The Texas State Board of Education, dominated by religious conservatives, approved the new Social Studies TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) yesterday by a 9 – 5 vote. Kuff has a great wrap-up, The clown show finally calls it a wrap.
First from blogs and media:
Anyway, here’s your wrapup from the Day Two festivities, which carried over a few minutes past midnight and into Day Three, from the Trib, TFN, and Abby Rapoport. And here’s your Day Three liveblogging and other reports, from TFN, the Trib, TFN again, theTribagain, Abby Rapoport, and Steven Schafersman. Mainstream media coverage is here, here, and here. Burka and Stace also weigh in, and of course Martha was working it on Twitter. May those who had to endure all this get a nice long vacation to recover their sanity.
Next from those who can change this next year if elected in November:
I have several statements, from the Texas Freedom Network, Bill White, State Rep. Mike Villarreal, and Fort Bend County Democratic Party Chair Stephen Brown, about this travesty beneath the fold. Texas Politics has a reaction from US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who echoes former Bush Education Secretary Rod Paige. The only thing we can do about this is elect some better SBOE members. Three such candidates running this year are Judy Jennings, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, and Michael Soto.
TFN has this post on where we go from here, The Next Steps.
Moments ago the State Board of Education cast the final vote on new social studies standards, ending more than a year of political wrangling that invited derision and scorn from the entire educational world. I’m not going to take you through the litany of problems with this curriculum. You can read about those on our blog or in the hundreds of news stories that will appear in the media tomorrow. All of these issues, as serious as they are, are really symptoms of the larger problem — allowing politicians with personal agendas to write our children’s curriculum, rather than teachers and scholars.
That’s why today’s vote is not the end of this fight. It’s the beginning.
For 15 years, all of us at TFN have been committed to safeguarding our children’s education from political ideology. And we’re not about to let up now.
Our ultimate goal is nothing less than fundamental change at the State Board of Education. Parents, business leaders and concerned citizens across Texas must join together in our Just Educate campaign to send a clear message to politicians: stop dragging our children’s schools into the “culture wars.” That’s why TFN is mounting our largest grassroots mobilization effort in the history of the organization. And we are counting on you to take part.
In May 2009, the 10 occupations with the highest employment levels represented more than 20 percent of total employment, and the number of workers in these occupations ranged from 1.9 million workers to 4.2 million workers.
Most of these occupations were relatively low paying: 9 of the 10 largest occupations had median wages between $8.28 per hour and $14.56 per hour. Median wages for all occupations in the United States were $15.95 per hour in May 2009. The one exception among the 10 largest occupations was registered nurses, whose median wages were $30.65 per hour. Employment among registered nurses was 2.6 million in May 2009.
This comes from a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment And Wages –May 2009 [PDF], released last Friday. Unfortunately it looks like these types of low paying jobs will continue to be most prevalent in the future.
As the economy recovers and Americans get back to work, the wage gap between white- and blue-collar work is expected to grow. According to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 60 million people—46 percent of the American workforce—in 2009 worked in the service sector as cashiers, office clerks, cooks, nurses, retail salespeople, or customer-service representatives.
Here’s a common story for those who had to change jobs in the last decade. From a Newsweek article back in December 2009, The New Working Reality.
By the time Kelley Krostoski was laid off from her job as a management consultant this past February, she assumed that she’d be able to find another position closer to her Oregon home, perhaps even something that would not require her to travel.
Ten months later, her initial optimism has given way to resignation. She landed another gig in September as a consultant that required her to take an 11 percent wage cut. She still travels up to three months a year, though that’s better than the six months a year spent on the road at her previous job. Overall, Krostoski says she’s relieved. “There aren’t many jobs in Oregon,” she says, noting the state’s 11.3 percent unemployment rate. “I [know] folks who have been looking for a job for a year or more.”
In the current economy, many Americans have had to lower their expectations for their career and work lives. Like Krostoski, they’ve taken pay cuts to secure new jobs. They’ve postponed retirement to help struggling family members, and millions of Americans remain underemployed, working part-time or low-wage jobs to pay the bills. “There’s a reluctance to settle,” says Andrew Gledhill, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com. “In these once-in-a-generation types of recessions, you don’t have a choice.”
