Voice in the Wilderness

The First Questions to Ask in the School Finance Debate

Now that the State Supreme Court has decided that the Texas Legislature must resolve the school finance issue by June 1, 2006, let us use the time between now and the start of the upcoming special session to understand what this issue is about.

Liberal Democrats, teachers unions, public school administrators, left-leaning think tanks and their acolytes in the media predictably orient their thinking around the question "Where is the money going to come from?" They want an ever-increasing amount of taxpayer money to be funneled into the largely unaccountable public education establishment.

Republicans in the Legislature seem disoriented and disunited on this issue. Lacking a compelling moral vision for public education to galvanize a majority, the R's cast about for direction and fall into the opposition's framing of the issue by the default. This hideous state of alarm can be turned around by asking the following questions in all aspects of this debate:

Where is the money going and why are we spending it?

Reframing the debate around these questions would have the following advantages:

• Igniting conservative support: Demanding more education for our money instead of more money for education is more than a clever sound bite; naturally plays to the values of fiscal responsibility and accountability, key conservative themes. If I see another memo from Republicans bragging about increasing spending floated around the Capital, like this one, I will not be pleased.
• Leading to the right questions being asked. Questions like
  
  • What have property-poor school administrators been doing this whole time with that Robin Hood booty in their far-flung, bureaucratic baronies?
    
  • Where has our tax money gone in Texas public schools, what has it paid for, and what results can be shown for it?
    
  • What state and local policy decisions have unnecessarily increased the scope of public school responsibilities, necessitating greater spending and taxation?
    
  
  
• Breaking up the coalition of teachers and administrators. Asking these questions focuses the debate on spending instead of revenue. This should exploit the rift between the public school teachers and public school administrators, who are typically allies on school finance, by getting them to fight with each other for a static pot of money instead of joining forces to create a bigger pot of money.
• Resulting in a solution that can pass and that will help contain costs, which I would appreciate as a property taxpayer and Republican primary voter.
• Making the Legislative leadership look like real Republicans who believe:
  
  • "…that government spending is out of control and needs to be reduced" *
  • "…that our education system is experiencing a spending crisis, not a funding crisis"*
  • "…the legislature should resist the temptation to create any new tax"*
  * Actual quotes from the 2004 Republican Party of Texas platform.

12/1/05 Update: The Wall Street Journal agrees with me.

This time from Texas educrats

Obscured amid the school finance dust up is a story that points to the importance of wrenching control of the schools away from the entrenched, public ed. bureaucracy. A post by William Lutz at Dallas Blog relates the following:

The elected State Board of Education rejected Friday an effort to rewrite its textbook selection rules, after board member Terri Leo (R-Spring) discovered that the new rule would eliminate patriotism from the textbook selection process. The current rules, which would have been eliminated by the rewrite, require the board's textbook review panels to consider whether books foster patriotism and an appreciation for free enterprise in deciding whether to recommend books for adoption.

That's odd. Fostering patriotism and an appreciation for free enterprise seem like very reasonable and positive things that can only help children be successful. Who could possibly be against that?

Board members had intended the rewrite to be a technical cleanup of the board's rules based on the earlier work of a board committee. But Texas Education Agency staff struck from the textbook rules references to Texas Education Code section 28.002(h), which reads as follows: "The State Board of Education and each school district shall foster the continuation of the tradition of teaching United States and Texas history and the free enterprise system in regular subject matter and in reading courses and in the adoption of textbooks. A primary purpose of the public school curriculum is to prepare thoughtful, active citizens who understand the importance of patriotism and can function productively in a free enterprise society with appreciation for the basic democratic values of our state and national heritage."

Oh, those fun-loving jokesters at the TEA are up to their old tom foolery again. If they're not trying to redefine marriage in textbooks, they're trying to keep little Johnny and Jane from hearing about James Bowie, Davy Crockett, Juan Sequin, and William Barrett Travis or learning how to balance a check book.

This development highlights a public education issue often overshadowed by the school finance fireworks: Who controls the curriculum? With all the political horse trading and media moaning yet to come with the school finance debate, mark carefully the sublties of the Left. Tiny modifications of Byzantine statutes can lead to big changes in the way the next generation of Texans is prepared for the future.

Found at the OSM.org pre-war intelligence carnival: Lefty Moonbats and the Holy Grail.

It's a hilarious send up of "How to Tell a Witch" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail respun for our troubled, myopic times. Read the whole post.

Commenter Chronicles Prop. 2's Portent for Travis County GOP in 2006

Commenter David Rogers is making a bid for VitW Commenter of the Year. In his comment on my recent post about how the Texas mainstream print media is woefully out of touch the majority of Texans, he left an impressive analysis of what the proposition 2 results in Travis county might mean on election day 2006. I liked his comment so much that I am going to shamelessly plagiarize and bowdlerize it for my own post. Read Mr. Rogers' entire comment here.

