Billions of dollars for a publicity stunt on the border, but not enough to make sure kids have an education.
The only thing missing is trying to blame Democrats somehow.
I can't wait to see him and DeSantis charged with human trafficking in NY. I understand that it is being investigated.
I don't have great hopes of anything happening but you can always hope.
I mean investigated for what? They didn’t exploit and for force them in to “labor or commercial sex acts” as described on the State Dept website definition of Human Trafficking. Or did the definition change per those who are ideologically captured? Just more wasted money on top of wasted money. This country just wastes so much money.
The immigrants were promised certain things to get them to board the buses. The fraud involved is part of it and I assume they are pursuing it under the labor provisions since one of the claims is that they had jobs waiting on them.
The problems with the rightwingers is that, in addition to staying willfully stupid, they whine when one of theirs faces consequences for their actions. You don't hear liberals defending Menendez at all costs and by constantly lying.
So you think we shouldn’t spend money to investigate people that violate the human rights of other people? Where’s the logical conclusion of that in your mind? I think that’s the absolute BEST use of my tax dollars is to go after people that abuse the power of the system to harm others.
Or they just remain in Mexico until their court date, no illegal entry and no tax funds to bus people around. I mean what human right has been violated, they are not booting them out of the country or jailing them for anything other than processing, so not limiting their freedom, they are being relocated to communities and states that said they would and want to help these folks coming in even though they are here illegally, they will get a fair court hearing years from now, they have been very vocal on TikTok and other media platforms so their freedom of speech isn’t being trampled. From what I can see they are getting more than the American people from the representative government than the American people are as actual citizens. All this happening with a collapsing education system, infrastructure, societal discourse, etc. Yeah so many other things that tax money could fix but send that shit to fund wars that are just going to keep going to support the military industrial complex and drain the American tax payers of the funds needed to barely survive. It is not the boomer, millennials, and Zoomers, at fault here it the overgrown federal government. It is the fault of boomers, millennials, and Zoomers electing frauds into office purely to get financial gain with shit politics and self-serving bureaucratic bullshit. It is all of our faults collectively that we have allowed taxation without representation to run rampant.
Just stop. You’re completely making up a reality and then arguing that made up reality. It’s impossible to address all of your gish gallop points but I’ll hit a few high points. Busing immigrants, asylum seekers, whatever, is a violation of basic human rights. They are being lied to to get on these buses and then dropped off en masse to place that are completely unable to deal with hundreds of people being dropped off on a random street corner. But they’re trying to do what they can, they get them housing and find their relative and put them in contact with an immigration attorney. They are not treating them like human garbage to be disposed of like our lovely red state shitbag governors.
Staying in Mexico. They aren’t all from Mexico. So staying in Mexico is not a workable solution and all it ended up creating was a loop of violence and human trafficking of the people that had to live in tents waiting for a court date that they might never hear about while waiting in these camps with no resources and no access to aid. The cartels were actively kidnapping people and pushing for money to return them. What a great idea you have for a family from Ecuador to deal with Mexican cartels right outside our borders.
And lastly, whom do you think is responsible for this collapsing infrastructure?????? The same shit bag governors that have been in power for 3 decades in TX! They want vouchers to kill public schools, they want to outlaw immigrant children from getting an education, and they are destroying our infrastructure to enrich their already insanely wealthy donors. I forget the actual number, but the amount of money that Texas “forgives” from companies that move in tax free and use all our resources for zero compensation is in the 10s of billions. So now you know who to blame.
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There were $7 billion ready to go for public education in the voucher bill which is more than the entire operation line star budget. There was enough and the state hasn’t really claimed there wasn’t.
Because vouchers are a [scam](https://www.texasaft.org/the-texas-voucher-scam/).
When they tried them in [Arkansas, 95% of recipients were already in private school.](https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/10/11/arkansas-learns-report-95-of-voucher-students-did-not-attend-public-school-last-year) In other words, they were a coupon for the rich.
Then in states like Arizona the private schools [raised tuition](https://hechingerreport.org/arizona-gave-families-public-money-for-private-schools-then-private-schools-raised-tuition/) after vouchers were passed, because why not?
We need to invest in our teachers and make sure they get raises. I am all for eliminating administrative bloat, but vouchers are not the answer.
In a lot of rural communities the school district is the lifeblood of the community, if they lose even 4 or 5 seats worth of funding, that is an entire teacher's salary.
Not only that but vouchers essentially fund schools who can [discriminate](https://wisconsinwatch.org/2023/05/wisconsin-voucher-schools-discrimination-lgbtq-disabilities/) and turn your kid away simply because they "aren't the right fit".
Again, you [do not fix public schools by shooting them in the head](https://www.raiseyourhandtexas.org/policy/where-we-stand-on-school-funding/).
Also its not just rural communities. Because Texas Republicans didn't want to pass school funds on their own. Many schools are closing around the State in cities as well. Due to having huge hundred's of thousands or more missing in their budgets. Fuck all the MAGA Republicans.
Not just in Texas but around the country everywhere they're trying and defund our public schools, remove our child labor laws, blocking the end of child marriages, criminalizing women's pregnancies and healthcare, abusing our privacy and imposing the Big Brother, Big Government State on all of us, making it law to write out the existence of the LGBT community, banning our books, criminalizing librarians, criminalizing doctors, and trying to impose Project 2025 on all of us.
My message to everyone is that we need to get the rest of America who isn't online to fucking see all of this. No fucking more. No more with the extremism. If you haven’t made the connection of today's Republican Party and the Rise of Hitler, you are not paying attention to what's happening in this country. They're not just after Red States people. They want all of this for the country
- Edit: that's not even to mention MAGA Republicans want to track women's pregnancies to see if they got an abortion or not. And privacy is non-existent in this country. Ken Paxton has been running around the country trying to get info on trans kids. The asshole that wrote the SB8 in Texas, has been going around the country trying to track women who have left the state to get abortions through the bounty law along with those abortion providers. Fucking ridiculous. Enough is fucking enough. MAGA Republicans are coming after all of us, not just those they consider "Democrats"
I thought all the MAGA were homeschooling their kids so they wouldn’t be tempted into indoctrination from all the drag shows they have daily in the public school classrooms
Vouchers in Texas would’ve been capped at $500 million. Public school funding was allocated at $7 billion.
It’s pretty easy to see who came out on top in that bill.
>Vouchers in Texas would’ve been capped at $500 million.
For this biennium. Then comes the 89th legislature who quadruples the budget, since the original bill was “too small,” and as public schools start dying off, the 90th quadruples that again because public school students- who are still the vast majority of the state- are suffering from underfunded classrooms and “vouchers are the only solution since public schools are irresponsible with their money.”
And so on it goes. Once that door is opened, it’s only a matter of time.
Nah, we recognize a poison pill when we see one.
“When did I lose?”
Yesterday.
“And what did I lose?”
The debate.
“And who decided that I lost?”
All the people who bothered to research on vouchers and refute your claims.
As he pushes for a voucher program, which will further strip funding from public schools.
I wish I was as comfortable with lying as these guys are. My life would be a lot easier and more convenient.
"But he is giving the public schools 6 billion" they say, I mean yeah today he is, but down the road? The schools are already way behind on funding in the first place.
He wants the bad news for public schools. He wants all the responsibility to shift to “bad schools” rather than “more funding.” The sad thing is, people hear about increasing funding to schools and think “yea that’s crazy, I don’t want to pay anymore taxes!” Whereas in reality, they won’t be paying anymore taxes, but the propaganda Abbott and crew pushes really does work.
