The ‘Save Texas Schools’ rally held on the south steps of the Texas Capitol today was not as innocuous as it sounds. We can all agree that work needs to be done to improve schools in Texas - but the individuals supporting today’s event have made clear that they see...
Michele Samuelson
Abbott is Fighting Back Against the VRA
Good news hit the wires this afternoon - Attorney General Greg Abbott has fired a shot at the Voting Rights Act, directly challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 in his latest complaint, calling it an infringement on Article IV of the US Constitution and the...
Educrats Emerge In Primary Races
Primary season is finally, officially under way, and I've started going through and looking at the Republican primary candidates in the Texas House races. We're looking at a pretty full cycle, what with open seats, Tea Party challengers, and a bumper crop of educrats...
Going to the movies in Dallas ISD
Dallas ISD has a long, strange history of problems. From the credit card scandal, the fake Social Security number scandal, last summer's drop-in-the-bucket $86,000 Chick-Fil-A issue, and now this story about a movie theater field trip that cost taxpayers...
Budget gimmicks hide behind lack of transparency
In the coming months, state agencies will begin submitting their spending requests to the Legislative Budget Board as part of their Legislative Appropriations Requests for the 2014-2015 biennium budget. These requests will include the use of general revenue dedicated...
Keeping our focus against the Obama machine
On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory led his interview with Newt Gingrich with a question about Rush Limbaugh and contraception. Gingrich rightly took Gregory to task for letting the conversation go off the rails from the get-go; Gregory was buying into and...
Home-rule could be path to efficiency
Everybody is in agreement: the Texas school finance system is broken and in need of a major overhaul. Spending on the Foundation School Program has grown by 268% since 1987 and spending per pupil has grown by 141% since 1987, and in the same period, student enrollment...
$20 million on iPads from district suing state
What if your school district had joined a lawsuit against the state, arguing that it was receiving insufficient funding under the current school finance system...and then announced that it would provide iPod Touches and iPads to students at the stunning cost of $20...
In defense of outsourcing entertainment
Small-town America, the collective memory that is often embellished, had a unique function that some believe should be carried over as governments grow ever larger and more intrusive. Providing entertainment, or beauty, or other aesthetic pleasure could be a viable...
New school lawsuit doesn’t assume money is the only issue
Now this is more like it. A lawsuit about Texas schools that focuses on what’s wrong, instead of how to throw more money at the system: The lawsuit represents a new angle on the funding issue — one that focuses not on whether the state adequately pays for schools but...