The story of someone losing a job, and having to replace it with one with a lower salary, has become all too familiar since the turn of the century. While there are many reasons for this one is certainly the fact that workers don’t have the education they need. Today the Texas Association of Business (TAB), whose main goal is to keep taxes low on businesses and corporations in Texas, released a new report.
The Texas Association of Business (TAB) today released a report entitled Dream Big Texas: Educating a Globally Competitive Workforce, detailing the improvements needed to maintain our state’s status as an international economic powerhouse.
“The Texas economy has been the beneficiary of extraordinary natural resources, fiscally conservative leadership and hardworking men and women who form the core of our workforce,” said TAB President Bill Hammond. “Yet for all our progress in building the best business climate in America, the threat Texas faces if we do not produce well-educated graduates who can fill increasingly sophisticated jobs, puts all that at risk.
While TAB is correct about the need for a well-educated workforce, they don’t mention the inherent dichotomy in what they state. The reason Texas has the “best business climate in America” – if that’s possible without a well-educated workforce – is because that climate is created by sustenance taxation of the wealthy, big business, and corporations which have starved education in this state. Ironic isn’t it? TAB also doesn’t offer much in the way of a solution other than using some sort of a performance based funding mechanism for funding post-secondary education.
With the decline of well-paying union manufacturing jobs in this country, it looks like these kinds of low-paying service jobs are what’s likely to take their place and become the norm. Unless we begin to take education seriously and are willing to pay for it. A well-educated population is the best investment for future economic development there is, and we must be willing to give it the necessary funding. The money will be paid back and then some by future economic growth.
The title of this post is a classic quote from Winston Churchill and unfortunately what will likely happen tomorrow when the State Board of Eduction (SBOE) meets. The quote leads us to believe that we all have a different view of history. Some think Vietnam was a war that never should have been fought and was doomed from the beginning. Others think it wasn’t fought right, or to win, and that is the reason the Untied States was not victorious. Be that as it may, the current way the SBOE is going about changing history, shall we say, is not only turning Texas into a laughing stock, but it’s wrong.
The conservatives on the SBOE are currently the victors and they are trying to implement their version of history on public school children in Texas. What will likely occur tomorrow has been decades in the making by the conservatives in Texas, and payback, Texas curriculum fight was orchestrated over more than a decade.
The State Board of Education members have heard the constant drumbeat of criticism from lawmakers, academics and others over the proposed changes to the state’s social studies curriculum standards.
But many of them probably won’t listen.
The new standards, which are set for final adoption this week, are the final piece of a puzzle that reshapes Texas’ public school curriculum to reflect the conservative board members’ worldview.
Starting more than three years ago, the conservatives first pushed for “computational math” and phonics over “fuzzy math” and “whole language.” They then tackled evolution.
Now the aim is to rewrite a historical narrative that they perceive as hostile toward America, religion and capitalism.
Central to those contentious fights has been a willingness to challenge — rightly or wrongly — the predominant orthodoxy held by most teachers and academics.
So 1,200 college historians, for instance, can fume that the social studies standards are distorting history and be dismissed as mere noise.
The conservatives see no reason to delay or compromise, particularly because their time in control could expire at the end of the year when two of their leaders, Cynthia Dunbar , R-Richmond, and Don McLeroy , R-Bryan, leave the board.
Dunbar did not seek re-election, and McLeroy was defeated in the March primary.
The seeds of the current discord at the State Board of Education were sown in 1997 when the conservative minority was shut out of the final debate over new curriculum standards.
Unlike today’s curriculum critics, the conservatives and their allies didn’t march in protest or hold news conferences to disparage the majority, said David Bradley , R-Beaumont, a board member since 1996 .
“We just went out and won some elections,” Bradley said.
Tired of seeing far-right extremists on the State Board of Education censor and whitewash what public schools teach Texas kids? You can help us do something about it this week.
Join concerned parents, educators, businesspeople and other Texans at the “Don’t White-Out Our History” rally at 1 p.m., Wednesday, May 19, in front of the Texas Education Agency. The TEA building is located at 17th and Congress just north of the Capitol in Austin.