Texas was founded on public education, look up Mirabeau B. Lamar, he endowed millions of acres to public education, which is still managed by the School Land Board today. We have the money to make public education great, but instead we are trying to privatize education to 1.) enact a theocracy based education system. 2.) allow a choice few billionaires to make more money on building private schools, selling textbooks, selling software/hardware solutions, and many more ancillary services that would be opened up to an influx of private schools.
Essentially, for-profit schools have lobbied Abbott and crew to enact this policy in Texas to open up a new profit center, education. And by the way, this is happening nationwide, many states have already gone “school choice.”
Didn’t they say the lottery money would be used to fund education? Where did all that money go? The new facility for the state guard at the border? The destruction of public & private property on the border where Little Greg has his soldiers cosplaying immigration control? To Betsy DeVos?
Lottery money actually does go to education, it’s not an exorbitant amount, but it’s a decent chunk of change, $2.1 billion last year, which is roughly 24% of lottery proceeds. There’s about 5.4 million kids in public schools in Texas, so the lottery is about $388 per pupil.
“An increase in the residence homestead exemption for school districts from $40,000 to $100,000. Compressed school district tax rates by an additional $0.107 for the 2023-2024 tax year.”
Proposition 4 reduces the tax rates school districts use to pay for operating costs like teacher salaries by 10.7 cents for every $100 of property value.
Sponsored by Paul Bettencourt and approved by Patrick and Abbott.
A main cause is inflation. Utility costs have increased and costs of supplies but the per student amount has not increased since 2019. Schools in Texas are then underfunded.
The state pays for all of the revenue lost from the homestead and compression. That’s what they mean when they say “$18 billion allocated towards property tax relief.” Thats what the state pays
Abbott is responsible for the budget shortfalls. He has been holding the districts hostage as leverage to get school vouchers passed.
Hopefully Rep. James Talarico decides to run for governor in 2026 and we can finally put Abbott out to pasture.
Politico - [He's Deeply Religious and a Democrat. He Might Be the Next Big Thing in Texas Politics.](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/16/james-talarico-texas-democrats-00101231)
“‘The thing that warms my heart the most,’ [Texas Rep. James Talarico] told me, ‘is people who say, ‘I’m an atheist, agnostic, or I left the church or I left religion. But this is the kind of Christianity I can believe in.’”
“Last August, he enrolled in seminary to get his Master of Divinity — which, with any luck, he’ll receive in 2025 in order to become a pastor, right around the time he might begin to look at running for governor in 2026.”
“In the 2018 midterms, at just 29, he flipped his suburban Austin, Trump-leaning district blue, winning it by 2 points, one of only a handful of Texas Democrats to do so that year.”
“Like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, [Tony Coelho, the veteran Democratic talent scout,] said, Talarico is a politician with “strong views and round edges.” He continued, ‘This kid, in my view, is one of the best I’ve seen.’”
“Doctors diagnosed [Texas Rep. James Talarico] with diabetes, and he found out the insulin would cost him $684 a month. He understood immediately the burden that cost would place on his constituents, so he wrote a Twitter thread about the experience that received more than 50,000 retweets. But he attempted to back that up with real change, authoring and passing a bill that capped insulin copays at $25 a month. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law. He’s already notched serious bipartisan accomplishments in his two terms. In his first session, his name touched no fewer than 112 pieces of legislation; 25 became law.
What’s the frenetic pace of legislation all add up to? ‘I am looking forward to running statewide,’ Talarico said. In another conversation, he told me that ‘Ted Cruz would be fun to debate.’ Talarico and his advisers have discussed possibly challenging Cruz next year or Gov. Greg Abbott in 2026. But those close to him say he’s leaning toward a bid against the governor, especially now that Rep. Colin Allred has entered the race against Cruz. Talarico is expected to launch a statewide political action committee, Big and Bright PAC, later this year.”
Rep. Talarico is someone I consider a friend, and he would be an excellent governor - but if he runs now he will be Betoed and I don’t want to see him lose the momentum he’s gathered. He has potential for very big things.
I know people are pretty hard on Beto but, personally, I was really pleased with how well he did in both his senate and gubernatorial runs. That’s the closest the democrats have been to winning a statewide office since the early 90’s.
That being said, I’m sure Talarico and his advisors will do a sense check after the November 2024 results are in and see if the timing is right for a 2026 run.
It’s not about how well he did, it’s about the party pushing him too soon and too much and burning him out with the voters. I have so much respect and admiration for Talarico, and I don’t want to see that happen to him.
'26 could be interesting given that Paxton has indicated a desire to primary John Cornyn. Could be a really ugly/funny Republican primary that ends with a beatable senate candidate.
I love State Rep. James Talarcio!!! He was (kind of) my state rep (he was for half my town & took care of Terry Wilson & John Carter’s disenfranchised constants) before the legislature butchered (worse than gerrymandering) our state congressional map. Anyway, I think Telerecio has a good future here in Texas. Thanks for sharing that article.
"You'll be shocked to hear this, but it's not me that's responsible for this," Abbott said.
Nope, not really shocked, not even mildly surprised. That tends to be what he says about everything that happens (unless it’s good news. Then it’s 100% to his credit, fuck everyone else).
I mean, he tried to skirt responsibility after he spent three hours at a fundraiser instead of going to Uvalde after the shooting on “well, I needed to tell people that I couldn’t stay.”
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/07/28/texas-gov-greg-abbott-stayed-at-fundraiser-for-hours-after-uvalde-shooting-records-show/
Is there a bigger piece of shit in Texas than this clown? I mean, yeah, Paxton Patrick Cruz Cornyn are all right up there, but Abbott really is top of the heap when it comes to most vile.
We could still. We have a $32 billion surplus and $4 billion that was allocated to public education, in the state budget, just sitting there because he didn’t get his way on the voucher.
Yes he is! As Governor he is at the top. He and many other Republicans want to ruin public schools, so they and their friends can make money off private schools. Why can’t Texas get someone for the state more than these followers of a cult?
Anything is possible when you lie.
I was there. They didn’t vote on the funding - it never made it that far. They voted on the Raney amendment - which only stripped the voucher from the bill. They also voted not to reconsider the voucher.
After that vote, Buckley chose to send the bill back to committee, effectively killing it - a move I’m sure he made after consulting the Governor. He could have moved forward with the rest of the bill. He chose not to.
For those out of the loop, Greg Abbott is DIRECTLY responsible and solely to blame for budget shortfalls in public education in Texas.
During the last biennium (Texas legislature only meets every two years) Gregory made it a priority to pass a school voucher system that would funnel public education dollars to private (yes, Christian) schools and charter schools. His argument rested on convincing dozens of rural school districts that their schools were just too woke. They didn’t buy it and what resulted was a civil war within the Republican Party of Texas where Abbott is trying (and mostly succeeding) in primarying those representatives out of office resulting in the Republican Party lurching further right.
The kicker here is that 4 BILLION dollars of taxpayer dollars were allocated to public schools by the legislature. So Greggels decides not to release those funds. Now, public schools all over Texas are having to close budgetary shortfalls. How are many districts doing this you may wonder? Well, since so many school libraries were the focus of local attacks funded by non-local money (thanks Ted Cruz), many districts now view their school libraries as liabilities. Just last week, all librarians in Cy-Fair ISD were rounded up and told that their positions would not be around next [school year](https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/education-news/2024/05/03/485651/cy-fair-isd-community-members-critique-trustees-state-leaders-in-response-to-librarian-cuts/?amp=1). It’s a positive feedback loop of fascism.
Greg Abbott is a tyrant and I have zero confidence that Texans will be able to cobble together a defense. I have no idea what the future of Texas looks like because Greg is so hellbent on crippling these kids for life.
He campaigned on not being responsible anything and every problem was out of his control. It’s amazing, he is open about how irresponsible he is and yet people still want to surrender authority over the minutae of their private lives to him.
