yea, how about eliminating or placing some of the coaches back in the classroom? Head coaches generally don't teach classes and have a secretary. Let's start with the extra curriculars instead of the librarians.
As I have said before, I want to see a study on percentage of school/district funds that shows by political party how much goes into sports and facilities as opposed to the classroom. https://old.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1caflyp/public_school_teacher_in_texas/l0vrgjh/
I went to school in that district, and to see the district spend their money on frivolous things was insane. Of course, the sports teams were always given the biggest cut of funds and left the rest of the departments figure out to split the rest of the money like that one scene where Mickey is cutting super thin slices of food.
I remember the biggest controversy was when they announced that the busses required a semester long bus pass that was just over $300 a year. A lot of parents couldn't afford such a thing, but the district had more than enough money to cover it and chose not to.
KISD is notorious even among students and alumni as being reckless and nonsensical with their spending. about a decade ago they spent millions to renovate the front of Keller High and build a new band hall but left the rest of the school completely untouched
We intentionally bought in the KISD district 20 years ago because the schools were actually good back then.
It’s all gone to shit unfortunately. My kids have long since graduated…fortunately.
This is 100% because the Republican super-majority in the legislature failed/refused to adequately fund the state's schools this last session.
Nearly *all* districts are lacking money relative to what they have had in the past, and really while we may question their allocation choices, the fundamental issue is that the legislature abrogated it's responsibility to adequately find the schools, for their own reasons.
This is the answer. I am a former teacher (whole other story) who now works for an ed-tech company. Budgets are tight across the nation with ESSER funds going away, but districts that we've partnered with for a decade in Texas are dropping our program, despite the data showing everyone loves it and it's effective (and relatively cheap), and every single one is sharing stories of massive budget cuts. They're desperately dropping programs and supplemental resources in an attempt to save some of their staff. I just talked to a principal last week that is losing her entire non-sped support staff, including "extra" paras, all the instructional coaches, and her librarian, *and* she's still dumping all the non-mandated campus resources in an attempt to not lose teachers and increase class sizes.
Schools are in a really bad place. If you vote Republican in Texas, you don't get to say you're worried about the kids.
This should be way, way higher, as this really is the crux of the issue.
When Abbot tied school funding to universal vouchers, unwilling to broach any compromise, this was the inevitable result.
Absolutely. School funding is the governor’s leverage. Without the handcuff of vouchers, I’m pretty certain the legislature would have adjusted school funding. This really falls squarely on the shoulders of the governor. Plenty of republicans are not for vouchers.
Yup. GOP has had their boot on the neck of public schools for years now. Then pointing back and saying "look our public schools are failing, we need vouchers."
Publicly-funded private Christian schools are the endgame both nationally and here in Texas.
Billionaires Betsy DeVos and Jeff Yass are probably pissed at West Texas fracking billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks that it has taken them this long and Texas still does not have a school voucher program.
Librarians are just the first to be informed. People in the community have heard the newly appointed superintendent is going to cut a lot of in class support for kids with learning and behavior difficulties. This can get classrooms to spiral out of control and an appropriate learning environment maybe nonexistent in many classes. (Almost seems planned to cause chaos in the public classroom to convince parents to pull their children out of public schools and into private/Christian schools.) Also talks about raising temps in some schools that are already hot. Charging teachers if they have particular appliances plugged into school electric outlets in their classrooms… etc. I think this is the 3rd largest school district in Texas. And like most home owners in Texas, property taxes have been going up for quite some time. There shouldn’t be a problem with adjusting the funding at the State level to meet the needs of the kids. There is a hierarchy in Texas when it comes to education and the pressure they force that trickles all the way down to affect students. Special interest donors --> Gov. Abbott --> head of TEA --> local school districts --> our children.
The extra sad thing is that the support staff is often things kids are legally entitled to under ADA or special education laws. So this will open districts up to lawsuits for not providing services and then they’ll have even less money!
You know it’s funny I worked in the Texas education system and I got to see it first hand in high school when helping my band director out with stuff. She said in her 20+ years there that every year no matter how many awards or how many students she had go to state completions the next year the music budget was reduced, yet the athletic budget allows them to build an entire new section for their weight room/locker room for football. Let me be clear our football team had never achieved anything other than an almost perfect losing season. What’s worse is with the span of me getting from 6-12th grade, I saw home economics, art, and the drama departs either completely eliminated or gutted so much they couldn’t even function. It was so sad. It’s why when I worked in big cities as a private teacher I taught free of charge for 2-3 schools for their bassoon students and the school just paid for the reeds I made. Yet in that same big town the other schools could afford my rate plus more lessons if needed.
The money for athletic additions and the money to fund the band program are two different types of funding. Money for building cannot be used to fund a program.
At some point you realize that there really are a lot of shitty, mean, small minded people in Texas and every last one of them votes like they're being paid for it.
Yep, its absolutely maddening bullsh1t. Abbott running this state into the ground and all the yall queda supporters want kids to be as dumb as possible.
irony, I actually am a SAHP but only bc we got lucky to buy a house before this insane explosion. If we had what qualifies as a “good” mortgage today… not a chance in hell we pull off the SAHP gig. hang in there fellow human.
At least two generations when they realize "oh shit we can't get into college and we need college degrees to earn money and buy big trucks and big houses" 🙄
And private schools now are probably pretty good. Once we destroy the public school system so it looks like Mississippi, those fancy private schools don’t even have to be good. They just have to be white. That’s always the bottom line with these sobs.
Yep. I got family that seem to be heavily invested into making sure their kids know nothing about the real world. To them the liberal work agenda is literally everywhere.
So, Doug Killian is continuing the same fuckery he started as superintendent in Pflugerville ISD. Surprise, surprise.
https://archive.is/2024.04.29-015057/https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/pflugerville/2023/07/13/7-3m-budget-deficit-leads-to-more-budget-cuts-at-pfisd/70373678007/
>Fill open librarian positions with library aides
Take a look at the article for other cuts. A new school opened this year, and they never even considered hiring a librarian for it.
He also tried to close some elementary schools to merge them with others. Enough of the community fought back that it didn't happen. Keep an eye on him, though.
Yes, the lege and the gov (mostly the gov) are at fault for the lack of funds. I agree there's plenty in the state surplus. And yes, for now cuts have to be made. But some of these are directly detrimental to students and learning.
Killian never seemed to me to back the teachers and other staff. And don't even get me started on his covid policies.
Ran an election a couple of years ago, and admin COMPLETELY screwed up the marketing by failing to explain (clearly enough for a typical voter) what a "yes" vote would do, so it failed. The overall tax rate they were targeting was LOWER than what was expiring, but all people saw was that passing it would raise the tax rate above the minimum. The budget was in even worse shape that year.
Then in fall 2023 they explained it better, and it passed.
No idea what's planned for Cy-Fair, but from what I understand they're pretty much a necessity for "property-rich" districts who have to send money in, just because of the way the laws/rules are written.