One thing yesterday’s Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) hearing on the Texas State Borad of Education (SBOE) highlighted was, why the SBOE has been able to get away with mangling science and now social studies/history curriculum for Texas public schools. For the most part they’ve been able to operate below the radar and not held accountable for their actions. That changed yesterday when state Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer (D-San Antonio) held a hearing.
The first thing that came to light, even before the hearing started, was that the head of the SBOE didn’t want to show up, SBOE Chairwoman Gail Lowe Ducks Texas Lawmakers. Would Lowe have been subject to tough questioning? If having to come before legislators to defend the board’s recent actions is tough questioning, then the answer is yes. But to the average Texans it doesn’t seem like too much to ask for a governor’s appointee to show up, when asked, by elected leaders.
Rick Perry appointee and Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott described the process involving the curriculum changes under consideration by the SBOE as “payback” while testifying at a hearing at the Texas State Capitol.
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The first person to testify during the hearing was Robert Scott, Texas Education Commissioner. During his testimony, questions were raised about the curriculum process and why certain decisions were made. Scott responded to the questions by justifying the SBOE’s controversial changes as “payback.“
I transcribed the key part from his testimony — video archive will be available after the hearing:
“One of the things, I think, that has been a problem in all of our deliberations regarding – whether it’s education or anything else – is that when you push out a particular group, and say we don’t care about you, when you push out, regardless of who that is, over time that creates a problem. And when the pendulum swings back, you know, there’s – whether you call it payback or a shifting in the alignment – I think that we need to be mindful as we deliberate to try to prevent the pushing out of any group, regardless of who they are. And that’s what I think this process needs to be about.”
Scott’s remarks are disgusting. Unequivocally disgusting.
Bill White’s campaign for Texas governor looks to be doing really well since the primary. And I’m not just talking about yesterday’s poll numbers, Texas Governor: Perry 48%, White 44%.
Any incumbent who earns less than 50% support at this stage of a campaign is considered potentially vulnerable.
We already knew Perry was vulnerable after the GOP primary in Texas since he barely eked out over 50% of the vote of his own party faithful. But in keeping up with White’s blog on his web site he’s been busy going all over the state and he’s appearing on local radio as he goes – listen here and here. The more he’s known the better he’ll do.
But White thus far has been hammering Perry on this failings, and neglect, of education in Texas, via the Texas Tribune today.
As Bill White continues to drill Gov. Rick Perry over the state’s education record, poll numbers show he’s gaining some traction against the decade-long incumbent.
While White stumped in San Antonio yesterday, he pointed to Perry’s lack of support for the University of Texas at San Antonio in its ambitions to become a Tier One research university and said the governor had not done enough to support higher education in the state. He also tweaked the governor for declining to apply to Race to the Top, the federal education grant program.
The remarks in San Antonio come after a San Marcos event on Friday, where White took aim at the State Board of Education in front of a group of several hundred teachers, asking “Wouldn’t it be great to have a governor who appointed a State Board of Education chair who understood that you ought to leave the curriculum to professionals?”
As Kuff points out, while the poll is good news, there’s still a long way to go.
That’s a nice result, but I wouldn’t make too much of a two point shift. It’s more likely float in the margin of error than anything else. Give me a bigger shift next month, or two more months of little moves like this, and then we can talk. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, but it could easily be 49-43 next month without meaning anything much, too.
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This is no doubt due to his consolidating Democratic and Dem-leaning independent support as he’s become better known. Perry’s numbers, on the other hand, have been flat. That’s not unexpected for a universally-known incumbent, but it suggests he may be at a ceiling. That ceiling is pretty close to 50%, however, and at least in Rasmussen’s world there are precious few undecided voters, so the path forward for each candidate is to take voters away from the other guy, which is another way of saying this will be a negative campaign. Which I’m sure you already knew.
One issue that has hurt Perry in recent months has been his record on the economy. Though Perry loves touting Texas as the leader in the country on the economy, the fact is he’s using metrics that mean relatively little to most people. There are very real reasons to challenge Rick Perry’s economic record in Texas, including:
The property tax swap Perry passed in ’06 created a permanent structural deficit in our state budget, which is contributing to an expected $11-$15 billion shortfall going into the 2011 Legislative Session.