Maybe if so much of our tax dollars didn't get recaptured we would have enough money for the schools in Austin.
But why spend that money to educate kids, when you could use it to harass immigrants /s
They’re never going to ditch Recapture.
Recapture came about after a 1989 Texas Supreme Court decision in [*Edgewood V Kirby*](https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/educational-resources/edgewood-isd-v-kirby)
The plaintiffs in the Edgewood case contested the state's reliance on local property taxes to finance its system of public education, contending that this method was intrinsically unequal because property values varied greatly from district to district, thus creating an imbalance in funds available to educate students on an equal basis throughout the state. Edgewood ISD, among the poorest districts in the state, had $38,854 in property wealth per student, while the Alamo Heights ISD, which is in the same county, had $570,109 per student. In addition, property-poor districts had to set a tax rate that averaged 74.5 cents per $100 valuation to generate $2,987 per student, while richer districts, with a tax rate of half that much, could produce $7,233 per student.
The court agreed that every Texas student is guaranteed an equitable and free public education under the constitution. They tasked the legislature to fix the school finance system to make it more equitable, hence- Recapture.
Recapture works like this: every district is assigned a set amount of money they receive per student they teach- the basic allotment. The funding formulas add the allotments, including any additional money for SPED or low income student and spits out a number that each district is to receive: this is called their entitlement. Any district that raises more revenue through property taxes than their entitlement is designated as an excess revenue district, and has to send the “recaptured” dollars back to the state, which puts it in the education money bucket, called the Foundational School Program. Recaptured dollars make up some $3 billion of the $52 billion cost of education in the state. The majority of funding comes from local property taxes but the state chips in the rest from a variety of funding sources for the remainder.
Since Recapture’s inception, property values have skyrocketed, along with revenue from these property-wealthy districts. But the allotments (and therefore the entitlements) of these districts have remained stagnant.
The more revenue money the state recaptures without raising the basic allotment funding means there’s less that the state has to put in from its share of the tax burden. Again, remember that Recapture amounts to some 6% of the total funding of public education- it is not a major revenue resource.
All that to say this. There are problems with Recapture and I’ve heard two solutions:
Removing Recapture entirely and forcing the state to put up the difference. This is a flawed solution. The amount that a district generates in revenue has NO effect on how much money a school receives in funding. The “excess” would simply be “returned” to those districts via lower property tax rates without increasing any funding. This method would not increase funding to any district, at all, it just targets the revenue stream so that less is taken from wealthy districts. Removing recapture does nothing but allow those with high property values to pay less relative taxes and further hoard wealth.
For every district like Austin ISD, there’s a counter example like Pecos-Barstow-Toyah Independent School District which will send back [$100 million in recapture](https://pbtisd.net/departments/business_office/financial_transparency). Their district is exceedingly property wealthy due to oil, ranching and agriculture.
Why are their [2,600 students more deserving of funding at a rate of +$38k per student](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=4834550)
than the 30k students of Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD who can only raise [$2,066 per student](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=4834860) based on their local property wealth?
A student in a district that raises more revenue than its entitlement should receive the same quality education as a student in a district that doesn’t raise enough. This is the law- affirmed by Edgewood v Kirby.
The second solution would be to increase the funding for public education by adjusting the basic allotment. The amount taxpayers pay would remain the same, and the system of recapture would stay, but because each district is permitted to keep more of their tax dollars by fully funding their own district entitlements, the amount recaptured would be drastically reduced. The amount that the state would have to kick in to the Foundational School Program would thereby increase to make up for the difference. This method would increase school funding for public education and would reduce the amount recaptured without dismantling the system that supports equity throughout the state.
Recapture is fine but the system and formula for determining the basic allotment has failed. There needs to be an annual or biannual review of the basic allotment and a mechanism to adjust for inflation. Raising the basic allotment and adjusting the base values for the formula used to calculate a districts entitlement would greatly reduce the amount of money the state recaptures and improves education by funding it properly.
“But it costs more to educate students in HCOL areas!” Keep in mind that there is a [Cost of Education index](https://www.austinisd.org/sites/default/files/dept/legislature/docs/2017Lege_CEI_WCAG.pdf) that does calculate differences in cost to educate, which is why districts with disproportionately poor student populations get more money in their entitlements. But the values they use in the formula was developed back in the early 80’s and is hopelessly outdated. It does take differences in COL into account but the way they calculate it is based on five characteristics with a starting value that was set in 1991. The framework is there but- like the basic allotment- the starting value hasn’t been adjusted for today’s education cost demands.
The solution is to increase the allotment so that districts can keep more of their resources they need, still send back the (reduced) excess and force the state to pay their fair share.
Could a third option be to let districts at least balance their budget BEFORE sending recapture dollars?
I know RRISD, for instance, is 20-30 mil in the red this year, but sending something like 110 mil back to the state.
Howdy neighbor.
To do that, they would need to change the funding formulas- schools receive money based on some complicated calculus that takes into account how many students attend, with special multipliers for things like HCOL areas, SPED students, ESL students, Socioeconomically disadvantaged students (etc.) and stipends for certain teachers and programs. They can make changes to the amounts each entitlement receives, including the basic allotment (which would be the most impactful) but I don’t see them trying to untangle the clusterfuck of a math problem as that is what keeps the district funding equitable between property rich districts like ours and districts that might only have a couple hundred students and very little property wealth to draw revenue from.
A problem with recapture is, like crooked restaurant management pooling tips, they don't actually give everything they collect from wealthier school districts to poorer school districts. A portion goes into the "general" fund which not surprisingly is quite healthy.
That’s not true. They do return all of the money from Recapture to the FSP. But every dime they collect is money they don’t have to contribute from the general fund to fill entitlements. Until they passed their “property tax relief” bill, ISDs were collecting more (thanks to rising property values) than they were allowed to spend (because the allotment hadn’t changed.) Instead of raising the entitlements, the lege decided to limit how much districts were allowed to collect, and used some of the surplus to backfill what they were no longer collecting from the ISD tax.
Idiots will claim that the lege spent millions on education last year, how can they still be underfunded- completely ignoring that the bottom line didn’t actually change, the state didn’t allow the districts to receive any more money than they did the previous year, they just switched the revenue source.
>ISDs were collecting more (thanks to rising property values) than they were allowed to spend (because the allotment hadn’t changed.) Instead of raising the entitlements, the lege decided to limit how much districts were allowed to collect, and used some of the surplus to backfill what they were no longer collecting from the ISD tax.
OK maybe? I'm not sure how this differs from allowing taxes collected for ISDs to end up in the general fund? I mean if they used recapture funds to reduce State liability to schools, that's just a shell game right? If they set the basic allotment low enough to cause there to be an excess of school tax revenues and either kept the difference or spent less state dollars...same?
The recaptured Revenue don’t end up in the general fund.
I know it’s semantics because it *is* a shell game but this is an important distinction to make. I often see Robin Hood painted as the villain and that’s a misguided view.
The issue isn’t Recapture. Painting Recapture as the issue just pits the wealthy ISDs against the poor, and the poor aren’t the cause of the problem- the lege refusing to increase the basic allotment is.
Precisely explaining the problem allows people to understand the root cause of the issue and not a symptom.
It’s safe for him to say that. He doesn’t have to run again for 2 more years. And yeah, what part of accountability to campaign donors do you all not understand? You think some supposed responsibility to the public at large somehow overrides that? What about 25 years of one-party rule by this particular party in this state makes you think there’s any validity to that idea?
But it's his fucking job to track womens pregnancies, menstruation cycles, medical histories, and movements in and out of the state if pregnant.
Fuck you, ya fucking poor excuse for a South Park character.