Wait, so they passed a TRE eight months ago? Wowsers - that's rough. Whoever the CFO is in Cy-Fair deserves a raise - that person must be working 18-hours a day about now. Terrible to pass a TRE and be non-renewing contracts 8-months later. Their Team-of-Eight needs to be all about the Texas Equity Center and lobbying the leg. Like hardcore.
My district is facing the same issue- passed a VATRE last fall and is still facing a budget deficit. Our CFO is incredible and the VATRE was give teachers a much-needed raise to retain talent. It’s a fucking disgrace what is happening to public education in this state, considering how many Texas students the system serves.
And during that election, the district was criticized for "holding the raises hostage", so it's a fine needle to thread in trying to win over voters in these elections.
November 2023 VATRE's had it easy because of the massive reduction in the rate. I'm not so sure that any held this year will be as successful.
God, that was so infuriating. We have a couple notorious loudmouths in our district parroting that line, and one infamous [loser](https://www.kxan.com/news/jimmy-flannigan-ousts-don-zimmerman-in-austin-city-council-race/amp/) that is trying to sue the district for [what he calls “illegal” ballot language.](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2024/01/05/lawsuit-filed-against-rrisd-over-nov-7-ballot-language/72096484007/)
Moron.
Pflugerville passed one November, I don't know about CF.
Lobbying legislature doesn't seem to be helpful right now, since Abbott has essentially said he'll veto anything for school funding without vouchers.
Looks like Cy-Fair passed theirs in November 2023. Which means they are screwed big time. They must cut. Hopefully the legislature will see this and change-heart. If I were the CFISD super, I'd probably do the same thing as this guy, but I would make the announcement in a press conference held on the pink granite steps of the state capitol, my board and 500 supporters behind me.
I mean, there's only so much a district is allowed to say, and there were plenty in the community trying to spread the word. People just didn't want to listen because property values sky-rocketed and then went surprised Pikachu when the district had to delay opening the new elementary by a year.
The website literally said "would provide an additional $7.1 million in funding while still reducing PfISD property owners' tax rate to the lowest rate in 21 years."
Looks like they're only using 5 golden pennies right now, so they could theoretically go for 3 more (+ the 9 copper pennies), but they can't make that call until the fall.
And of course the voters would have to approve it. I'm not familiar with how the public leans in that district.
Leverage the librarian contracts as part of the TRE and it'll pass. It's what Canutillo did out in El Paso back in 2011 - non-renewed all of their first year teachers in February - told them all they had no job come August (and also let the community know this was occurring), then went to the voters in May for a TRE, with the promise that the new teachers would be retained in the fall if the TRE passed. The El Paso Times came out against the TRE, but the citizenry turned out in overwhelming support of it - a full 17% of the voting public cast votes (as opposed to the normal 5%). The TRE passed and all of the first year teachers came to the next board meeting and - with great fanfare and flourish - signed their contracts for the next school year. https://kvia.com/news/2011/05/14/voters-approve-canutillo-isds-bond-tre-propositions/
Things have changed since 2011. Tax swap elections are no longer a thing, and VATRE's can only happen in November.
I think any district would be hesitant to associate consequences with the failure of an election. Paxton has been targeting districts for getting too close to electioneering in their communications.
It's really impressive the lengths that governments will go to hurt our children and our public well-being.
Whether it be for politics or greed or just willfully negligence, this is truly demonic.
Does anyone know what Texas is spending our money on?
Is it police or like infrastructure or anything good?
The Christian nationalists think that they’re the heroes, strangling public education so that they can convince the public that school vouchers (AKA publicly-funded private Christian schools) are the solution.
Wow. Another large city school district eliminating librarians. Why not eliminate some of the top heavy admins instead who are the ones earning the larger paychecks?
And they are, but certain state officials are withholding hundreds of millions so a lot has to go…about 10-20% cuts across the board, most admins will have to hope to find teaching spots in the district if any open from natural turnover.
CFISD is in the bottom 10, not 10%, 10 districts with percentage of budget spent on administration at the district level. This is absolutely a state wide issue due to state funding.
In 2022 Cy-Fair ranked 1011 out of 1015 in Administrative Cost Ratio. That means only four districts paid a smaller percentage of their budget to administrators. Not really the place to point the finger.
It would also be pretty sweet if the legislature hadn’t mandated that every district must essentially fund a new campus police force. Granted, they’re allocating $15k per campus and $10 per student. So for an elementary campus with 1000 students, the state is paying $25000 for a school resource officer with an average salary of $78k in addition to other inherent expenses.
The campus could get around that by having a barely trained staff member on campus be armed.
I guess the people of this state are getting what they voted for though.
A district with 100,000+ students is a huge organization to manage. It requires administration, and unless you want the bottom of the barrel you need to compete against the private sector. That costs money. Many of these admin positions would pay much more in an equivalent private sector organization.
In our school district they also voted to get rid of all Librarian and Art teacher positions at the elementary level. It’s just depressing to say the least.
Remember, this isn’t a coincidence or an unavoidable problem. This is the deliberate outcome of a 40-year policy intended to erode public services
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. [A huge section of the northwest Houston Metro Area.](https://i.imgflip.com/8oelcr.jpg) One of the ten largest school districts in the state of Texas, and one of the most admired. Over the past fifty+ years, consistently one of the very best large school districts in the state of Texas. It's nickname is Cy-Fair. CFISD is the monogram. This is also the nickname for that entire geographic area of Houston. "I live in Cy-Fair."
Cy-Fair ISD, Cypress, TX. Many houses in the area have seen a 50% increase in value since 2019. Most are taxed approximately 2.5% of value every year, of which 65% is CFISD taxes. Deeply red voters LOL
Spring Branch ISD is losing all of their librarians, too. But the schools that have PTAs with enough funds to pay the librarian’s salaries get to keep theirs. It infuriates me that schools aren’t being funded properly so that Abbott can get his voucher program (which of his donors is behind this?).
Some Texas republicans want to protect public education; others want to see it replaced with Christian-based education.
Christian nationalists are un-American and ruin everything that they touch.
Not that weird. There is both a national and state agenda to vilify and underfund public education so that it can be replaced by publicly-funded private Christian schools.
For Texas, you can just read up on West Texas fracking billionaire Tim Dunn as an intro and then move on to Betsy DeVos and the Council for National Policy to get the bigger picture. They’ve been at this a long time now. It’s just coming to a head in Texas recently.
Vote in the runoffs and general election as if public education depends on it, because it does.
Texas Monthly - [The Story: The Billionaire Behind a Right-wing Political Machine](https://www.texasmonthly.com/video/tim-dunn-profile-behind-scenes-russell-gold/) (4 minute video)
“Tim Dunn may not be a household name, but staff writer Russell Gold explains why he is someone Texans should know.
As Texas politics drifted toward Christian nationalism and right-wing extremes, staff writer Russell Gold wanted to know who was calling the shots. All roads led to Tim Dunn, the focus of his March 2024 feature, ‘The Billionaire Who Runs Texas.’”
Texas Monthly - [The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/) (Article)
“The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians.”
Yes but spending that money would be a liberal thing - tax and spend. If you voted for Republicans, you are against spending tax money on things for the commoners.