Governor Perry also got called out on a falsehood from his recent interview with Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune by Politifact Texas. In it he said, “We had a press conference here that interestingly no one in the mainstream media covered.” Well they did. He also showed himself to be a political hack in the interview when asked about former President Bush.
What Bill White can do that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Debra Medina were unable to do, is to consolidate the 61% of the vote that voted against Perry in 2006 to enable him to get over 50% in November. By being able to point out Perry’s failings, which are many, across the political spectrum, White definitely has a chance against a vulnerable incumbent, of which many Texans have grown weary.
Although Democratic candidate for Texas Governor Bill White pointed this out last week, White challenges Perry: What’s happening to Texas students?, the Texas traditional media has finally decided to call out Gov. Perry, Whopper is too big to let pass. Although the title and the first couple of paragraphs on the rationalization for not calling out lies by politicians is enlightening, to say the least. (I’d like to see there “whopper” calculating metric, or how they decide which lies are “big enough” to point out.)
Politicians running for re-election are generally afforded some leeway on accuracy. [Emphasis added].
After all, similar to drinking while driving, speaking while stumping has been associated with any number of side-effects, from impaired judgment to short-term memory loss to feelings of grandiosity.
Campaign rhetoric is usually judged in this context. But, occasionally, the whopper spewed from the candidate’s lips, or those of a spokesman, is so big, it can’t be ignored. And it might be dangerous to do so.
Such was the case last week with Gov. Rick Perry and his spokesman, who claimed, despite voluminous evidence to the contrary, that Texas’ dropout problem isn’t that big of a deal.
In the face of years of research showing the rate upwards of 30 percent, and as high as 50 percent in some large urban districts, Perry’s camp insisted it was only about 10 percent.
“The percent of students who enter high school and eventually earn a diploma or equivalent, or who remain in pursuit of a diploma or equivalent, is 90 percent,” Perry spokesman Mark Miner told the Chronicle’s Gary Scharrer.
The number prompted laughter from a few, including Republican state Rep. Rob Eissler, chair of the House public education committee.
“Yeah. That’s not what I base my stuff on,” said The Woodlands lawmaker, who believes the figure is about 30 percent. “You’ve got to categorize that as a bit campaign rhetoric. If our dropout rate were just 10 percent, I’d be feeling a lot better.”
The governor, meanwhile, seemed to blame at least part of Texas’ embarrassing dropout statistics on untimely student deaths: “If a child dies, they count that as a dropout. I think that’s a little harsh,” Perry said.
Actually, according to the most recent Texas Education Agency figures, the number of deceased students reported in the 2006-2007 school year was 601, a tiny fraction of the more than 134,000 students who walked out of Texas high schools that year without a diploma.
[...]
Last week, Perry and his spokesman were responding to Democratic gubernatorial opponent Bill White’s claim that nearly 1 million Texas students have failed to graduate or get a GED on time during the past nine years.
The former Houston mayor may actually have undercounted the number of dropouts. According to Texas’ foremost authority on dropouts, the non-profit San Antonio-based Intercultural Development Research Association, more than 1.2 million students have been lost to attrition in Texas since 2000.
The total number lost since 1985, the year the state hired IDRA to study the magnitude of the problem, is more than 2.9 million.
The organization generally calculates that Texas public schools fail to graduate one out of every three students, with the percentage inching up to 40 percent for black and Hispanic students.
These numbers shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention. They’re in line with what a diverse array of groups, from Education Week’s Research Center to the Manhattan Institute to the Libertarian-leaning Foundation for Educational Choice (formerly, the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation) have found.
It’s never too late to start and this is a great start in pointing out a huge attempt by Perry to cover-up his neglect of public education.
Gov. Rick Perry has always publicly stiff-armed federal stimulus dollars, even as he accepted billions to balance the state budget and tens of millions that he could award to constituents.
He even ignored state law and his own executive order that require all state agencies and institutions of higher education to be “accountable and transparent” by posting their stimulus spending reports on their Web sites.
Until Tuesday, that is.
