Republicans again found to unconstitutionally under fund public education, it's time to do better

Once again the system Texas uses to fund public schools was found to violate the state's constitution by not providing enough money to school districts and failing to distribute it fairly. The situation is so bad even the conservative SCUC ISD Board of Trustees approved suing the state over the unjust funding formula.

What’s worse is that the same judge, John Dietz, found the system unconstitutional well before the last legislative session was over and yet state our Representative John Kuempel and state Senator Donna Campbell voted for it anyway.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott who as Attorney General is defending the state has again lost in court. Senators Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, now running for governor and lieutenant governor, both worked hard to overcome resistance to adequately funding public education in the legislature.

On November 4th we’ll elect our state leaders, I’ll be voting for people who have shown they believe in public education and are willing to work hard to invest in our kids futures. I hope you will too.

In education as in life "you get what you pay for"

We’re all familiar with the old adage “you get what you pay for” but Rick Perry and the Republican controlled legislature seem to think it doesn’t apply to public education in Texas. It should be no surprise that with Texas education funding lower per student than 45 other states we have high failure rates and many of those who do graduate from high school aren’t really prepared for college. Now District Judge John Dietz has ruled that state funding is so low as to be unconstitutional. The Republican leadership wants to drag things out by appealing the ruling to the state Supreme Court even though the ruling is consistent with what the Supreme Court said in 2005.

The Comptroller’s office has now reported that it has collected $8.8 billion more in taxes than projected in 2011 which could easily cover the $5.4 billion that the legislature cut from education funding in the last session but the Republican leadership is holding up using those funds with claims that we should wait and see what the Supreme Court says about Judge Dietz’s ruling.

Most school districts in the state have had to request waivers of the student to teacher ratio rules because they don’t have the money to hire enough teachers. Every year we delay adequate funding of public education we damage the children of Texas and their futures. Call you state legislator today and demand that they address education funding like the critical issue that it is.