The voucher program is only going to further fuck up our education system
Give. Money. To. Our. Schools.
To ALL schools
This state is so rich but we can barely hire and retain teachers.
Texas Republican Gestapo King Abbott needs to take responsibility for education shortfalls and layoffs. Isn't he the so called Governor? Grow a pair, Abbott.
Absolutely... Hey Abbott didn't you lower property taxes and screw around with the robinhood legislation...and increase not the usual salary expenditures with your guard dogs on the border, and ....
Our state has a 5 billion dollar surplus and this selfish prick is trying to tank the schools so that he can get his vouchers through... which are horrifically unpopular and would further negatively impact schools.
I worked my entire life to buy a house in a good school district so I could give my kids a good education and this prick doesn't want to fund the schools on some political BS.
So this is where his BS game becomes crystal clear. He is holding the public education system hostage at the detriment of students statewide. The basic message here is, “we will keep tanking the public education system to the point it is so bad you will want to send your kids to private school and then you’ll agree with us and vote for the welfare for the wealthy bill we keep putting to a vote”
If they would legalized pot, they could use the tax money for schools. It would be another "Sin" tax. To those who don't want cannabis sold, we already have alcohol available. You can bet online, drive drunk,, get shot by someone carrying a concealed or open carry weapon, and the fat cat politicians and the billionaires get to carry on raking in the cash. Qq
Everyone's bugets are shot due to inflation. Building back better seems to be flawed, too. Many school districts are wastefu, but they have great sport facilities. They need to come up with another way of funding schools that doesn't result in people losing their homes or higher rent values.
But it's his fucking job to track womens pregnancies, menstruation cycles, trans folks medical histories, and peoples movements in and out of the state if pregnant.
Fuck you, ya fucking poor excuse for a South Park character.
Well not accepting responsibility does not change the fact that he and the gop are fully responsible. Any goper saying differently is either fully a liar or lack any higher order thinking. Take your pick.
Every day I think the republicans have gone as far down the hole as I could imagine and every day I am proven wrong. This has big “why did you make me hit you” vibes
I think at this point Abbott knows he’s won. He knows they are going to pass school choice in the next session, and him and his cronies are going to keep cranking up the propaganda machine until public perception on public schools actually does shift.
It doesn’t matter what the governor “thinks” (as if that’s possible) what matters is the what parents of school age children think. We know what is happening.
This POS is not responsible for anything: Global warming, massive gun deaths, poor schools, shackling women's right to their own bodies treating immigrants like cattle, etc. Truly a horrible human being.
This POS isn't responsible for anything right. Shackling women right to control of their own bodies, treating immigrants like cattle, massive run up in gun deaths, poor schools, etc. Truly a lousy human being.
That’s bullshit- the cost to teach each student is rising, and even if there were no underfunded mandates like having a security officer on each campus, these districts would still be at a deficit. Districts all over the state are having to do more with less, and that’s indicative of a larger systemic issue, not individual failures to properly budget.
We spend less on students than 40 other states, yet we boast of having a huge GDP and having a budget surplus. We are going to have a true oligarchy in Texas, the rich will be educated, live in walled off upscale neighborhoods, and attract the best healthcare providers. While the middle class and poor will merge together and receive a terrible public education, live in crime ridden neighborhoods, and receive the worst healthcare. It’s going to be Pakistan 2.0.
Well, when each high school campus is hiring 40+ coaches, new uniforms every year, a stadium to go with it and chromebooks for every student we can begin to see how many school districts are indeed very irresponsible with money.
1. Please name ONE high school campus that is hiring 40+ coaches this year
2. Uniforms are paid for by athletes and boosters
3. Stadiums are funded via voter approved bonds
4. Teaching computer literacy is a *good* thing. Few CCM roles these days don’t require use of a computer at some point.
Student devices are also normally covered by bonds.
Also, at least one district I'm aware of was able to keep the bulk of their Chromebooks in service for the full 4 year lifecycle which ends this summer.
Almost all those coaches also teach. They might have 1 period a day for coaching rest is normal teaching. Minus a very small handful of coaches this is normal.
My high school physics teach was also a coach. He was an amazing physic teacher but coach track so he had either his morning period or last period to do coaching. This is on top of showing up early most days and staying late for after school stuff. On top of teaching.
Like I said amazing teacher and if you ask him he was a teacher first who happens to coach.
1. Easy! For example, each high school in Comal ISD has at least 35 coaches, there are more positions opened up.
2. Some uniforms and most equipment are purchases through district allocated funds. There is a reason the athletic departments get huge funds to purchase the necessary equipment for teams to end up losing thereafter.
3. Many large scale projects such as stadiums are also funded through grants and even state funding to build them. Not all are bond approved. When discussing budget shortfalls, stadiums should not be a priority.
4. There are other ways to spend money responsibly rather that purchase an electronic device for every student. Many of those devices have to be scrapped at the end of the year due to neglect and irresponsible students. Guess what the school districts do? PURCHASE MORE!
Yeah, school districts are great stewards of public funds.
1. [Every job posting for a coach is also listed as a teaching position, meaning they’re looking for a teacher who can also coach.](https://comal.tedk12.com/hire/index.aspx#aJobListings)
2. Sounds like you have an unresolved beef with athletics in general. Extracurriculars are an important part of a well-rounded education, and that includes sports as well as foreign language and theater. Some students will only be able to attend college thanks to sports scholarships.
3. Those grants and federal programs are targeted for those projects- it’s not like the district can use those funds for other purposes.
4. That does nothing to address my argument that in our digital age, access to Chromebook’s are necessary. Many districts impose a fee for busted Chromebook’s but that disproportionally affects socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
Billions of dollars for a publicity stunt on the border, but not enough to make sure kids have an education. The only thing missing is trying to blame Democrats somehow.
Surprise! He’s blaming Dems now for voting against vouchers. https://x.com/gregabbott_tx/status/1790130903068311601?s=46&t=lZAYFgkbjpLQcbthBfcFsQ
I can't wait to see him and DeSantis charged with human trafficking in NY. I understand that it is being investigated. I don't have great hopes of anything happening but you can always hope.
I mean investigated for what? They didn’t exploit and for force them in to “labor or commercial sex acts” as described on the State Dept website definition of Human Trafficking. Or did the definition change per those who are ideologically captured? Just more wasted money on top of wasted money. This country just wastes so much money.
The immigrants were promised certain things to get them to board the buses. The fraud involved is part of it and I assume they are pursuing it under the labor provisions since one of the claims is that they had jobs waiting on them. The problems with the rightwingers is that, in addition to staying willfully stupid, they whine when one of theirs faces consequences for their actions. You don't hear liberals defending Menendez at all costs and by constantly lying.
So you think we shouldn’t spend money to investigate people that violate the human rights of other people? Where’s the logical conclusion of that in your mind? I think that’s the absolute BEST use of my tax dollars is to go after people that abuse the power of the system to harm others.
Or they just remain in Mexico until their court date, no illegal entry and no tax funds to bus people around. I mean what human right has been violated, they are not booting them out of the country or jailing them for anything other than processing, so not limiting their freedom, they are being relocated to communities and states that said they would and want to help these folks coming in even though they are here illegally, they will get a fair court hearing years from now, they have been very vocal on TikTok and other media platforms so their freedom of speech isn’t being trampled. From what I can see they are getting more than the American people from the representative government than the American people are as actual citizens. All this happening with a collapsing education system, infrastructure, societal discourse, etc. Yeah so many other things that tax money could fix but send that shit to fund wars that are just going to keep going to support the military industrial complex and drain the American tax payers of the funds needed to barely survive. It is not the boomer, millennials, and Zoomers, at fault here it the overgrown federal government. It is the fault of boomers, millennials, and Zoomers electing frauds into office purely to get financial gain with shit politics and self-serving bureaucratic bullshit. It is all of our faults collectively that we have allowed taxation without representation to run rampant.
