Legislation designed to let parents get their children out of failing schools, promoted as a top reform by Gov. Greg Abbott, passed the Texas Senate with bipartisan support – only to be killed in the Texas House by the coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans controlling the office of the House Speaker.
[side_text]Liberals hate real education reform. After all, a child who cannot read today is a client of their big-government programs tomorrow.[/side_text]This was confirmed in today’s Austin American Statesman, which reported that liberal Republican Jimmie Don Aycock (R-Killeen) didn’t even give the House version of Abbott’s measure a hearing, nor did he even allow a vote on the Senate’s bill.
Under current law, children in failing schools must wait between three and six years (!) before anything can be done. Abbott’s proposal would have allowed parents to petition the state education agency to place a failing campus under new management, close or otherwise reform it after only two years.
Predictably, educrat union leaders and liberals at the core of the House cabal’s regime don’t want children to escape failing schools.
Let’s face it: Liberals hate real education reform. After all, a child who cannot read today is a client of their their big-government programs tomorrow.
At the same time, those failing schools in which children are trapped will have even more money with which to fail. That’s the message coming out of the Texas House.
Vocal supporters of the Republican-Democrat coalition – like State Rep. Ron Simmons (R-Carrollton) – are bragging about the additional dollars lawmakers pumped into an unreformed spending system. Simmons told constituents that the new state budget put “$1.5 billion in the funding formulas for school districts” over and above enrollment growth.
Oh, and let’s not forget their “big” reform: labeling schools with “A-F” ratings. (Texas schools are currently rated as “exemplary” or “recognized” or other such meaningless claptrap.)
So what? It was truly the least the educrat-union lackeys in control of the Texas House could do and still pretend they did something.
Since children cannot escape, the schools might as well be labeled in ancient Greek, for all the good it does.
Abbott’s proposal, which the Senate acted on, was a good one. Too bad, like so many issues, the Texas House killed it.