After a reporter’s inquiry, the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division began posting reports, some of them months old, on its Web site. Perry’s spokeswoman, Katherine Cesinger, would not elaborate on why the governor chose not to follow the law that he expected other state officials to follow.
State Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco , who leads the House committee overseeing federal stimulus programs in Texas, said Tuesday that he isn’t surprised by the governor’s actions.
“Unfortunately, it’s a pattern of the governor publicly distancing himself from the federal stimulus while accepting the majority of the money,” Dunnam said. “They took $16 billion, and most Texans think they haven’t taken any of it.”
The GOP used the federal stimulus to balance the budget last session, most Texans need to know that as well.
State Rep. Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio) does a great job of explaining what the benefit to Texas will be from the recently passed health care bill, Texans Win With Health Care Reform. (Tip to Kuff).
I will no longer receive phone calls from desperate parents who can’t find an insurance company that will cover their kid’s pre-existing asthma, leukemia or other condition. I won’t have neighbors nervously knocking on my office door, explaining their insurance company dropped them just when they needed it most. Both of these practices will be prohibited starting this year.
Many of my constituents in their early 20s are juggling work and school and praying they don’t get sick or hurt. When they do get sick, they’re often more worried about the bills than their health, and too often they let their illnesses linger before getting help. When they finally go to the ER, you and I pay for it through our taxes. But now, starting this year, they can remain on their parents’ insurance.
Also this year, small businesses in my community will receive tax credits to make employee coverage more affordable. Insurance companies will no longer limit annual benefits. They will face greater oversight when they consider raising your premiums. By January, nearly three million seniors in Texas will have access to free preventive care.
Beyond this next year, many of the six million uninsured Texans will have health insurance, improving their health and financial stability, and saving all of us money. Middle class and low-income Texans who don’t have insurance through their jobs may receive subsidies on a sliding scale based on their income. For example, a family of four making less than $88,000 would be eligible for assistance. Low-income individuals will now be eligible for Medicaid. If you want to know what’s in health care reform for you, take a look at this interactive tool from the Washington Post.
The new law will also help rein in the frightening long-term budget deficits that rising health care and entitlement costs will produce. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the official non-partisan arbiter trusted by both parties, health care reform will reduce the deficit by a $138 billion over the next decade. It’s a good deal for our state budget, as well. The federal government will cover all of the new Medicaid costs the first few years. Starting in 2020, Texas will receive nine federal dollars for every dollar we put in.
Why is it, after eight (or more) years of Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, Greg Abbott, and (mostly) Speaker Craddick, that we had so many uninsured Texans? We know what these guys have done to take insurance away from many Texans. What have they done to provide it? When they say “we don’t want this”, how many of those six million are they speaking for? When they say “we can do a better job of it on our own”, why haven’t they done it? Never mind what they say they want to do next year when the Lege is in session. Why haven’t they already done it in all of the legislative sessions we’ve had since they were put in charge? Maybe the reason they’re so mad about what the federal government has done is because it has put their own lack of accomplishment in such stark relief. Why didn’t they do more – hell, why didn’t they do anything – to help these people? Their failure speaks for itself.
Yes our GOP leaders in Texas have done nothing to help the uninsured for years. And now that something is being done all they can do is complain about that. What a sad bunch they are.
I would also encourage everyone to watch a press conference, (it’s only about 20 minutes), held yesterday by Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso), Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Houston), and Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston). It’ can be seen at this here, ( [March 31] Press Conference: Senator Shapliegh – Regarding Federal healthcare reform legislation and subsequent litigation). In it they stress that Texans benefits the most of any state from national health reform.
Also in it Sen. Ellis mentioned this site, Benefits of Health Care Reform, District by District Impact, where anyone can look up the benefits of this bill by Congressional District. Here’s what Rep. John Carter (R-Round Rock) voted against [PDF] for constituents in District 31.
Improve coverage for 552,000 residents with health insurance.
Give tax credits and other assistance to up to 178,000 families and 12,300 small businesses to help them afford coverage.
Improve Medicare for 80,000 beneficiaries, including closing the donut hole.
Extend coverage to 68,000 uninsured residents.
Guarantee that 15,300 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.
Protect 700 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.
