Here We Go Again

Parents and school officials are questioning whether the Texas Education Agency is working with Greg Abbott to undermine public schools. https://t.co/i5TlnTKleY

— Austin Chronicle (@AustinChronicle) August 3, 2023

The Tl;dr here is that the Texas Education Agency:

an agency created to support public education – is working with Gov. Greg Abbott to undermine public schools. They suspect TEA is manufacturing evidence to help Abbott claim that Texas' public schools are failing, so he can push vouchers in an upcoming legislative session. 

(That will be a special session, after Paxton's impeachment trial.  Abbott is hell-bent on getting school vouchers?  Why?  Follow the money....but that's another conversation.)

Basically, Texas has a "ratings system," where TEA uses criteria to establish A-F ratings.  But now the TEA Commissioner (an Abbot appointee) is changing the system, which will result in more "F" ratings, and provide an excuse for school vouchers to save our students from failing public schools.

A public school system the state is constitutionally (state constitution) required to provide.

This same ratings system has already been used to force the takeover of Houston ISD, the largest independent school district in the state.  And believe me, that's going gangbusters.  Now Abbott wants ammunition for his special session on vouchers (it took him two to get his property tax relief passed).  Ironically, that measure will have to be approved by voters in November, which may be when the next session is set in Austin.

Abbott faces a problem, though.  The "failing schools" are in urban areas.  The opposition to vouchers is mostly from the rural areas, where public schools are a major employer (as they were a few generations back when Houston was smaller and poorer, where I now live) and a major source of civic pride.  There also aren't any private school alternatives, and most people don't want them.  A former Superintendent of the local school district left here after only a few years (parochialism, ironically) and went to West Texas, meaning to stay there only a few years.  But the ISD knew they needed help, and they followed his counsel, and now he's been there 9 years and probably won't leave anytime soon.

Abbott can condemn urban schools all he wants (and it doesn't help those schools a bit).  But he's not gonna get his voucher program this way, either.

He is, however, hell-bent on proving he doesn't support public education.  Maybe that message will finally get through.

Yeah, probably not....