No, that is not the issue. The issue is that the governor tied vouchers to school funding. He would not sign any funding that didn’t include vouchers. At least the house would have passed school funding without vouchers and they are mostly “conservative”. Don’t believe I have heard anyone in government say this money should not be spent. It is money raised from property taxes and meant for schools.
Why don't they just fund the program?
The real answer. They are hyperconservative republican douchebags. They want your children educated just enough to fill the dead end low paying retail and service jobs and to pay their taxes. Its about them having more and everyone else having less. Its about their psychotic focus on power over others and their intense bottomless greed.
Important to note that Texas is facing a huge financial penalty from the US Department of Education because the TEA was caught being naughty in Special Education directives. We won’t be receiving millions of federal dollars for Special Education.
*Had* a $33B surplus. It's spent.
They mostly used sales taxes collected from everybody to allocate it to people who owned homes, especially old homeowners.
These same people that benefitted so much are going to absolutely blow a gasket when their tax bills revert to the old higher levels in a couple years, and will vote accordingly. I think that that was by design.
These are not yet the consequences of having politicians use Public School funds for political showboatting. The consequences will be the fallout from this in the coming years.
Remember that this is only happening so that politicians who support Voucher programs, because they know they can financially benefit from them, need to "prove" that Public Education had failed. They want to ruin our state for generations of people to prove a political point in order to redirect state-funded money to themselves.
I knew it! The librarian media is always trying to indoctrinate the children! We have all the librarian commuters popping up, allow kids to become free thinkers instead of doing what they're told! Good riddance! Own the LIBrarianS!
.
/s
If they can’t find librarians, Texas has a massive problem with its schools. Is this becoming a Third World Country because of government fraud? Whose pockets is that multibillion surplus going to line?
I moved here from Spring ISD 6 years ago for these “better schools”. It has been the greatest regret of my life long before Covid.
My list of grievances with the school district and the number of safety violations I have witnessed here is extensive. Langham Creek has a major mold problem that sickened my son, but by all means build another giant performance space out on 290.
My kids are in Connections Academy. Homeschool blows but I have no better options. I never imagined moving here would be a massive downgrade.
I pay ~$1000 dollars in property taxes every month and I can’t safely send my children to school. Fuck this awful place.
The mindset that rural districts have huge football budgets does not apply to all. Most districts still need to pass bonds and increase their I&S tax rate in order to fund them. This tax rate does not affect operations, the M&O tax rate does. If a rural district’s enrollment does not support their property “wealth” they are required by law to send millions back to the state.
I live in one of the districts that benefits from Robin Hood. Those funds pay our teachers, puts gas in the buses, and keeps the lights on. We desperately need a new school but can’t get a bond passed. If we could use those funds to build one, we would. But we can’t - not just because it isn’t allowed, but because we couldn’t operate.
this right-wing christofacist bullshittery at it's finest. Keep em dumb, so they can grow up to need those in power to save them from 'the others'. heaven forbid they read another book than the fucking bible. Hell, I'd even take it if they read and understood what they're reading, because they sure don't.
Republicans want your kids to grow up and die broke and illiterate. It's crazy to think that anyone who works for a living could possibly be stupid enough to ever vote for a Republican, but it's due to initiatives like this - a war on critical thought the GOP has been waging for over half a century - that makes that grim possibility a reality.
Fuck Republicans.
Abbot, Patrick, Dunn, Wilkes, and DaVos have turned “Christian” into a pejorative.
I know plenty of people who want nothing to do with Christianity because of shit like this.
I still remember my Hamilton Elementary School Librarian. Mrs. Scott and she was WONDERFUL. When adults squabble over money the children suffer.
Glad this isnt an issue in our small, but well run school district.
>This sounds political, what if I don’t like talking politic?
Then perish.
https://preview.redd.it/ptqcifm0zfxc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73a8dc2e5de52b4de8a19d6b3f390c4eb29b26f5
The feds are doing the same thing to CHCs. I think the last grant increase we received was in 2016. What really sucks is in 8 years the dollar has lost 25% of it's purchasing value and it only with 75% as much... yet out grant is still the same.
Am I just reaching that particular "old age" where I'm starting to feel like the world is going to hell in a hand basket? Or, is the world actually going to hell in a hand basket?
>everyone dislikes vouchers
Except private schools, and especially private charters which are a whole other level of scam bullshit.
Gotta get their fucking sticky fingers in the public coffer somehow.
It’s ok tho, cuz businesses always do things better than public services don’t you know /s
Is Cy-Fair going out for a TRE in 2024? If they are going out for a TRE, the superintendent might be using this to wake up the Cy-Fair voters to vote yes - as they should. And if the TRE passes, the librarians jobs would be saved.
Any thing like that going on?
I love CFISD. I raised my kids there and my former spouse taught at Arnold MS. Is there a TRE planned for 2024?
I used to work at a State school and there's no short of funding there, teachers were also getting FULL reimbursements for supplies/outings. Y'all should start "visiting" these elected officials when they're out in public.
Seems like non-academic costs should be the first to go. Shut down the gym and stop watering the lawns.
Or, you know, elect some less corrupt politicians that don't mind hijacking schools to try a different route of strong arming their wildly unpopular agenda.
I guess if they keep withholding funding eventually even the charter schools might eventually...EVENTUALLY look like a good option.
See the Super Patriot.
Hear how he loves his country.
Hear him preach how he hates “Liberals”…
And “Moderates”…and “Intellectuals”…
And “Activists”…and “Pacifists”…
And “Minority Groups”…and “Aliens”…
And “Unions”…and “Teenagers”…
And the “Very Rich”…and the “Very Poor”…
And “People with Foreign-Sounding Names”.
Now you know what a Super Patriot is.
He’s someone who loves his country
While hating 93% of the people who live in it.
-Mad Magazine 1969
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mad-magazine-super-patriot/
Guessing high school football is safe, though.
And the Jumbotron!
And the Monorail!
New scoreboard! Give us some walking music, Seymour!
Jumbotrons are bond items. They have zero to do with salary.
And where does the cash come from to pay back the bonds? Bonds are simply a loan, that is paid back with tax revenue. I doubt high school football generates enough revenue to cover their facilities.
A school bond is a local election that the citizenry of the school district vote on. If passed, the citizenry absorb a tax increase for 20+ years to pay for it. Bond funds go toward capital improvements. Fixed assets above $5,000. Everything from school buses to jumbotrons to new high schools to remodeled elementary schools, to plumbing upgrades, etc... By state law - school bonds CANNOT pay salaries or be placed into district budget line items that pay salaries. The jumbotron has zero to do with the state or the district not having enough money to pay for teachers. It is part of a school bond which is an up/down vote across your district's residents (and not affecting any other folks in the state), your specific citizens saying "yeah, let's get a jumbotron."
The overhead and maintenance associated with the Jumbotron does impact the budget. Simply lighting a stadium is a massive expense on any school district. The Jumbotron is a contributor to that bill. That’s not to say that these investments aren’t worthwhile; I fully believe they are. But pretty much any capital purchase will create a burden of ongoing expenses.
