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Gov. Greg Abbott plans to gut public school funding as he sends $1 billion to private schools (www.houstonchronicle.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to cut property taxes will starve public schools while he sends state money to private schools.

Texas already ranks 47th in the nation in public school funding and pays teachers $10,000 less a year than the national average. No surprise then that Texas students trail the nation in reading and math scores, according to the Nation's Report Card, a nonprofit that analyzes testing data.

The Legislature increased public school funding by $8 billion for the next two years, but it was the first increase in state funding since 2019 and doesn't keep up with inflation. Lawmakers then promised to spend $1 billion in state tax revenue to send 100,000 kids to private schools.

Tying the hands of school boards will guarantee they will have to close more schools and cut more teachers, explained Clay Robison, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association.

"Abbott does not really care about public education; his focus now is on private schools, charter schools, and giving them all the tax dollars," he told me. "More teachers are going to quit."

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[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 53 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

A couple weeks ago here in TX we voted on 17 state constitutional amendments. I want to say 12-13 of those were some form of tax cut for the wealthy. I voted against all of them but they all passed. And they passed big, like 60-70% to 40-30%.

The wording they used to describe the amendments was very much skewed to make them sound wonderful. No negatives, only positives. For instance, something like this may have had the wording “more money for schools”.

On its face it seems like a good idea - fewer taxes for me, more money for schools - what could go wrong? I assume most folks just looked at it said “ok” without much additional thought.

It’s very frustrating to basically have the large majority of voters approve this, giving the state government reassurance that they can do whatever they want, when it’s an obvious lie.

Nothing they do is to help the “regular” people of Texas. It’s all tax breaks for businesses and the super wealthy and Christian Nationalism disguised as “parental choice”.

It’s absolutely disgusting.

[–] seanziepples@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago

Yeah I voted no for every single one. I think part of the problem is barely anybody showed up to vote.

[–] voxthefox@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 4 months ago

I posted about this a few weeks ago, it's so frustrating seeing texas tax situation get more and more regressive.