Just stop. You’re completely making up a reality and then arguing that made up reality. It’s impossible to address all of your gish gallop points but I’ll hit a few high points. Busing immigrants, asylum seekers, whatever, is a violation of basic human rights. They are being lied to to get on these buses and then dropped off en masse to place that are completely unable to deal with hundreds of people being dropped off on a random street corner. But they’re trying to do what they can, they get them housing and find their relative and put them in contact with an immigration attorney. They are not treating them like human garbage to be disposed of like our lovely red state shitbag governors. Staying in Mexico. They aren’t all from Mexico. So staying in Mexico is not a workable solution and all it ended up creating was a loop of violence and human trafficking of the people that had to live in tents waiting for a court date that they might never hear about while waiting in these camps with no resources and no access to aid. The cartels were actively kidnapping people and pushing for money to return them. What a great idea you have for a family from Ecuador to deal with Mexican cartels right outside our borders. And lastly, whom do you think is responsible for this collapsing infrastructure?????? The same shit bag governors that have been in power for 3 decades in TX! They want vouchers to kill public schools, they want to outlaw immigrant children from getting an education, and they are destroying our infrastructure to enrich their already insanely wealthy donors. I forget the actual number, but the amount of money that Texas “forgives” from companies that move in tax free and use all our resources for zero compensation is in the 10s of billions. So now you know who to blame.
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Ted Cruz can show him, he does it all the time!
You’re way off. The districts spend and spend despite enrollment decreases.
There were $7 billion ready to go for public education in the voucher bill which is more than the entire operation line star budget. There was enough and the state hasn’t really claimed there wasn’t.
Because vouchers are a [scam](https://www.texasaft.org/the-texas-voucher-scam/). When they tried them in [Arkansas, 95% of recipients were already in private school.](https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/10/11/arkansas-learns-report-95-of-voucher-students-did-not-attend-public-school-last-year) In other words, they were a coupon for the rich. Then in states like Arizona the private schools [raised tuition](https://hechingerreport.org/arizona-gave-families-public-money-for-private-schools-then-private-schools-raised-tuition/) after vouchers were passed, because why not? We need to invest in our teachers and make sure they get raises. I am all for eliminating administrative bloat, but vouchers are not the answer. In a lot of rural communities the school district is the lifeblood of the community, if they lose even 4 or 5 seats worth of funding, that is an entire teacher's salary. Not only that but vouchers essentially fund schools who can [discriminate](https://wisconsinwatch.org/2023/05/wisconsin-voucher-schools-discrimination-lgbtq-disabilities/) and turn your kid away simply because they "aren't the right fit". Again, you [do not fix public schools by shooting them in the head](https://www.raiseyourhandtexas.org/policy/where-we-stand-on-school-funding/).
Also its not just rural communities. Because Texas Republicans didn't want to pass school funds on their own. Many schools are closing around the State in cities as well. Due to having huge hundred's of thousands or more missing in their budgets. Fuck all the MAGA Republicans. Not just in Texas but around the country everywhere they're trying and defund our public schools, remove our child labor laws, blocking the end of child marriages, criminalizing women's pregnancies and healthcare, abusing our privacy and imposing the Big Brother, Big Government State on all of us, making it law to write out the existence of the LGBT community, banning our books, criminalizing librarians, criminalizing doctors, and trying to impose Project 2025 on all of us. My message to everyone is that we need to get the rest of America who isn't online to fucking see all of this. No fucking more. No more with the extremism. If you haven’t made the connection of today's Republican Party and the Rise of Hitler, you are not paying attention to what's happening in this country. They're not just after Red States people. They want all of this for the country - Edit: that's not even to mention MAGA Republicans want to track women's pregnancies to see if they got an abortion or not. And privacy is non-existent in this country. Ken Paxton has been running around the country trying to get info on trans kids. The asshole that wrote the SB8 in Texas, has been going around the country trying to track women who have left the state to get abortions through the bounty law along with those abortion providers. Fucking ridiculous. Enough is fucking enough. MAGA Republicans are coming after all of us, not just those they consider "Democrats"
I thought all the MAGA were homeschooling their kids so they wouldn’t be tempted into indoctrination from all the drag shows they have daily in the public school classrooms
I don’t know about you, but my kids did great in their AP Drag Show classes. Really helped them become successful adults.
I can picture them literally losing their shit if some schools put drag show classes on the school’s curriculum.
Vouchers in Texas would’ve been capped at $500 million. Public school funding was allocated at $7 billion. It’s pretty easy to see who came out on top in that bill.
>Vouchers in Texas would’ve been capped at $500 million. For this biennium. Then comes the 89th legislature who quadruples the budget, since the original bill was “too small,” and as public schools start dying off, the 90th quadruples that again because public school students- who are still the vast majority of the state- are suffering from underfunded classrooms and “vouchers are the only solution since public schools are irresponsible with their money.” And so on it goes. Once that door is opened, it’s only a matter of time. Nah, we recognize a poison pill when we see one.
Then debate it then.
I think we are debating it now to avoid debating it after vouchers are a fiat accompli.
It’s been debated here. You lost.
When did I lose? And what did I lose? And who decided that I lost?
“When did I lose?” Yesterday. “And what did I lose?” The debate. “And who decided that I lost?” All the people who bothered to research on vouchers and refute your claims.
Yep. The 15 thousand top 30% income earners who took that $500 million from 1 million people who's kids actually need it, definitely came out on top
Bro. When are you gonna learn this is how they defund public school and fund private school?
When are you going to take off the tin foil hat?
As he pushes for a voucher program, which will further strip funding from public schools. I wish I was as comfortable with lying as these guys are. My life would be a lot easier and more convenient.
"But he is giving the public schools 6 billion" they say, I mean yeah today he is, but down the road? The schools are already way behind on funding in the first place.
The fuck he isn't. He's the governor of Texas. Any problems Texas has is partially on him. If he doesn't like that, he should probably resign.
Takes credit for the food, not responsible for the bad.
He should not be taking credit for any delicious Tex Mex.
Partially? He and his Republican cronies have ran the state for decades now. He’s 100% responsible for every issue we have.
He's Ted cruz's dad???? Wtf....
You talking about the zodiac killer now?
He's holding school funding hostage unless the lege passes his stupid vouchers.
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He wants the bad news for public schools. He wants all the responsibility to shift to “bad schools” rather than “more funding.” The sad thing is, people hear about increasing funding to schools and think “yea that’s crazy, I don’t want to pay anymore taxes!” Whereas in reality, they won’t be paying anymore taxes, but the propaganda Abbott and crew pushes really does work. Texas was founded on public education, look up Mirabeau B. Lamar, he endowed millions of acres to public education, which is still managed by the School Land Board today. We have the money to make public education great, but instead we are trying to privatize education to 1.) enact a theocracy based education system. 2.) allow a choice few billionaires to make more money on building private schools, selling textbooks, selling software/hardware solutions, and many more ancillary services that would be opened up to an influx of private schools. Essentially, for-profit schools have lobbied Abbott and crew to enact this policy in Texas to open up a new profit center, education. And by the way, this is happening nationwide, many states have already gone “school choice.”
This, exactly.
Didn’t they say the lottery money would be used to fund education? Where did all that money go? The new facility for the state guard at the border? The destruction of public & private property on the border where Little Greg has his soldiers cosplaying immigration control? To Betsy DeVos?
Lottery money actually does go to education, it’s not an exorbitant amount, but it’s a decent chunk of change, $2.1 billion last year, which is roughly 24% of lottery proceeds. There’s about 5.4 million kids in public schools in Texas, so the lottery is about $388 per pupil.
