Good morning,

Yesterday we asked about the GOP’s question on school funding, and – wow! – your fellow readers had a lot of thoughts…

We’ll get to those at the end of today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Wednesday, January 12, 2022
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School Jabs For Kids

• Located in the Houston area, Katy ISD is requiring proof of vaccination or an outside COVID test in order for a class of 8-year-old elementary students to come back to school. Sydnie Henry has the full story.
   
• According to parents in the district, following some positive COVID-19 cases in a third-grade homeroom, Stanley Elementary is making the demand on families.  For parents who choose not to test or vaccinate their children, Katy ISD is requiring a 10-day quarantine period for the child. This is despite the fact that the Center for Disease Control only recommends a five-day quarantine period for those who have been exposed and are not vaccinated.
   
• Apparently Texas’ public schools only “follow the science” when it is convenient…

Review: ‘The Mind Polluters’

• A new documentary is giving Texas parents a shocking look at what’s being taught in their kids’ schools: sexually explicit materials “so heinous that they are illegal everywhere else except in the classroom.”
      
• Erin Anderson attended a screening of the documentary, “The Mind Polluters.” It exposes deliberate efforts to normalize sexual behavior of every kind, using materials and methods the filmmakers say are intentionally “grooming” children to engage in risky sex and setting kids up for abuse.
        
• “Kids used to be taught about biology, birth control. Now, anything goes,” said Audrey Werner, a nurse and former sex educator-turned-activist featured in the documentary.
      
• Filmmakers Mark and Amber Archer, who attended a screening Monday night at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Plano, told the audience they spent 14 months making “The Mind Polluters” so people could know what their kids and grandkids are being exposed to in school.
      

• The film also delves into social-emotional learning, a program for “rewiring brains” that whistleblower teacher Jennifer McWilliams calls a “gateway drug to graphic sex ed.” She was fired after sharing information about the SEL program her school was teaching to second-graders. 
      

• “They told me it was ‘making the school look bad,’” McWilliams says in the film.
      

• Learn more about the film and its producers on the Fearless Features website.

Remembering Kelly Canon

• Family and friends are mourning the passing – and celebrating the life – of conservative leader Kelly Canon of Tarrant County.
   
• As an activist, Kelly is best known for leading a successful grassroots effort to ban red-light cameras in her home city of Arlington. Yet her activism spanned more than a decade of local and state political involvement.
   
• In 2014, Kelly was recognized by her peers with one of the first Texas Conservative Leader Awards, but she didn’t rest on her laurels. Kelly continued to fight for and inspire her fellow Texans.
   
• “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
  – 2 Timothy 4:7

Austin Judge Faces Backlash

• Associate Judge Christyne Harris Schultz is under fire for making it easy for a repeat child sex predator to go free after his latest arrest involving a 14-year-old he bused in from Kentucky. Jacob Asmussen has the horrifying details.
   
• Ronald Martin Jr. already had an open warrant for failing to register as a sex offender, and is also listed as a lifetime high-risk sexual offender by the Texas Department of Public Safety (including a prior conviction involving a 7-year-old boy). When Martin was caught sexually assaulting a young teenager by police, it was recommended that bond be set at $1 million.
   
• “As a judge, I follow the code of criminal procedure, in every case,” Judge Schultz told Fox News. “And in determining the amount and the conditions of bail, [I] consider the financial resources and their ability to make bail, and the safety of the community and the alleged victim as well.”

GOP Gubernatorial Candidates Gather For Forum – Except One

• A forum for the Republican candidates for governor was hosted by the True Texas Project this week in The Woodlands, but incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott declined an invitation to appear. His lead challengers – former State Sen. Don Huffines, media personality Chad Prather, and former Texas GOP Chair Allen West – each shared their views on the issues facing Texas. 
   
• The Republican primary is scheduled for March 1. Early voting begins February 14. The full video of the debate can be viewed here.

Vaccine Mandates ‘Alive And Well’ In Texas

• In this week’s edition of his podcast, Luke Macias talks about the proliferation of COVID vaccine mandates in Texas.

Y’All Answered

The March 1, 2022, GOP Primary ballot will feature a series of policy-related non-binding questions placed there by the State Republican Executive Committee. Yesterday, we asked how readers would vote on this GOP ballot question: “Texas parents and guardians should have the right to select schools, whether public or private, for their children, and the funding should follow the student.”

To that question, 95.87 percent of readers answered “yes” and 4.13 percent “no.”

Here’s a sampling of the responses…

• “Competition will force the current system to reevaluate how our education dollars are being used and how and what is being taught. If parents of all economic levels are able to place their children where they feel they would thrive the current system would be forced to change.” – Steve Crevier
       
• “As a homeschooling mom of eight and now homeschooling grandmother, I say No. History shows government strings would follow that money into my home school. I accept the extra expense in order to continue homeschooling unfettered.” – Ruth York
       
• “In the 1800’s it may have been a good idea that the State could teach all students the same way. That is no longer the case. Therefore the Constitution must be changed to meet today’s needs of students, parents and taxpayers. It is obvious the schools aren’t going to do it on their own. Money talks the loudest with school boards.” – Steve Sullivan
       
• “Why should our hard-earned tax dollars continue to be automatically thrown down the bottomless, inefficient labyrinths, that our public schools have become? Teachers unions and school boards can claim most of that credit, and we're forced to perpetuate it? Competition for those tax dollars would be a tremendous benefit for our kid's education.” – Randy Miller
      
• “I find it amazing how much effort it is taking in today's world to wrest [away] control of the ‘government collective/it takes a village’ thinking to put the emphasis back to educating the young mind rather than indoctrinating it.” – Patrick Bell
        
• “I say ‘no,’ simply because if the government funds something, they (not the parents) will have major control over it. … Just cut taxes so the parents can keep their money and spend it as they see fit!” – Stan Martin
        
• “Children today are living dollars for a broken system and fed mindless garbage disguised as education. I would whole heartedly vote for tax dollars following students to add competition back into the school systems. Failing school programs are failing for many reasons and money thrown at those systems don't fix the problems.“ – Jennifer Herr
     
• “I selected ‘No,’ because the state should not be taking money from its citizens to fund education. Only parents should be responsible for their children's upbringing.” – Carolyn Brent
      
• “One main (flawed) objection to money following the students is that the govt will attach “strings” to that money, as if the funds must go from parent to government then back to parents. That objection is flawed because it assumes that money track is the only one possible. Instead, it could be done by giving parents whose kids aren’t enrolled in public schools a tax credit as opposed to a refund of taxes paid.” – Jim Pikl
      
• “Yes, and if you homeschool your children, you should not have to pay school property taxes. It should be an immediate exemption.” – Michael Kinzie
       
• “Yes, tax money should follow for a public, magnet school, or public charter school ( where there is a dollar paid per student gap, and no facilities funding). I don’t believe it should follow for a tuition- private school.” – Meghan Matson
      
• “The parents/guardian is the one paying the taxes, so those taxes should definitely follow their children. On the other hand if you are over 70 years old and have no children in school you should NOT be paying a school tax.” – Gary Hunt
      
• “I homeschool because I don't want the government to tell me how I educate my child. If we start taking the money, they will surely start butting in to homeschool too.” –Dawn Martin
   
• “I have taught in military, parochial and now public school settings, running the gambit from rural to inner city environments. It is disheartening the difference between public and private school teaching environments.  In public school we do not reach for the stars, we reach for the least common denominator, so everyone gets a chance to pass - even if it take three phone calls and the teacher chasing a student down for three weeks begging them to get the work attempted. Discipline is sorely lacking, because we live in the realm of excuses for behavior.” – Greg Reinhart

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