Allow 71,000 young adults to obtain coverage on their parents’ insurance plans.
Provide millions of dollars in new funding for 13 community health centers.
Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and other health care providers by $41 million annually.
Also yesterday state Rep. Trey Martinez (D-San Antonio) held a press conference yesterday on an upcoming public hearing on the recent debacles with the State Board of Education (SBOE), Lawmakers to Texas Ed Board: It’s Time to Talk.
Today Texas lawmakers picked up a bigger megaphone to get the attention of a bitterly divided, out-of-control State Board of Education. At a Capitol press conference, members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) announced that they are scheduling a public hearing for April 28 to examine how and why the state board has run off the tracks and what the Texas Legislature should do about it.Calling the board a “national circus,” MALC Chairman Trey Martinez Fischer (photo), a Democratic state representative from San Antonio, said the hearing will focus on the board’s badly broken process for developing curriculum standards and adopting textbooks. The hearing will also look at the highly controversial decisions the board has made in the development of new social studies standards this year.
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On March 11, for example, the board deleted Thomas Jefferson, who argued that ”a wall of separation between church and state” is essential to liberty, from a world history standard on important Enlightenment thinkers. The board’s religious-righters, rejecting the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, also rejected a proposed government standard requiring students to “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.”
The board has also decreed that “capitalism” is a negative word, requiring that classrooms use “free enterprise system” instead; removed references to “democracy” in discussing the American form of government, insisting that the term used in classrooms be “constitutional republic”; deleted other references to individuals, such as Dolores Huerta, because of their political beliefs; and even changed a standard to suggest that Joseph McCarthy’s political witch hunts in the 1950s were justified. (See a list of some of the worst changes here.)
Martinez Fischer was particularly critical of the board’s lack of respect for classroom teachers and scholarly experts. He noted that board members with no academic credentials are making curriculum decisions based on what limited knowledge they possess or can readily find on their own.
“Nationally renowned experts are being replaced by what you can find on Wikipedia and the Internet,” he said, joking that board members at meetings have seemed engaged in a contest to see who can most quickly Google information from their laptops when debating the standards. At its January meeting, in fact, the board deleted from the third-grade standards a reference to the late author of a popular children’s book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?Based on an Internet search, one member confused the author’s name with that of another man who wrote a book about Marxism — so out he went. An embarrassed board added the author back to the standards in March. (Martinez Fischer held up a mock book covers that read State Board, State Board, What’s Wrong with Thee? and State Board, State Board, Let Me Be.)
On the issues that matter most to ordinary Texans, health care and education, Democrats are stepping up while their counterparts only want to stand still or move backwards.
Texas has an annual “structural deficit” of about $4.5 billion per year. It was created in 2006 by Gov. Rick Perry and the GOP controlled Texas Legislature. What at the time was billed as a tax-swap of 2006 was nothing of the kind. While it lowered property taxes, the taxes it created to offset that have been way too small to make up the difference – creating the structural deficit. Here’s how it was describes last year during the legislative session, Deficit or awash in cash?
Remember when lawmakers cut school property taxes three years ago? Dropping the maintenance and operation tax rate from $1.50 per $100 valuation costs the state more than $7 billion every year for public education.
And the new business franchise tax and cigarette tax increase generates about $2.5 million more than the old franchise tax – leaving a gap of nearly $5 billion.
“That’s called a structural deficit,” Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, said. “I don’t think it’s a surprise or any new finding that we have a structural deficit. It was very clear that we passed tax cut bills that had greater costs to them than the replacement tax bills.”
Of course the problems were known with Perry and the Texas GOP’s “tax-swap” scheme when it was passed. From the Center for Public Policy Priorities Policy Page titled Digging a Hole: Special Session Tax and School-Finance Package Creates $10.5 Billion Deficit in 2008-09 Budget
The fiscal notes for the tax and school-finance bills passed during the special session reveal a gap of $10.5 billion between the expected costs of HB 1 and anticipated revenues from HB 3, 4,and 5 in 2008-09. This deficit will place tremendous pressure on the next state budget, which could cause severe budget cutbacks, an increase in the state sales tax or other state taxes, an expansion of gambling as a source of revenue, or all of the above.
