State Education Commissioner Mike Morath was flippant to the point of being disrespectful when, in an appearance before the State Board of Education, he blamed school districts for the rising number of uncertified teachers entering the profession. Morath claimed that districts had given up on hiring certified teachers and had moved to “hiring people off the street…It’s as if district leaders say, ‘You have a heartbeat. Come o in.’” Not only is Morath a bad comedian, if that is what he was trying to be, he also is a bad education commissioner. To him, student scores on STAAR tests are the essen ..read more

School voucher advocates are already proclaiming victory when the new Texas Legislature meets next year, and with six anti-voucher Republican House members unseated in last week’s primary and four others headed to a runoff, it is clear the fight against vouchers – although not over — has become more difficult. What is not so clear is whether vouchers had much to do with the election results. It seems more likely many anti-voucher voters were misled by millions of dollars’ worth of lies. Gov. Greg Abbott and his school privatization allies mounted aggressive campaigns against the Republicans wh ..read more

A Texas newspaper recently published an editorial acknowledging that Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick should “draw most of the fire” for failing to increase public education funding last year, leaving school districts with serious budgetary problems, including deficits and layoffs. But the editorial said educators also were partly to blame for “refusing to budge over a modest school voucher pilot program.” The reference, of course, was to the public education community’s unwavering opposition to spending tax dollars on private school vouchers, even though Abbott had vowed not to incre ..read more

To no one’s surprise, Gov. Greg Abbott and the pro-voucher crowd are spreading lies in their multimillion-dollar campaign to unseat Republican members of the Texas House who joined with Democrats to kill Abbott’s voucher initiative last fall. Their assault in Republican primary races around the state include TV ads and similar attacks falsely accusing the anti-voucher lawmakers of killing a bill that would have increased public school funding and paid for teacher pay raises. They didn’t kill that bill. They simply voted to successfully remove a voucher program from it. The person who really ki ..read more

If anyone ever tells you that Gov. Abbott cares a whit about the school children of Texas, try not to laugh. Or cry. Or question their intelligence. Just consider them uninformed, misinformed or simply in a state of denial. It’s bad enough that Abbott is now campaigning against a group of Texas House members from his own party for trying to protect their public schools, something their constituents sent them to Austin to do. In a fit of political pique, the governor also intentionally left public school districts woefully underfunded, and the problem will worsen. As you probably know, the Hous ..read more

Jeff Yass, the wealthiest person in Pennsylvania and Gov. Greg Abbott’s $6 million man, has a passion for private school vouchers. That reportedly is the main reason he has spent millions of dollars in political contributions to candidates and officeholders, both in his home state and beyond, including the seven-figure donation that Abbott’s camp is calling the largest in Texas history. He obviously expects Abbott to use the $6 million to boost the governor’s campaign to unseat pro-public education House members who voted against vouchers last year. The co-founder of an investment firm whose p ..read more

Underfunding public education is not the only way the people we call “state leaders” in Texas persistently harm thousands of children and jeopardize their futures. Another way is denying low-income children the health care they need not only for healthy lives but also for success in school. For years, Texas has had the disgraceful distinction of being the national leader among the states in the percentage of residents without health insurance. Many of those people are children, many of school age. More than 60 percent of the students in Texas public schools are from low-income families and sho ..read more

After one regular session, four special sessions and a record $33 billion budget surplus with which to spend on under-funded state needs such as public education and health care, this year has produced one of the biggest legislative failures in recent memory. And without question, practically all the blame belongs to Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who put their political lust for private school vouchers, property tax relief and the con game they call “border security” above all else—including school children, schoolteachers and millions of families struggling without health insuran ..read more

After lying for a year or more about the public benefits of spending tax dollars on vouchers for private schools, Gov. Abbott continued the practice after the Texas House delivered a firm 84-63 vote against his top legislative priority. In a statement published in the Austin American-Statesman, Abbott said the “vast majority” of Texans support vouchers. Wrong. I don’t care how many “pro-voucher” polls Abbott and his school privatization allies want to claim, the simply reality is this: If the vast majority of Texans supported the idea of giving away billions of their tax dollars to unregulated ..read more

The Texas Tribune recently reported a Texas legislator promoting vouchers as a way the state could give taxpayers their money back if they move their children from public to private school. “I had a superintendent yesterday tell me, ‘How can you support public dollars going into private schools?’ And I said, ‘I just don’t agree with the premise of your question because it is parents’ dollars to begin with,’” the lawmaker said. Other voucher advocates are making similar arguments, denying the reality that taking tax dollars to benefit private schools will damage public education. They deny or d ..read more