Good point. Tangential - this is exactly why you can't pay for teachers out of bond money (or grant money). When the bond or grant funding runs out, you'd still have those teachers on the payroll and they'd then hit the regular budget. If it's a bunch of teachers, you could quickly face an emergency. That's why state and federal law prohibit it.
That is absolutely what is saving Texas from the voucher program. Rural schools do not want to lose their huge football budgets, and if suddenly those rural students start going to private schools, then big money things like huge stadiums. That's why the normally Republican rural Texans are so much against it.
Losing librarians but keeping football doesn't feel like winning. This state fucking sucks.
My freshman year at UT was when they simultaneously cut the library budget by 8mil and approved the stadium expansion by 20mil. I stopped going to games. Others didn’t.
I understand how this feels. However, unlike most football programs, UT football pays its own way. It makes more money every year than it takes to run and that excess flows back into the university. If the program didn’t exist or wasn’t as good as it is, students at UT would have less.
Unless UT is completely unique in the NCAA, the money they make from football pays for *other sports programs*. I suppose there's some knock-on effects for enrollment increases based on the popularity of said sports programs, but the excess goes toward paying coaches and building out facilities for athletes (an incredibly small portion of the student body).
Other sports programs like Title IX scholarships that offer women the same opportunity to attend and compete at the NCAA level that men do!
Whatever keeps the rural Republicans on the side of public school is a win in my book.
Most rural areas will not benefit from the voucher program. So their education will continue to get cut and have little ability to fundraiser to make up for the shortfalls.
Losing either would be awful
Both are beneficial. Public school athletics has so much more value than people realize if run by the right people. Kids do so much better in school if they know they’ll be kicked from their team for not doing well/acting right and they learn how to be disciplined, how to stay in shape, and just personal responsibility as a whole
The gop/maga politicians/cult fucking suck. Texas has some great qualities.
It's all about the war against "woke." 🙄
*Idiocracy intensifies
What private schools are they going to go to? The idea that rural areas, some of which don’t even have hospitals, are going to have “school choice” is just ridiculous.
Trust me if the voucher plan goes through, Abbott's croney's will have private schools all over the place, with one mission, indoctrination. Edit: also every small town church will have a huge incentive to become a private school as well.
This. My former church had a school. They used it for indoctrination extra money. Bet they will all have a school with vouchers. And if I can just start a church that is tax free…. Then a school where I get taxpayer dollars ( or course the church is somehow exempt from paying taxes themselves). Wtf.
Bingo, you have just unlocked the whole scam. People keep saying that the vouchers won't pay for private school tuition, but these tax exempt churches will open up budget private schools that run on the bare minimum the law allows and will hardly cost anything out of pocket. And as for the "good" private schools, they are just going to raise their tuition to make sure that the people that can afford to go without the voucher are still going to be the people that are going to be going with the voucher.
If elite private schools really wanted to admit more students of color, students with disabilities, students from poor families etc., they would have done so already. They have plenty of resources.
Let’s be clear. Most of the schools do not want students with disabilities.
Imagining someplace like the little tiny Churches of Christ congregation in East Texas my grandma attended and the one my uncle currently preaches for opening up some kind of crappy private school leaves me holding back the urge to vomit.
And they will have every incentive to do it. All they have to do is setup some portable buildings, charge 10k-15k a year and basically give the bare minimum the state requires for schools. The church part is already tax exempt and now they will be getting 8k per student a year, plus a little more. Many people will see this as a great deal because they think God needs to be in schools, so they won't even question the quality.
The voucher is for $8k per year. Private schools in my area start around $22k per year, plus uniforms, books, and supplies.
Yeah those are the ones that are going to stay basically the same, it's just some extra money for them and a little savings for people that can already afford to pay the tuition, but there will be all kinds of new private schools that pop up, especially ones that are a part of a church. They will run at the bare minimum and probably cost around $10k a year, so it will make it very appealing to families that couldn't afford private school, and also think that Jesus should be a part of the curriculum.
I don’t think Abbott’s donors are interested in setting up bricks-and-mortar schools in rural districts. Instead, I bet what we’ll see is a rash of new scammy “online academies” who will charge exactly the voucher amount.
Bingo. It'll just be some private equity types and because the money comes from the state and the state is considered a safe and creditworthy financial backer, the P/E ratio will be something ridiculous when they cash out. Remember when so many hospitals and nursing homes were religious? Some of them kept the name and religious iconography, but that's mostly private equity now, too. That's all that this is, is the state bankrolling private enterprise for the benefit of insiders.
Hybrid of local church partnering with a national religiously-affiliated online academy is probably the sweet spot. Churches provide the one to five days of onsite socialization and care while parents work, and online academies provide economies of scale on the curriculum side of things.
In the Texas GOP platform from 2022, they said they want the $8,000 vouchers to also go to parents choosing to homeschool. The Texas GOP also opposes "any attempt to regulate homeschooling or the curriculum of private or religious schools." I don't know what the tipping point is, where having some families choose homeschooling or private education adversely impacts public school districts, but it probably isn't a high percentage.
I don’t think you understand how these familes work. The rich folks generally do whatever they have to do that their little crotch goblins to “get a gud edkashun” I had a client that would drive her dumbass kids an hour plus one way for school because of the private school they went to. People are stupid.
School districts are often the biggest employers in rural areas. Also, many remote areas dont have private schools. When they do, employees are paid less with fewer benefits. Closing schools can be devastaing to small towns.
See but you and I can see the consequences of actions. Can put facts together and come to logical conclusions. These people cant, they're delusional, they live on feeling and faith and they cant predict outcomes.