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What is the net result?
Combining the estimated costs of HB 1 with the estimated revenue from HB 3, 4, and 5 reveals a potentially disastrous gap in future budgets. As the table below shows, the expected deficit in 2008-09 is $10.48 billion,growing to $11.12 billion in 2010-11. This deficit will place tremendous pressure on the next state budget, which could cause severe budget cutbacks, an increase in the state sales tax or other state taxes, an expansion of gambling as a source of revenue, or all of the above.
Of course Perry and the Texas GOP caught a break last year when it received help from the federal government. The problem was able to be overcome in the last budget cycle by using the federal stimulus money. The point is Perry, Dewhurst, and the rest of the GOP knowingly created a deficit in 2006. Why? Well this has been part of the GOP’s plan since Reagan became president. To create large deficits in order to force cuts to social programs and public education, which have long been the biggest enemy of those on the far right. They don’t believe the government should be involved in giving people a hand up, whether it’s health care for children or an education.
A picture of how the state could look after a budget shortfall hits next year is starting to emerge.
Fewer guards would patrol state prisons. Universities would postpone facility upgrades. Doctors would get less money for seeing Medicaid patients.
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We don’t yet know how deep the cuts will be. What we do know is how we got here, and it’s not for the reason state leaders want you to believe.
The economic downturn isn’t helping the shortfall, but it’s not driving it, either. The driving factor is a decision by Gov. Rick Perry and the Legislature in 2006 to reduce property taxes by $14 billion every two years and raise only about $9 billion to replace that money. In other words, the Legislature committed $5 billion every two years to holding down property taxes instead of spending that money on education, public safety or other priorities.
Then the state’s new business tax brought in drastically less than projected, and that $5 billion gap turned into a nearly $9 billion gap. Lawmakers from both parties did little to address that reality when they met in 2009, and in fact they made the gap a little wider by exempting 40,000 small businesses from the new tax.
And as he goes on to point out, if taxes are not increased there will be sizable cuts in spending. More like the draconian cuts that were made 2003.
Essentially what all of this shows is that much of Texas’ deficit was pre-determined, no matter how the overall economy in Texas and our country overall has been functioning. And while our governor is on TV telling us how many times he “cut” taxes, he won’t say anything about the structural deficit he signed into law in 2006. And Perry’s GOP opponents are quick to chastise him for the 2006 tax swap scheme because it raised taxes on corporations and some business, they don’t mention the fact that it created structural deficit. Probably because if they did they would have to say what the would do to fix it, and they don’t want to debate that.
As another CPPP report points out, “..Texas is a low-tax state, with a structural deficit.” If we want to educate our children it’s going to cost money. And it’s untrue, no matter how many times that guy with the good hair on TV says it, that Texas can provide the essential services to it’s people, do what’s morally right, allow them to live with dignity and have tax cuts too.
There’s a big whole in the budget and the next session is going to be ugly. Here’s the latest from Texas AFT, Hard Times, Hard Choices.
For months now, we’ve been hearing the comptroller report that state revenue collections have dropped dramatically as the national recession caught up with the Texas economy.
For several years, we’ve known that the school property-tax cuts passed in 2006 would not be fully replaced, as promised, with revenue from the new state business-franchise tax passed that year. When you hear folks talking about a structural state budget shortfall, that’s generally what they’ve been talking about. This “structural shortfall” terminology also has been applied lately to the use of one-time federal stimulus funding to cover the cost of ongoing programs–for now.
For decades, state lawmakers have failed to come up with a sustainable revenue structure that would grow along with the state’s rising population and growing needs. That’s another kind of structural budget shortfall less often noticed but of crucial importance. It’s the underlying reason why the state’s school-finance system periodically plunges into constitutional crisis over the inadequacy and inequity of education funding.
They go on to point out that “..in the last week, three key developments occurred at the state legislature”. They are:
January 12: House Speaker Joe Straus announced the creation of a House Select Committee on Fiscal Stability.
January 13: At a little-noted hearing of the Texas House Ways and Means Committee in Houston, it became clearer just how hard that “fiscally responsible work” will be. Analysts at the Legislative Budget Board estimated that the state in the next biennium will have at least $10.8 billion less than the amount lawmakers used to make ends meet for 2010-2011.