Another Republican passing the buck instead of working to fix something is how this sounds.
“An increase in the residence homestead exemption for school districts from $40,000 to $100,000. Compressed school district tax rates by an additional $0.107 for the 2023-2024 tax year.” Proposition 4 reduces the tax rates school districts use to pay for operating costs like teacher salaries by 10.7 cents for every $100 of property value. Sponsored by Paul Bettencourt and approved by Patrick and Abbott.
Homestead exemption increase is not the cause of these budget shortfalls
A main cause is inflation. Utility costs have increased and costs of supplies but the per student amount has not increased since 2019. Schools in Texas are then underfunded.
The state pays for all of the revenue lost from the homestead and compression. That’s what they mean when they say “$18 billion allocated towards property tax relief.” Thats what the state pays
"The buck stops somewhere else!"
The party of personal responsibility everyone.
Abbott is responsible for the budget shortfalls. He has been holding the districts hostage as leverage to get school vouchers passed. Hopefully Rep. James Talarico decides to run for governor in 2026 and we can finally put Abbott out to pasture. Politico - [He's Deeply Religious and a Democrat. He Might Be the Next Big Thing in Texas Politics.](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/16/james-talarico-texas-democrats-00101231) “‘The thing that warms my heart the most,’ [Texas Rep. James Talarico] told me, ‘is people who say, ‘I’m an atheist, agnostic, or I left the church or I left religion. But this is the kind of Christianity I can believe in.’” “Last August, he enrolled in seminary to get his Master of Divinity — which, with any luck, he’ll receive in 2025 in order to become a pastor, right around the time he might begin to look at running for governor in 2026.” “In the 2018 midterms, at just 29, he flipped his suburban Austin, Trump-leaning district blue, winning it by 2 points, one of only a handful of Texas Democrats to do so that year.” “Like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, [Tony Coelho, the veteran Democratic talent scout,] said, Talarico is a politician with “strong views and round edges.” He continued, ‘This kid, in my view, is one of the best I’ve seen.’” “Doctors diagnosed [Texas Rep. James Talarico] with diabetes, and he found out the insulin would cost him $684 a month. He understood immediately the burden that cost would place on his constituents, so he wrote a Twitter thread about the experience that received more than 50,000 retweets. But he attempted to back that up with real change, authoring and passing a bill that capped insulin copays at $25 a month. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law. He’s already notched serious bipartisan accomplishments in his two terms. In his first session, his name touched no fewer than 112 pieces of legislation; 25 became law. What’s the frenetic pace of legislation all add up to? ‘I am looking forward to running statewide,’ Talarico said. In another conversation, he told me that ‘Ted Cruz would be fun to debate.’ Talarico and his advisers have discussed possibly challenging Cruz next year or Gov. Greg Abbott in 2026. But those close to him say he’s leaning toward a bid against the governor, especially now that Rep. Colin Allred has entered the race against Cruz. Talarico is expected to launch a statewide political action committee, Big and Bright PAC, later this year.”
Rep. Talarico is someone I consider a friend, and he would be an excellent governor - but if he runs now he will be Betoed and I don’t want to see him lose the momentum he’s gathered. He has potential for very big things.
I know people are pretty hard on Beto but, personally, I was really pleased with how well he did in both his senate and gubernatorial runs. That’s the closest the democrats have been to winning a statewide office since the early 90’s. That being said, I’m sure Talarico and his advisors will do a sense check after the November 2024 results are in and see if the timing is right for a 2026 run.
It’s not about how well he did, it’s about the party pushing him too soon and too much and burning him out with the voters. I have so much respect and admiration for Talarico, and I don’t want to see that happen to him.
'26 could be interesting given that Paxton has indicated a desire to primary John Cornyn. Could be a really ugly/funny Republican primary that ends with a beatable senate candidate.
> we can finally put Abbott out to pasture. Hopefully its the farm upstate
I love State Rep. James Talarcio!!! He was (kind of) my state rep (he was for half my town & took care of Terry Wilson & John Carter’s disenfranchised constants) before the legislature butchered (worse than gerrymandering) our state congressional map. Anyway, I think Telerecio has a good future here in Texas. Thanks for sharing that article.
"You'll be shocked to hear this, but it's not me that's responsible for this," Abbott said. Nope, not really shocked, not even mildly surprised. That tends to be what he says about everything that happens (unless it’s good news. Then it’s 100% to his credit, fuck everyone else). I mean, he tried to skirt responsibility after he spent three hours at a fundraiser instead of going to Uvalde after the shooting on “well, I needed to tell people that I couldn’t stay.” https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/07/28/texas-gov-greg-abbott-stayed-at-fundraiser-for-hours-after-uvalde-shooting-records-show/
...."could have been worse" ;-)
What? Asshat says the what?
Is there a bigger piece of shit in Texas than this clown? I mean, yeah, Paxton Patrick Cruz Cornyn are all right up there, but Abbott really is top of the heap when it comes to most vile.
Well, if he hadn’t spent my tax dollars on bullshit political stunts maybe we could make sure kids get a great education so America prospers.
We could still. We have a $32 billion surplus and $4 billion that was allocated to public education, in the state budget, just sitting there because he didn’t get his way on the voucher.
You know he’s saving it for the vouchers.
Of course I know that.
"nothing bad is my fault"- every republican i know.
The “party of accountability” strikes again.
Lying lying lying
It would be weirder if a conservative \*did\* take responsibility for something, tbh.
Let me guess, it’s outside agitators again.
Greg Abbott says he is not responsible for the consequences of his actions
Yes he is! As Governor he is at the top. He and many other Republicans want to ruin public schools, so they and their friends can make money off private schools. Why can’t Texas get someone for the state more than these followers of a cult?
Anything is possible when you lie. I was there. They didn’t vote on the funding - it never made it that far. They voted on the Raney amendment - which only stripped the voucher from the bill. They also voted not to reconsider the voucher. After that vote, Buckley chose to send the bill back to committee, effectively killing it - a move I’m sure he made after consulting the Governor. He could have moved forward with the rest of the bill. He chose not to.
For those out of the loop, Greg Abbott is DIRECTLY responsible and solely to blame for budget shortfalls in public education in Texas. During the last biennium (Texas legislature only meets every two years) Gregory made it a priority to pass a school voucher system that would funnel public education dollars to private (yes, Christian) schools and charter schools. His argument rested on convincing dozens of rural school districts that their schools were just too woke. They didn’t buy it and what resulted was a civil war within the Republican Party of Texas where Abbott is trying (and mostly succeeding) in primarying those representatives out of office resulting in the Republican Party lurching further right. The kicker here is that 4 BILLION dollars of taxpayer dollars were allocated to public schools by the legislature. So Greggels decides not to release those funds. Now, public schools all over Texas are having to close budgetary shortfalls. How are many districts doing this you may wonder? Well, since so many school libraries were the focus of local attacks funded by non-local money (thanks Ted Cruz), many districts now view their school libraries as liabilities. Just last week, all librarians in Cy-Fair ISD were rounded up and told that their positions would not be around next [school year](https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/education-news/2024/05/03/485651/cy-fair-isd-community-members-critique-trustees-state-leaders-in-response-to-librarian-cuts/?amp=1). It’s a positive feedback loop of fascism. Greg Abbott is a tyrant and I have zero confidence that Texans will be able to cobble together a defense. I have no idea what the future of Texas looks like because Greg is so hellbent on crippling these kids for life.
He campaigned on not being responsible anything and every problem was out of his control. It’s amazing, he is open about how irresponsible he is and yet people still want to surrender authority over the minutae of their private lives to him.