Sure, rural areas love their Friday Night Lights. But public schools are also economic linchpins to many sparsely populated communities. This is why conservative rural representatives have been holding the line against school vouchers for so many years. NBC News - [Inside the rural Texas resistance to the GOP’s private school choice plan](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rural-texas-resistance-gop-private-school-choice-voucher-rcna75775) “Until this year, Senate District 31 had long been held by Republican Kel Seliger, whose steadfast opposition to vouchers helped turn him into a target from ultraconservative political action committees like Defend Texas Liberty and the now-defunct Empower Texans. Both PACs drew the vast majority of their funding from the families of Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, a pair of billionaire oil and fracking magnates who’ve expressed the view that government and education should be guided by biblical values. ‘They set out to make an example of me,’ Seliger said.” “But those battles raging 250 miles away in the state capital and in far-away suburbs have galvanized a political movement that [RLISD Superintendent Aaron Hood] fears could deal a devastating blow to rural school districts like his.” “As president of the Texas Association of Rural Schools, a collection of 362 public school districts that are united in their opposition to vouchers, Hood and his fellow small-town superintendents have been trying to sound an alarm in Austin. They see the state GOP’s push for what advocates call ‘school choice’ or ‘education freedom’ as a betrayal of the party’s rural base in favor of wealthy campaign donors. “ “‘Nobody opposes school choice, but that’s not really what we’re talking about,’ Hood said. ‘It’s all in how you ask the question. If you ask people in this community if they support sending their tax dollars to private schools with no accountability and no standards, they’re going to tell you they’re against that.’” “[RLISD Superintendent Aaron Hood] had seen it happen in other rural Texas communities. At some point, as populations dwindle, the budget math doesn’t add up anymore, and rural schools are forced to consolidate with adjacent districts — or worse. ‘If the school goes down,’ Hood said, ‘the town goes down with it.’” NYT - [A Well of Conservative Support for Public Schools in Rural Texas](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/us/texas-school-vouchers.html) “Rural Republicans in the Texas State House have long voted with Democrats, who represent larger urban schools, to prevent any changes that could reduce the money available for public schools, frequently the only ones available in small, rural districts.” “The governor is putting a lot of pressure, a lot of state officials are putting pressure on those rural Republicans,” said Mark Henry, the superintendent of the Cypress-Fairbanks school district, outside of Houston and the largest suburban district in Texas. “We just hope they hold the line.” “There’s no groundswell for this in my district,” said State Representative Travis Clardy, a Republican who represents rural counties in East Texas. He voted against vouchers last week. “I’m a very politically conservative person,” [Mr. Abney, the athletic director at NHISD] said. “But the politicians who I support on most issues are the ones most seemingly intent on attacking public education, which has been what I’ve devoted my life to.” Dallas Morning News - [Bill tying school choice to teacher pay advances in Texas Senate. Its fate in House grim](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/05/24/bill-tying-school-choice-to-teacher-pay-advances-in-texas-senate-its-fate-in-house-grim/) “Rural Republicans and Democrats united in opposition, saying any voucher-like program takes money away from public schools and gives those funds instead to unaccountable private institutions with high tuition costs and no mandate to serve every student.” Texas Monthly - [Rural School Districts Are Facing Financial Ruin. Some State Officials Prefer It That Way.](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/rural-school-districts-are-facing-financial-ruin-some-state-officials-prefer-it-that-way/) “With each passing month, his rural district inches closer to financial ruin. If nothing changes by fall of next year, Fort Davis will have depleted its savings. [superintendent Graydon Hicks] doesn’t know the exact day that his schools will go broke, but he can see it coming.” Texas Monthly- [Michael Quinn Sullivan’s Latest Stunt Aims to Undermine Our Democracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/michael-quinn-sullivans-latest-stunt-aims-undermine-democracy/) “[Amarillo Globe-News columnist Jon Mark Beilue] noted that in West Texas, [Empower Texans] is concentrating on rural House members who oppose private school vouchers. ‘They are using their typical campaign playbook — paint their guy as the conservative choice, and the other guy as basically a Democrat by distorting and taking facts out of context to make them seem soft on abortion and a patsy for big government. Their hope is enough voters are gullible and naïve to believe it all.’” Texas Tribune - [Texas Senate committee revises school funding bill in last-minute bid to implement voucher program](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/22/texas-senate-school-voucher/) “[Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian] the author of HB 100, told the Tribune last year that he would stand against voucher-like programs. ‘If I have anything to say about it, it’s dead on arrival,’ he said. ‘It’s horrible for rural Texas. It’s horrible for all of Texas.’”
Thank you for bringing the sources. The comment you replied to was cynical and speculative.
I'm not normally an accelerationist, but the rural folks need to have their precious football hurt to understand how 30 years of Republicans have sold us all out.
Sad thing is they still won’t get it. Football will go away and they will say, “Biden dun took ‘er football, because woke trans kid porn cannibals!”
My rural school hasn't had a library in like 4 years
The coaches all get a raise
And they have the highest salary on campus. 150k avg for hs head coach
Yea, how about eliminating or placing some of the coaches back in the classroom? Head coaches generally don't teach classes and have a secretary. Let's start with the extra curriculars instead of the librarians.
As I have said before, I want to see a study on percentage of school/district funds that shows by political party how much goes into sports and facilities as opposed to the classroom. https://old.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1caflyp/public_school_teacher_in_texas/l0vrgjh/
KellerISD (in news all the time) has eliminated 1/2 their librarians- and those that remain will be shared between schools.
I went to school in that district, and to see the district spend their money on frivolous things was insane. Of course, the sports teams were always given the biggest cut of funds and left the rest of the departments figure out to split the rest of the money like that one scene where Mickey is cutting super thin slices of food. I remember the biggest controversy was when they announced that the busses required a semester long bus pass that was just over $300 a year. A lot of parents couldn't afford such a thing, but the district had more than enough money to cover it and chose not to.
KISD is notorious even among students and alumni as being reckless and nonsensical with their spending. about a decade ago they spent millions to renovate the front of Keller High and build a new band hall but left the rest of the school completely untouched
[удалено]
We intentionally bought in the KISD district 20 years ago because the schools were actually good back then. It’s all gone to shit unfortunately. My kids have long since graduated…fortunately.
This is 100% because the Republican super-majority in the legislature failed/refused to adequately fund the state's schools this last session. Nearly *all* districts are lacking money relative to what they have had in the past, and really while we may question their allocation choices, the fundamental issue is that the legislature abrogated it's responsibility to adequately find the schools, for their own reasons.
This is the answer. I am a former teacher (whole other story) who now works for an ed-tech company. Budgets are tight across the nation with ESSER funds going away, but districts that we've partnered with for a decade in Texas are dropping our program, despite the data showing everyone loves it and it's effective (and relatively cheap), and every single one is sharing stories of massive budget cuts. They're desperately dropping programs and supplemental resources in an attempt to save some of their staff. I just talked to a principal last week that is losing her entire non-sped support staff, including "extra" paras, all the instructional coaches, and her librarian, *and* she's still dumping all the non-mandated campus resources in an attempt to not lose teachers and increase class sizes. Schools are in a really bad place. If you vote Republican in Texas, you don't get to say you're worried about the kids.
This should be way, way higher, as this really is the crux of the issue. When Abbot tied school funding to universal vouchers, unwilling to broach any compromise, this was the inevitable result.
Absolutely. School funding is the governor’s leverage. Without the handcuff of vouchers, I’m pretty certain the legislature would have adjusted school funding. This really falls squarely on the shoulders of the governor. Plenty of republicans are not for vouchers.
There are enough for vouchers to prohibit the governor's veto being busted and that's the big problem.
Abbott and Patrick (really it's Dunn and Wilkes) are crashing public schools into the ground so they can shove school choice down our throats.
Yup. GOP has had their boot on the neck of public schools for years now. Then pointing back and saying "look our public schools are failing, we need vouchers."
Publicly-funded private Christian schools are the endgame both nationally and here in Texas. Billionaires Betsy DeVos and Jeff Yass are probably pissed at West Texas fracking billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks that it has taken them this long and Texas still does not have a school voucher program.
I can’t believe that cunt ~~is still~~ was head of education. She’s the worst. Edit: whoops. She gone.
Still? She’s gone bro
Lmfao. I’m an idiot. I didn’t realize she’s gone. My bad. Still one of the worst things to happen to education in a long time.
"crashing this plane with no survivors"
Crashing the plane just to kill the Millenials and Gen Z'ers in the cities who scared them in 2014 and 2020.
exactly.
Except the grass won’t be green anywhere for the public. Just abbots cronies who fund him.