January 15: The Republican state leadership triumvirate–Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and Speaker Straus–instructed state agencies to come up with proposed cuts of 5 percent of their current budgets to be implemented in the current biennium.
A key committee with a wide-ranging portfolio took shape today as the lieutenant governor and House speaker jointly announced their appointees. Today’s appointees to the Select Committee on Public School Finance will join two already named by the governor, plus the commissioner of education, Robert Scott, who serves ex officio.
Four senators named by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to this panel today are Florence Shapiro (co-chair), Republican of Plano; Robert Duncan, Republican of Lubbock; Dan Patrick, Republican of Houston; and Royce West, Democrat of Dallas. The lieutenant governor also named Dr. Leonard Culwell, superintendent of Garland ISD, as a representative of the “public school community,” and Dr. Harrison Keller, former top education adviser to previous House Speaker Tom Craddick, as a business representative.
Four legislative appointees from the Texas House are Reps. Rob Eissler (co-chair), Republican of The Woodlands; Jimmie Don Aycock, Republican of Killeen; Scott Hochberg, Democrat of Houston; and Mike Villarreal, Democrat of San Antonio. Also named today by House Speaker Joe Straus were Dr. Richard Middleton, superintendent of North East ISD in San Antonio, and Larry Kellner, former chief executive of Continental Airlines.
The gubernatorial appointees to the panel are Switzer Deason, a business executive from College Station, and Mary Ann Whiteker of Lufkin, superintendent of Hudson ISD.
This 15-member select committee will hold hearings around the state as it makes a comprehensive review of the education funding weights, allotments, and adjustments that have built up over the years in response to various funding needs and pressures. For example, the state doesn’t just allocate a set amount of dollars per student; school districts are entitled to extra funding–weighted funding–as specified by state formulas for various types of students with special needs. Some other adjustments are made based on the varying costs districts face.
This is essentially the same crew (Perry, Dewhurst, Shapiro, et al.), that “fixed” public school finance in 2006 with a tax swap that has created a structural deficit in this state. Why anyone in this state would expect these people to come up with a “fix” this time is not rational. It’s unlikely the state can survive another failed tax scheme like the one that they came up with in 2006.
Today state Sen. Eliot Shapliegh sent out a press release on the “Texas Dropout Epidemic” and it shows that we’ve known for quite some time that education is the key to future economic success.
“If the current relationships between minority status and educational attainment, occupations of employment, and wage and salary income do not change in the future from those existing in 1990, the future workforce of Texas will be less educated, more likely to be employed in lower-level state occupations and earning lower wages and salaries than the present workforce.”
- former Texas State Demographer Dr. Steve Murdock
That was written in 1997. Economic success in the way of jobs that pay a living wage that can sustain families, of all kinds, and allow them to raise well educated children. Not economic success, as in huge corporate profits and a plethora low and minimum wage jobs. It’s well know too that every penny we spend on education is money well spent and is the best long-term economic stimulus there is. It’s been proven over and over again that as long as these people are in charge public education in Texas will continue to be neglected, like so many other things in this state. And it’s insane to keep returning them to power.
Here’s what Rep. Diana Maldonado (D-Round Rock) had to say about Gov. Perry not allowing Texas to even compete for extra education funding.
State Representative Diana Maldonado (HD-52) released the following statement in regards to Governor Rick Perry’s refusal to allow Texas to compete for federal education dollars:
“I am deeply concerned with Governor Perry’s recent decision to not compete for critical education funding through the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top program. At a time in which our school districts are stretching every dollar and squeezing every penny, these funds could have a large impact on the day-to-day operations and education being provided in our classrooms.
“As leaders, we can oftentimes lose focus of the goal because of the process. However, this is an opportunity in which our children’s education cannot be compromised as we prepare a new generation of leaders. The chance to increase our state’s funding for enhanced science and technology education, new academies and quality teachers is one that could greatly benefit our students and educators. There has been a lot of rhetoric used recently in regards to the value of economic development, but true economic development can only take place when we provide our students with a quality K-12 education in the classroom.”