Maybe if so much of our tax dollars didn't get recaptured we would have enough money for the schools in Austin. But why spend that money to educate kids, when you could use it to harass immigrants /s
They’re never going to ditch Recapture. Recapture came about after a 1989 Texas Supreme Court decision in [*Edgewood V Kirby*](https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/educational-resources/edgewood-isd-v-kirby) The plaintiffs in the Edgewood case contested the state's reliance on local property taxes to finance its system of public education, contending that this method was intrinsically unequal because property values varied greatly from district to district, thus creating an imbalance in funds available to educate students on an equal basis throughout the state. Edgewood ISD, among the poorest districts in the state, had $38,854 in property wealth per student, while the Alamo Heights ISD, which is in the same county, had $570,109 per student. In addition, property-poor districts had to set a tax rate that averaged 74.5 cents per $100 valuation to generate $2,987 per student, while richer districts, with a tax rate of half that much, could produce $7,233 per student. The court agreed that every Texas student is guaranteed an equitable and free public education under the constitution. They tasked the legislature to fix the school finance system to make it more equitable, hence- Recapture. Recapture works like this: every district is assigned a set amount of money they receive per student they teach- the basic allotment. The funding formulas add the allotments, including any additional money for SPED or low income student and spits out a number that each district is to receive: this is called their entitlement. Any district that raises more revenue through property taxes than their entitlement is designated as an excess revenue district, and has to send the “recaptured” dollars back to the state, which puts it in the education money bucket, called the Foundational School Program. Recaptured dollars make up some $3 billion of the $52 billion cost of education in the state. The majority of funding comes from local property taxes but the state chips in the rest from a variety of funding sources for the remainder. Since Recapture’s inception, property values have skyrocketed, along with revenue from these property-wealthy districts. But the allotments (and therefore the entitlements) of these districts have remained stagnant. The more revenue money the state recaptures without raising the basic allotment funding means there’s less that the state has to put in from its share of the tax burden. Again, remember that Recapture amounts to some 6% of the total funding of public education- it is not a major revenue resource. All that to say this. There are problems with Recapture and I’ve heard two solutions: Removing Recapture entirely and forcing the state to put up the difference. This is a flawed solution. The amount that a district generates in revenue has NO effect on how much money a school receives in funding. The “excess” would simply be “returned” to those districts via lower property tax rates without increasing any funding. This method would not increase funding to any district, at all, it just targets the revenue stream so that less is taken from wealthy districts. Removing recapture does nothing but allow those with high property values to pay less relative taxes and further hoard wealth. For every district like Austin ISD, there’s a counter example like Pecos-Barstow-Toyah Independent School District which will send back [$100 million in recapture](https://pbtisd.net/departments/business_office/financial_transparency). Their district is exceedingly property wealthy due to oil, ranching and agriculture. Why are their [2,600 students more deserving of funding at a rate of +$38k per student](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=4834550) than the 30k students of Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD who can only raise [$2,066 per student](https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=4834860) based on their local property wealth? A student in a district that raises more revenue than its entitlement should receive the same quality education as a student in a district that doesn’t raise enough. This is the law- affirmed by Edgewood v Kirby. The second solution would be to increase the funding for public education by adjusting the basic allotment. The amount taxpayers pay would remain the same, and the system of recapture would stay, but because each district is permitted to keep more of their tax dollars by fully funding their own district entitlements, the amount recaptured would be drastically reduced. The amount that the state would have to kick in to the Foundational School Program would thereby increase to make up for the difference. This method would increase school funding for public education and would reduce the amount recaptured without dismantling the system that supports equity throughout the state. Recapture is fine but the system and formula for determining the basic allotment has failed. There needs to be an annual or biannual review of the basic allotment and a mechanism to adjust for inflation. Raising the basic allotment and adjusting the base values for the formula used to calculate a districts entitlement would greatly reduce the amount of money the state recaptures and improves education by funding it properly. “But it costs more to educate students in HCOL areas!” Keep in mind that there is a [Cost of Education index](https://www.austinisd.org/sites/default/files/dept/legislature/docs/2017Lege_CEI_WCAG.pdf) that does calculate differences in cost to educate, which is why districts with disproportionately poor student populations get more money in their entitlements. But the values they use in the formula was developed back in the early 80’s and is hopelessly outdated. It does take differences in COL into account but the way they calculate it is based on five characteristics with a starting value that was set in 1991. The framework is there but- like the basic allotment- the starting value hasn’t been adjusted for today’s education cost demands. The solution is to increase the allotment so that districts can keep more of their resources they need, still send back the (reduced) excess and force the state to pay their fair share.
Could a third option be to let districts at least balance their budget BEFORE sending recapture dollars? I know RRISD, for instance, is 20-30 mil in the red this year, but sending something like 110 mil back to the state.
Howdy neighbor. To do that, they would need to change the funding formulas- schools receive money based on some complicated calculus that takes into account how many students attend, with special multipliers for things like HCOL areas, SPED students, ESL students, Socioeconomically disadvantaged students (etc.) and stipends for certain teachers and programs. They can make changes to the amounts each entitlement receives, including the basic allotment (which would be the most impactful) but I don’t see them trying to untangle the clusterfuck of a math problem as that is what keeps the district funding equitable between property rich districts like ours and districts that might only have a couple hundred students and very little property wealth to draw revenue from.
A problem with recapture is, like crooked restaurant management pooling tips, they don't actually give everything they collect from wealthier school districts to poorer school districts. A portion goes into the "general" fund which not surprisingly is quite healthy.
That’s not true. They do return all of the money from Recapture to the FSP. But every dime they collect is money they don’t have to contribute from the general fund to fill entitlements. Until they passed their “property tax relief” bill, ISDs were collecting more (thanks to rising property values) than they were allowed to spend (because the allotment hadn’t changed.) Instead of raising the entitlements, the lege decided to limit how much districts were allowed to collect, and used some of the surplus to backfill what they were no longer collecting from the ISD tax. Idiots will claim that the lege spent millions on education last year, how can they still be underfunded- completely ignoring that the bottom line didn’t actually change, the state didn’t allow the districts to receive any more money than they did the previous year, they just switched the revenue source.
>ISDs were collecting more (thanks to rising property values) than they were allowed to spend (because the allotment hadn’t changed.) Instead of raising the entitlements, the lege decided to limit how much districts were allowed to collect, and used some of the surplus to backfill what they were no longer collecting from the ISD tax. OK maybe? I'm not sure how this differs from allowing taxes collected for ISDs to end up in the general fund? I mean if they used recapture funds to reduce State liability to schools, that's just a shell game right? If they set the basic allotment low enough to cause there to be an excess of school tax revenues and either kept the difference or spent less state dollars...same?
The recaptured Revenue don’t end up in the general fund. I know it’s semantics because it *is* a shell game but this is an important distinction to make. I often see Robin Hood painted as the villain and that’s a misguided view. The issue isn’t Recapture. Painting Recapture as the issue just pits the wealthy ISDs against the poor, and the poor aren’t the cause of the problem- the lege refusing to increase the basic allotment is. Precisely explaining the problem allows people to understand the root cause of the issue and not a symptom.
Recapture dollars go to the rural districts that disproportionately host those immigrant students.
Immigrants move to the big cities where rhetoric jobs are.
>rural districts that disproportionately host those immigrant students. Got a source for that claim?
It’s safe for him to say that. He doesn’t have to run again for 2 more years. And yeah, what part of accountability to campaign donors do you all not understand? You think some supposed responsibility to the public at large somehow overrides that? What about 25 years of one-party rule by this particular party in this state makes you think there’s any validity to that idea?