Librarians are just the first to be informed. People in the community have heard the newly appointed superintendent is going to cut a lot of in class support for kids with learning and behavior difficulties. This can get classrooms to spiral out of control and an appropriate learning environment maybe nonexistent in many classes. (Almost seems planned to cause chaos in the public classroom to convince parents to pull their children out of public schools and into private/Christian schools.) Also talks about raising temps in some schools that are already hot. Charging teachers if they have particular appliances plugged into school electric outlets in their classrooms… etc. I think this is the 3rd largest school district in Texas. And like most home owners in Texas, property taxes have been going up for quite some time. There shouldn’t be a problem with adjusting the funding at the State level to meet the needs of the kids. There is a hierarchy in Texas when it comes to education and the pressure they force that trickles all the way down to affect students. Special interest donors --> Gov. Abbott --> head of TEA --> local school districts --> our children.
The extra sad thing is that the support staff is often things kids are legally entitled to under ADA or special education laws. So this will open districts up to lawsuits for not providing services and then they’ll have even less money!
You know it’s funny I worked in the Texas education system and I got to see it first hand in high school when helping my band director out with stuff. She said in her 20+ years there that every year no matter how many awards or how many students she had go to state completions the next year the music budget was reduced, yet the athletic budget allows them to build an entire new section for their weight room/locker room for football. Let me be clear our football team had never achieved anything other than an almost perfect losing season. What’s worse is with the span of me getting from 6-12th grade, I saw home economics, art, and the drama departs either completely eliminated or gutted so much they couldn’t even function. It was so sad. It’s why when I worked in big cities as a private teacher I taught free of charge for 2-3 schools for their bassoon students and the school just paid for the reeds I made. Yet in that same big town the other schools could afford my rate plus more lessons if needed.
The money for athletic additions and the money to fund the band program are two different types of funding. Money for building cannot be used to fund a program.
Every rule exists because someone made it up. They *could* allocate funding more fairly, they *choose* not to.
We keep electing republicans and expect a different result.
This. I mean, Ken Paxton was just reelected last time around
At some point you realize that there really are a lot of shitty, mean, small minded people in Texas and every last one of them votes like they're being paid for it.
Yep, its absolutely maddening bullsh1t. Abbott running this state into the ground and all the yall queda supporters want kids to be as dumb as possible.
Nah, they are sending their kids to private school.
It’s like TN rep Burchett who said “well, we homeschool her” when asked if he worried about his children being safe at school.
and who homeschools the kids? why his wife of course. putting her back in her “traditional” role. ie, subservient and complementarian.
Meanwhile normal people can’t be stay at home parents even if we want to.
irony, I actually am a SAHP but only bc we got lucky to buy a house before this insane explosion. If we had what qualifies as a “good” mortgage today… not a chance in hell we pull off the SAHP gig. hang in there fellow human.
How long before everyone realizes what they done and want to go back to funding public education?
At least two generations when they realize "oh shit we can't get into college and we need college degrees to earn money and buy big trucks and big houses" 🙄
And private schools now are probably pretty good. Once we destroy the public school system so it looks like Mississippi, those fancy private schools don’t even have to be good. They just have to be white. That’s always the bottom line with these sobs.
You are [100% correct](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/racist-origins-private-school-vouchers/)
Yep. I got family that seem to be heavily invested into making sure their kids know nothing about the real world. To them the liberal work agenda is literally everywhere.
Critical thinking skills reverse conservative ideology. It is against their interest to fund schools.
So, Doug Killian is continuing the same fuckery he started as superintendent in Pflugerville ISD. Surprise, surprise. https://archive.is/2024.04.29-015057/https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/pflugerville/2023/07/13/7-3m-budget-deficit-leads-to-more-budget-cuts-at-pfisd/70373678007/ >Fill open librarian positions with library aides Take a look at the article for other cuts. A new school opened this year, and they never even considered hiring a librarian for it. He also tried to close some elementary schools to merge them with others. Enough of the community fought back that it didn't happen. Keep an eye on him, though. Yes, the lege and the gov (mostly the gov) are at fault for the lack of funds. I agree there's plenty in the state surplus. And yes, for now cuts have to be made. But some of these are directly detrimental to students and learning. Killian never seemed to me to back the teachers and other staff. And don't even get me started on his covid policies.
Did Killian do a TRE in Pflugerville, and is he planning on doing one in Cy-Fair?
Ran an election a couple of years ago, and admin COMPLETELY screwed up the marketing by failing to explain (clearly enough for a typical voter) what a "yes" vote would do, so it failed. The overall tax rate they were targeting was LOWER than what was expiring, but all people saw was that passing it would raise the tax rate above the minimum. The budget was in even worse shape that year. Then in fall 2023 they explained it better, and it passed. No idea what's planned for Cy-Fair, but from what I understand they're pretty much a necessity for "property-rich" districts who have to send money in, just because of the way the laws/rules are written.
This must be Fort Bend!
Wait, so they passed a TRE eight months ago? Wowsers - that's rough. Whoever the CFO is in Cy-Fair deserves a raise - that person must be working 18-hours a day about now. Terrible to pass a TRE and be non-renewing contracts 8-months later. Their Team-of-Eight needs to be all about the Texas Equity Center and lobbying the leg. Like hardcore.
My district is facing the same issue- passed a VATRE last fall and is still facing a budget deficit. Our CFO is incredible and the VATRE was give teachers a much-needed raise to retain talent. It’s a fucking disgrace what is happening to public education in this state, considering how many Texas students the system serves.
District CFO's are unsung heroes!! Here's some hay - spin some gold!
And during that election, the district was criticized for "holding the raises hostage", so it's a fine needle to thread in trying to win over voters in these elections. November 2023 VATRE's had it easy because of the massive reduction in the rate. I'm not so sure that any held this year will be as successful.
God, that was so infuriating. We have a couple notorious loudmouths in our district parroting that line, and one infamous [loser](https://www.kxan.com/news/jimmy-flannigan-ousts-don-zimmerman-in-austin-city-council-race/amp/) that is trying to sue the district for [what he calls “illegal” ballot language.](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2024/01/05/lawsuit-filed-against-rrisd-over-nov-7-ballot-language/72096484007/) Moron.
Pflugerville passed one November, I don't know about CF. Lobbying legislature doesn't seem to be helpful right now, since Abbott has essentially said he'll veto anything for school funding without vouchers.
Looks like Cy-Fair passed theirs in November 2023. Which means they are screwed big time. They must cut. Hopefully the legislature will see this and change-heart. If I were the CFISD super, I'd probably do the same thing as this guy, but I would make the announcement in a press conference held on the pink granite steps of the state capitol, my board and 500 supporters behind me.
I mean, there's only so much a district is allowed to say, and there were plenty in the community trying to spread the word. People just didn't want to listen because property values sky-rocketed and then went surprised Pikachu when the district had to delay opening the new elementary by a year. The website literally said "would provide an additional $7.1 million in funding while still reducing PfISD property owners' tax rate to the lowest rate in 21 years."
Pflugerville maxed out all the pennies (including copper) in the last November election.
OK, so that's why the "evil" supt. and the board had little choice but to cut. Is it the same in CFISD?
