Dear Citizen Advocates,

It's been a few weeks since we've done one of these Friday messages.  I hope you've been enjoying your summer, but now school has started, it's almost September, the impeachment trial will start soon, and we're likely looking at another special session of the Legislature in October.  So time to get to work!

Let's Talk About School Choice

The topic of the 3rd special session is most likely going to be school choice, or education freedom, or money follow the child.  Whatever you want to call it, there are many opinions on how it should work.  Here at TTP, we find that about half our supporters favor the idea, and the half oppose it.  So which ever side of this issue you fall on, get ready for the fight. 

But God is in the details! So when you support or oppose the school choice legislation, be sure you know what you're talking about.  In other words - choose wisely.  (OK, I'm a sucker for movie one liners)

Shortly after the end of the regular session, Speaker Phelan established a new select committee on Educational Opportunities and Enrichment.  This committee held hearings in July and just published a report on their findings last week.  School choice is one of the topics.

The committee was charged with three objectives:

1: Ensuring all Texas youths enjoy equal educational opportunity and the freedom to obtain a quality education, regardless of circumstance.

2: Improving outcomes for Texas public school students and meaningfully supporting educators and educational institutions.

3: Modernizing assessment and accountability measures for Texas schools educating K-12 students.

In each category, the report lists recommendations for meeting the objective. I read the report, and all the recommendations and, in my opinion, most of them can be boiled down to one sentence - "spend more money".  Isn't that the answer to any problem governments face?

Objective #1 - this ensuring all Texas youths enjoy equal educational ....blah, blah, blah, is the one that involves school choice, so let's take a closer look at that one.

First of all, this committee thinks you already enjoy school choice for your children through the availability of specialized schools, STEM Academies, Career and Technical Education, Early College High Schools, etc., as well as the ability to transfer between districts or a different school withing a district.

Is that your idea of "Educational Freedom" - you get to chose which government school your child attends?  Oh, you wanted to use your own property tax funds to send your kids to private school, or home school?  No - that's not on the table for this committee.

And here's specifically what they had to say on the subject:

"5. If the Legislature chooses to enact a parental choice program, it should clearly outline student eligibility to ensure success and target certain student populations to ensure that each program participant is assessed to make apparent academic outcomes. The program should prioritize high need students. The program should include appropriate safeguards to ensure fiscal responsibility and accountability including, but not limited to, a finite
appropriation to fund the program using General Revenue funds and not funds from Foundation School Program. Ultimately, the program needs to value the best interest of the student, parent and taxpayer, preserving the quality of education."

Key words there - "eligibility", "target certain student populations", "prioritize high need students".  And don't forget accountability - "safeguards to ensure fiscal responsibility and accountability."  (Accountability = Regulation)

Many of you oppose school choice all together and I respect that for whatever your reasons.  My caution here is to the folks who support school choice.  Be sure that what you're giving support to is worthy of it.  Just because it's called "school choice" doesn't mean that it will deliver YOUR idea of education freedom.  God is in the details!

Consider SB8 from the 88th Regular session.  It passed the Senate and came close in the House, and LG Patrick refers to it a "universal school choice".  But it's far from universal!  It limits participation to only students who have been enrolled in public school already, and attended public school at least 90% of the previous school year.  So if you're looking for financial help for your child that is home schooled, or in a private school already - they don't qualify.  And did you know that this bill not only pays $8,000 to each qualified student who withdraws, but in rural districts, it also pays $10,000 to the district for each student that withdraws.  Sounds like bribery to me! 

It also creates a new bureaucracy (aka more money out the door) to administer the funds to the ESA accounts, and it has all sorts of strings attached to taking that money.  Is that your idea of school choice?  It certainly isn't mine.

You can read the entire committee report here and judge for yourself.  Whatever position your have on the subject, I urge you to educate yourself on the specifics of whatever is proposed and then choose your support or opposition with the facts in hand.  Then get ready to defend your position cause it's coming up soon!

Impeachment Trial of AG Paxton

As mentioned before, we will take a team of activists to the Capitol on Sept 5 for the start of the impeachment trial.  We have about 12 already signed up to go.  If you would like to join - just reply to this message.  I don't have any details yet about the time, but we'll update you as we get information.  We'll deliver letters to the Senators' offices, and be in the gallery for the start of the trial. 

Remember that our opposition to this impeachment is about the unfair, unconstitutional, and frankly shoddy process that was brought to bear.  We believe it is politically motivated and if successful, endangers all other elected officers who are out of favor with House leadership.  It must not stand.

Taxpayers Win in Tarrant County

We had some property tax wins in Tarrant County this week thanks to citizen advocates who showed up, as well as thanks to honest elected representatives who keep their campaign promises.  We have an advantage in Tarrant, because it's TTP's home county - where we started, so we know the players really well.  But the rest of you in other counties can have that kind of success too.  It just takes paying attention and then getting involved.  If you know of things going on in your county, city or school district that need attention - let me know!  I can send out a call to action for that region and see if we can get folks to turn out.  But I need YOU all to tell me.  I can't know what's going on in Lubbock County, or Cyfiar ISD, or City of Beaumont.  So speak up and let's engage the army we've built to take action.

That's all for now! 

For Texas always,

Fran Rhodes, President

PS:  Don't forget about Constitution Boot Camps happening in September, and the Candidate Recruitment Webinar on Aug 24th.  Everything is on the website calendar, so check it out.