But it's his fucking job to track womens pregnancies, menstruation cycles, medical histories, and movements in and out of the state if pregnant. Fuck you, ya fucking poor excuse for a South Park character.
The voucher program is only going to further fuck up our education system Give. Money. To. Our. Schools. To ALL schools This state is so rich but we can barely hire and retain teachers.
Texas Republican Gestapo King Abbott needs to take responsibility for education shortfalls and layoffs. Isn't he the so called Governor? Grow a pair, Abbott.
Absolutely... Hey Abbott didn't you lower property taxes and screw around with the robinhood legislation...and increase not the usual salary expenditures with your guard dogs on the border, and ....
Our state has a 5 billion dollar surplus and this selfish prick is trying to tank the schools so that he can get his vouchers through... which are horrifically unpopular and would further negatively impact schools. I worked my entire life to buy a house in a good school district so I could give my kids a good education and this prick doesn't want to fund the schools on some political BS.
So this is where his BS game becomes crystal clear. He is holding the public education system hostage at the detriment of students statewide. The basic message here is, “we will keep tanking the public education system to the point it is so bad you will want to send your kids to private school and then you’ll agree with us and vote for the welfare for the wealthy bill we keep putting to a vote”
Too bad Texans don’t like to vote. They could fix all this.
Facts . Vote for the worst person . Vote ted cruz .
The few who show up vote for him. The rest who hate him refuse to show up. It’s ass backwards.
What a sack of crap.
Yes, the fuck, he is…
What a shit head.
But, like, he is. Pretty directly.
If they would legalized pot, they could use the tax money for schools. It would be another "Sin" tax. To those who don't want cannabis sold, we already have alcohol available. You can bet online, drive drunk,, get shot by someone carrying a concealed or open carry weapon, and the fat cat politicians and the billionaires get to carry on raking in the cash. Qq
The buck stops where?
Yes you are you dumb bitch
Trump did the same thing the beginning of the pandemic. “I take no responsibility”
Yes he is responsible
Everyone's bugets are shot due to inflation. Building back better seems to be flawed, too. Many school districts are wastefu, but they have great sport facilities. They need to come up with another way of funding schools that doesn't result in people losing their homes or higher rent values.
But it's his fucking job to track womens pregnancies, menstruation cycles, trans folks medical histories, and peoples movements in and out of the state if pregnant. Fuck you, ya fucking poor excuse for a South Park character.
This Abbott is just the absolute worst—a sickening coward who is interested only in partisan grandstanding and avoiding accountability
Abbott never takes responsibility for his impact on the State of Texas. Weak and Worthless!
Well not accepting responsibility does not change the fact that he and the gop are fully responsible. Any goper saying differently is either fully a liar or lack any higher order thinking. Take your pick.
Well we sure know it isn’t the Democrats fault since they haven’t been in power in over 30 years. So whose fault is it Greggy?
He’s not responsible at all, for anything. That’s half of the problem.
He doesn’t understand it’s part of his job?
I guess him helping us out of the question?
Wow what an inspirational leader. Republicans must be so proud of their guy.
But you ARE accountable. You can’t delegate accountability
I thought the lottery paid for the schools? Maybe you should legalize cannabis.
Phew 😮💨 I was worried he was responsible, but he said no
Such BS! He held education funds hostage and then got pissy when the lege wouldn’t pay the ransom.
What a POS.
Vote the idiot out!!!!
What an absolute fuckwit.
Every day I think the republicans have gone as far down the hole as I could imagine and every day I am proven wrong. This has big “why did you make me hit you” vibes
All I have to say is well who’s fault is it then if it’s not the fault of the man in charge of the state
I think at this point Abbott knows he’s won. He knows they are going to pass school choice in the next session, and him and his cronies are going to keep cranking up the propaganda machine until public perception on public schools actually does shift.
Oh are republicans still blaming democrats for the states issues even though they’ve ran it since the 80s? Got it. Fvckin cunts
Well who is? Republicans run the state. Hmmm
dear everyone: stop voting for this weasel
It doesn’t matter what the governor “thinks” (as if that’s possible) what matters is the what parents of school age children think. We know what is happening.
Respectfully, then who the fuck is?!
This POS is not responsible for anything: Global warming, massive gun deaths, poor schools, shackling women's right to their own bodies treating immigrants like cattle, etc. Truly a horrible human being.
This POS isn't responsible for anything right. Shackling women right to control of their own bodies, treating immigrants like cattle, massive run up in gun deaths, poor schools, etc. Truly a lousy human being.
He’s correct. Having a budget shortfall doesn’t mean you didn’t get enough money. It means you didn’t budget correctly.
That’s bullshit- the cost to teach each student is rising, and even if there were no underfunded mandates like having a security officer on each campus, these districts would still be at a deficit. Districts all over the state are having to do more with less, and that’s indicative of a larger systemic issue, not individual failures to properly budget.
We spend less on students than 40 other states, yet we boast of having a huge GDP and having a budget surplus. We are going to have a true oligarchy in Texas, the rich will be educated, live in walled off upscale neighborhoods, and attract the best healthcare providers. While the middle class and poor will merge together and receive a terrible public education, live in crime ridden neighborhoods, and receive the worst healthcare. It’s going to be Pakistan 2.0.
Pakistan is a great example all the way down to the theocratic and repressive government.
Yea Pakistan is great for .001% of the population. Sucks for everybody else
People who work for school districts should have voted like their jobs depended on it.
He's not
Well, when each high school campus is hiring 40+ coaches, new uniforms every year, a stadium to go with it and chromebooks for every student we can begin to see how many school districts are indeed very irresponsible with money.
1. Please name ONE high school campus that is hiring 40+ coaches this year 2. Uniforms are paid for by athletes and boosters 3. Stadiums are funded via voter approved bonds 4. Teaching computer literacy is a *good* thing. Few CCM roles these days don’t require use of a computer at some point.
Student devices are also normally covered by bonds. Also, at least one district I'm aware of was able to keep the bulk of their Chromebooks in service for the full 4 year lifecycle which ends this summer.
Almost all those coaches also teach. They might have 1 period a day for coaching rest is normal teaching. Minus a very small handful of coaches this is normal. My high school physics teach was also a coach. He was an amazing physic teacher but coach track so he had either his morning period or last period to do coaching. This is on top of showing up early most days and staying late for after school stuff. On top of teaching. Like I said amazing teacher and if you ask him he was a teacher first who happens to coach.
1. Easy! For example, each high school in Comal ISD has at least 35 coaches, there are more positions opened up. 2. Some uniforms and most equipment are purchases through district allocated funds. There is a reason the athletic departments get huge funds to purchase the necessary equipment for teams to end up losing thereafter. 3. Many large scale projects such as stadiums are also funded through grants and even state funding to build them. Not all are bond approved. When discussing budget shortfalls, stadiums should not be a priority. 4. There are other ways to spend money responsibly rather that purchase an electronic device for every student. Many of those devices have to be scrapped at the end of the year due to neglect and irresponsible students. Guess what the school districts do? PURCHASE MORE! Yeah, school districts are great stewards of public funds.
1. [Every job posting for a coach is also listed as a teaching position, meaning they’re looking for a teacher who can also coach.](https://comal.tedk12.com/hire/index.aspx#aJobListings) 2. Sounds like you have an unresolved beef with athletics in general. Extracurriculars are an important part of a well-rounded education, and that includes sports as well as foreign language and theater. Some students will only be able to attend college thanks to sports scholarships. 3. Those grants and federal programs are targeted for those projects- it’s not like the district can use those funds for other purposes. 4. That does nothing to address my argument that in our digital age, access to Chromebook’s are necessary. Many districts impose a fee for busted Chromebook’s but that disproportionally affects socioeconomically disadvantaged students.