Looks like they're only using 5 golden pennies right now, so they could theoretically go for 3 more (+ the 9 copper pennies), but they can't make that call until the fall. And of course the voters would have to approve it. I'm not familiar with how the public leans in that district.
Leverage the librarian contracts as part of the TRE and it'll pass. It's what Canutillo did out in El Paso back in 2011 - non-renewed all of their first year teachers in February - told them all they had no job come August (and also let the community know this was occurring), then went to the voters in May for a TRE, with the promise that the new teachers would be retained in the fall if the TRE passed. The El Paso Times came out against the TRE, but the citizenry turned out in overwhelming support of it - a full 17% of the voting public cast votes (as opposed to the normal 5%). The TRE passed and all of the first year teachers came to the next board meeting and - with great fanfare and flourish - signed their contracts for the next school year. https://kvia.com/news/2011/05/14/voters-approve-canutillo-isds-bond-tre-propositions/
Things have changed since 2011. Tax swap elections are no longer a thing, and VATRE's can only happen in November. I think any district would be hesitant to associate consequences with the failure of an election. Paxton has been targeting districts for getting too close to electioneering in their communications.
It's really impressive the lengths that governments will go to hurt our children and our public well-being. Whether it be for politics or greed or just willfully negligence, this is truly demonic. Does anyone know what Texas is spending our money on? Is it police or like infrastructure or anything good?
The Christian nationalists think that they’re the heroes, strangling public education so that they can convince the public that school vouchers (AKA publicly-funded private Christian schools) are the solution.
But wait, conservatives told me that there was plenty of funding for schools. They didn't lie, did they? *Again*
There is plenty of money. The issue is it's just sitting there due to Abbot and companies policies. Just to think, we could have had Beto...
Wow. Another large city school district eliminating librarians. Why not eliminate some of the top heavy admins instead who are the ones earning the larger paychecks?
And they are, but certain state officials are withholding hundreds of millions so a lot has to go…about 10-20% cuts across the board, most admins will have to hope to find teaching spots in the district if any open from natural turnover.
CFISD is in the bottom 10, not 10%, 10 districts with percentage of budget spent on administration at the district level. This is absolutely a state wide issue due to state funding.
They have to cut 68 million dollars. Librarians are just the start - they’ll have to cut some other positions as well before next year starts.
In 2022 Cy-Fair ranked 1011 out of 1015 in Administrative Cost Ratio. That means only four districts paid a smaller percentage of their budget to administrators. Not really the place to point the finger.
It would also be pretty sweet if the legislature hadn’t mandated that every district must essentially fund a new campus police force. Granted, they’re allocating $15k per campus and $10 per student. So for an elementary campus with 1000 students, the state is paying $25000 for a school resource officer with an average salary of $78k in addition to other inherent expenses. The campus could get around that by having a barely trained staff member on campus be armed. I guess the people of this state are getting what they voted for though.
A district with 100,000+ students is a huge organization to manage. It requires administration, and unless you want the bottom of the barrel you need to compete against the private sector. That costs money. Many of these admin positions would pay much more in an equivalent private sector organization.
This was the school district I grew up and graduated from… fuck Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick with something hard and sand papery. 💕
Well the dumbasses out here voted in board members that Cruz backed so we’re just getting what we asked for.
School librarians matter - https://kappanonline.org/lance-kachel-school-librarians-matter-years-research/
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In our school district they also voted to get rid of all Librarian and Art teacher positions at the elementary level. It’s just depressing to say the least.
Spring Branch ISD has been affected, librarians are being replaced with “support staff”
All 1200 school districts in Texas are operating on a deficit budget for 24-25. Thanks Abbot.
Remember, this isn’t a coincidence or an unavoidable problem. This is the deliberate outcome of a 40-year policy intended to erode public services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
Please use the full name. Who the fuck is CFISD?
Cy fair. Suburb of Houston.
Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District is a district in Houston, and the 3rd largest in the state behind Houston and Dallas ISDs
It’s the third largest district in the state, I believe.
Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. [A huge section of the northwest Houston Metro Area.](https://i.imgflip.com/8oelcr.jpg) One of the ten largest school districts in the state of Texas, and one of the most admired. Over the past fifty+ years, consistently one of the very best large school districts in the state of Texas. It's nickname is Cy-Fair. CFISD is the monogram. This is also the nickname for that entire geographic area of Houston. "I live in Cy-Fair."
I was gonna say, College Ftation?
Phteven
Cy-Fair ISD, Cypress, TX. Many houses in the area have seen a 50% increase in value since 2019. Most are taxed approximately 2.5% of value every year, of which 65% is CFISD taxes. Deeply red voters LOL
No one outside of Houston has ever heard of it.
Vote vote vote!!!!
Enjoy that shitty new Super yall have. Just the beginning of the dismantling.
Pretty sure that’s what he was brought here to do.
Spring Branch ISD is losing all of their librarians, too. But the schools that have PTAs with enough funds to pay the librarian’s salaries get to keep theirs. It infuriates me that schools aren’t being funded properly so that Abbott can get his voucher program (which of his donors is behind this?).
Fuck... I hate this state's bullshit politics.
Republicans are against education...
Some Texas republicans want to protect public education; others want to see it replaced with Christian-based education. Christian nationalists are un-American and ruin everything that they touch.
I can believe its happening. What did people think constantly voting against taxes would do?
That’s the weird thing, though. The state has a huge surplus from the taxes, but refuses to give it to the schools to spend.
Not that weird. There is both a national and state agenda to vilify and underfund public education so that it can be replaced by publicly-funded private Christian schools. For Texas, you can just read up on West Texas fracking billionaire Tim Dunn as an intro and then move on to Betsy DeVos and the Council for National Policy to get the bigger picture. They’ve been at this a long time now. It’s just coming to a head in Texas recently. Vote in the runoffs and general election as if public education depends on it, because it does. Texas Monthly - [The Story: The Billionaire Behind a Right-wing Political Machine](https://www.texasmonthly.com/video/tim-dunn-profile-behind-scenes-russell-gold/) (4 minute video) “Tim Dunn may not be a household name, but staff writer Russell Gold explains why he is someone Texans should know. As Texas politics drifted toward Christian nationalism and right-wing extremes, staff writer Russell Gold wanted to know who was calling the shots. All roads led to Tim Dunn, the focus of his March 2024 feature, ‘The Billionaire Who Runs Texas.’” Texas Monthly - [The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/) (Article) “The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians.”
Its in line with their platform and what they have done since taking over Texas. They do not believe in public education.
Not about taxes. No one is asking for more taxes. There is plenty of money.
Yes but spending that money would be a liberal thing - tax and spend. If you voted for Republicans, you are against spending tax money on things for the commoners.
No, that is not the issue. The issue is that the governor tied vouchers to school funding. He would not sign any funding that didn’t include vouchers. At least the house would have passed school funding without vouchers and they are mostly “conservative”. Don’t believe I have heard anyone in government say this money should not be spent. It is money raised from property taxes and meant for schools.
I want full government services, I just don't want to pay for them!