"I have some thoughts about what Prop 2's resounding victory statewide, but beating in Travis County, might mean. After looking at the numbers for last week, I offer my biased and partisan take on what it means for Travis County, the GOP in Austin, and the prospects for Republican control of the three contested local House seats -- 47, 48 & 50.

As you no doubt know, only HD-50 won the issue -- though by a narrow 52-48 margin. HD-48 showed a tremendous flop -- a mere 41% of voters in HD-48 thought marriage should be between a man and a woman. This despite the fact that 253 Texas counties, including bordering Williamson (70), Burnet (81.5), Blanco (75) and Hays (58) went overwhelmingly for the idea. Indeed, even heavily Democratic House District 46 went more for marriage(43) than did HD-48. HD-47, which also hosts an outgoing GOP incumbent lost, but narrowly, 49-51.

Why did the Dems beat the bejeesus out of the GOP on this issue in Travis County?

One word: Effort."

And local leadership. The local grassroots seemed pretty much on their own and disconnected from the Texas GOP and statewide officeholder efforts for prop. 2.

"In HD-50, there was a concentrated effort from a GOP candidate and associated volunteers (Don Zimmerman, Rob Morrow, Frank Haskel, et. al.) That group was on TV, block-walked, was on the radio, worked visibility efforts, and even engaged in outreach in deep East Austin.

In none of the other districts was there a visible effort that I am aware of. HD-47 benefited from the fact that four GOP candidates (at least) are active there, but none did any more GOTV than exhorting emails to supporters, and not all did that. HD-48 suffered, I believe, from GOP demoralization over the surprise resignation of Todd Baxter, combined with a failure of Ben Bentzin to engage on this issue."

I think the only mitigating circumstance in HD 47 is that Mr. Bentzin was fairly late to the game as a candidate. But, it should not only be up to the candidates to educate voters and get out the vote. The GOP county party machinery should be taking the lead on an issue on which the state GOP has stated a position.

"What does this mean for the GOP in Travis County? Party leadership at the County level was invisible on this issue, despite strong statewide Party endorsement and efforts. Contrast this with Harris County, with a much larger gay population, which approved Prop 2 overwhelmingly (72.5). Pro-Prop 2 sign distribution, handled at the County Party level in many counties, was left to Zimmerman and his cohorts."

"Party leadership at the County level was invisible on this issue". You don't say? I didn't hear jack didly from Chairman Sager or any other local GOP luminaries. I also recall hearing Mr. Sager at a Austin Conservatives Townhall meeting a few months ago that the county Republican candidates needed to favor more "moderate" positions in order to be competitive in Travis county.

"This weakness by the Party leadership will lead to weakened grass roots effort. Victory creates enthusiasm. Expected defeat brings resignation. A beating when everyone else is sharing in a victory of historic proportions brings bafflement, bewilderment and despair. This monstrous defeat strengthens, more than ever, the psychological impression that Travis County is an impregnable liberal Democratic fortress -- an impression that, prior to the recent reverses (beginning with Jack Stick's self-immolation) was well on its way to the dustbin of history. There will be no talk of Republicans gaining Travis County parity in 2006. The talk will be of limiting losses."

The Travis County Republican Party seems like a big, dysfunctional family to me. It seems this poor performance is a continuation of the woefully bad Republican showing in November 2004. What were the new voter ID, voter registration, and GOTV efforts put forth by the TCRP in either case?

"The narrow loss in HD 47 leads me to believe that District is competitive, but far more Democratic-leaning than previously believed. The beating in HD-48, combined with Ben Bentzin's inexplicable invisibility on Prop 2, leads me to believe the well-financed establishment Dellionaire (just endorsed by Susan Combs!) will face an uphill fight to retain the Baxter seat."

HD 47 does seem hard to gauge. Rep. Keel won 63.2% his last contested election (2002). Have the demographics changed that much?

"I only see one bright spot in these results. Zimmerman has shown that despite the muscle of a well-oiled, well-financed, highly-motivated Democratic machine, Strama can be beaten. Which is a good thing -- because those Zimmerman volunteers might be the only thing between the Republicans and total wipe-out in Travis County next November."

I am also looking forward to the HD 50 race. I know Mr. Zimmerman from the prop. 2 campaign and a few other places. He seems very politically savvy and has the fire in the belly needed to be competitive against an incumbent. I just hope he can raise the necessary cash.

Furthermore, I hope to see the local party machinery more engaged in new voter ID, voter registration, and GOTV efforts to support the local candidates. David, you need to post more at your own blog!