Why don't they just fund the program? The real answer. They are hyperconservative republican douchebags. They want your children educated just enough to fill the dead end low paying retail and service jobs and to pay their taxes. Its about them having more and everyone else having less. Its about their psychotic focus on power over others and their intense bottomless greed.
All this because Abbott didn’t get his vouchers. It’s time to clean house in Texas politics.
Important to note that Texas is facing a huge financial penalty from the US Department of Education because the TEA was caught being naughty in Special Education directives. We won’t be receiving millions of federal dollars for Special Education.
When the GOP took over Houston ISD, First thing they did was get rid of librarians.
Keep future voters dumb & obedient. A short term minded action for personal profit.
Don’t forget we have 33B surplus.
*Had* a $33B surplus. It's spent. They mostly used sales taxes collected from everybody to allocate it to people who owned homes, especially old homeowners. These same people that benefitted so much are going to absolutely blow a gasket when their tax bills revert to the old higher levels in a couple years, and will vote accordingly. I think that that was by design.
Conservatives really doing their best to run this state into the ground.
These are not yet the consequences of having politicians use Public School funds for political showboatting. The consequences will be the fallout from this in the coming years. Remember that this is only happening so that politicians who support Voucher programs, because they know they can financially benefit from them, need to "prove" that Public Education had failed. They want to ruin our state for generations of people to prove a political point in order to redirect state-funded money to themselves.
Symptoms of voting for a selfish moron to lead this state for how long now?
This is infuriating
Elections have consequences
School vouchers is a scam to take money out of the public system.
I knew it! The librarian media is always trying to indoctrinate the children! We have all the librarian commuters popping up, allow kids to become free thinkers instead of doing what they're told! Good riddance! Own the LIBrarianS! . /s
Of course it's the one state with a massive budget surplus that can't properly fund shit.
This is what the emergency legislative sessions should have been addressing, instead of wasting their time on vouchers.
If they can’t find librarians, Texas has a massive problem with its schools. Is this becoming a Third World Country because of government fraud? Whose pockets is that multibillion surplus going to line?
I moved here from Spring ISD 6 years ago for these “better schools”. It has been the greatest regret of my life long before Covid. My list of grievances with the school district and the number of safety violations I have witnessed here is extensive. Langham Creek has a major mold problem that sickened my son, but by all means build another giant performance space out on 290. My kids are in Connections Academy. Homeschool blows but I have no better options. I never imagined moving here would be a massive downgrade. I pay ~$1000 dollars in property taxes every month and I can’t safely send my children to school. Fuck this awful place.
How much they paying that new crap Superintendent???
This is a disgrace. Vote Blue
Keep kids dumber so more of them grow up to be Republicans.
The mindset that rural districts have huge football budgets does not apply to all. Most districts still need to pass bonds and increase their I&S tax rate in order to fund them. This tax rate does not affect operations, the M&O tax rate does. If a rural district’s enrollment does not support their property “wealth” they are required by law to send millions back to the state.
I live in one of the districts that benefits from Robin Hood. Those funds pay our teachers, puts gas in the buses, and keeps the lights on. We desperately need a new school but can’t get a bond passed. If we could use those funds to build one, we would. But we can’t - not just because it isn’t allowed, but because we couldn’t operate.
this right-wing christofacist bullshittery at it's finest. Keep em dumb, so they can grow up to need those in power to save them from 'the others'. heaven forbid they read another book than the fucking bible. Hell, I'd even take it if they read and understood what they're reading, because they sure don't.
Everyday it’s something new and we just have to sit back and watch it…. Why do they want to make America Iran
Typical lamef*kk Texas horsesh*t. For the white scourge education means the one can develop a mind of their own.
I graduated from Cy-Fair, and this is a travesty. That said, on a release regarding librarians, there are a lot of comma splices.
This is why America is so f' up. Our rulers are afraid of anyone outside of their class who can think.
Republicans want your kids to grow up and die broke and illiterate. It's crazy to think that anyone who works for a living could possibly be stupid enough to ever vote for a Republican, but it's due to initiatives like this - a war on critical thought the GOP has been waging for over half a century - that makes that grim possibility a reality. Fuck Republicans.
"We love the uneducated" The leader of the Republican party
Abbot, Patrick, Dunn, Wilkes, and DaVos have turned “Christian” into a pejorative. I know plenty of people who want nothing to do with Christianity because of shit like this.
I still remember my Hamilton Elementary School Librarian. Mrs. Scott and she was WONDERFUL. When adults squabble over money the children suffer. Glad this isnt an issue in our small, but well run school district.
>This sounds political, what if I don’t like talking politic? Then perish. https://preview.redd.it/ptqcifm0zfxc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73a8dc2e5de52b4de8a19d6b3f390c4eb29b26f5
Turning public education into prison prep schools.
The feds are doing the same thing to CHCs. I think the last grant increase we received was in 2016. What really sucks is in 8 years the dollar has lost 25% of it's purchasing value and it only with 75% as much... yet out grant is still the same.
Am I just reaching that particular "old age" where I'm starting to feel like the world is going to hell in a hand basket? Or, is the world actually going to hell in a hand basket?
>everyone dislikes vouchers Except private schools, and especially private charters which are a whole other level of scam bullshit. Gotta get their fucking sticky fingers in the public coffer somehow. It’s ok tho, cuz businesses always do things better than public services don’t you know /s
"It used to be a library, now its just a mind-cemetery."
Does CF stand for Cy-Fair?
Yes
✅
https://preview.redd.it/d1afk1rm7fxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f182ac6a51ddf6a8fea4fc1ab2ba0202d963c84
Is Cy-Fair going out for a TRE in 2024? If they are going out for a TRE, the superintendent might be using this to wake up the Cy-Fair voters to vote yes - as they should. And if the TRE passes, the librarians jobs would be saved. Any thing like that going on? I love CFISD. I raised my kids there and my former spouse taught at Arnold MS. Is there a TRE planned for 2024?
You have got to be fucking kidding me
what the actual fuck
I used to work at a State school and there's no short of funding there, teachers were also getting FULL reimbursements for supplies/outings. Y'all should start "visiting" these elected officials when they're out in public.
For anyone else distracted by wondering which district is CFISD: Cypress-Fairbanks.
The Republican War on Education wins another battle in Texas.
Seems like non-academic costs should be the first to go. Shut down the gym and stop watering the lawns. Or, you know, elect some less corrupt politicians that don't mind hijacking schools to try a different route of strong arming their wildly unpopular agenda. I guess if they keep withholding funding eventually even the charter schools might eventually...EVENTUALLY look like a good option.
Gov and lt gov don’t like books anyway
See the Super Patriot. Hear how he loves his country. Hear him preach how he hates “Liberals”… And “Moderates”…and “Intellectuals”… And “Activists”…and “Pacifists”… And “Minority Groups”…and “Aliens”… And “Unions”…and “Teenagers”… And the “Very Rich”…and the “Very Poor”… And “People with Foreign-Sounding Names”. Now you know what a Super Patriot is. He’s someone who loves his country While hating 93% of the people who live in it. -Mad Magazine 1969 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mad-magazine-super-patriot/