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Connecting today’s news with the research & opinion you need.

Fixing Foster Care

What to Know: Frustrated with conditions in the Texas foster care system, a federal judge is levying daily fines against the agency—and threatening to intervene even more.

The TPPF Take: Judge Janice Graham Jack’s criticism of the abhorrent state of the Texas foster care system is entirely justified. But the state must be given the opportunity to fix the problems.

“For too long, the Department of Family and Protective Services systematically failed the vulnerable children they are supposed to protect and exposed them to even greater risk of harm,” says TPPF’s Andrew Brown. “That said, continuing to bludgeon the state with exorbitant fines and threatening to put the entire system under federal control is counter-productive to making the system right for kids. We do not support imposing a particular model through federal control of the state’s child welfare system.”

How the Other Half Learns

What to Know: Education writer Robert Pondiscio has a new book examining the challenges and successes of one of the nation’s biggest charter schools.

The TPPF Take: Pondiscio will be in Austin to speak at TPPF on Thursday.

“Schools that are formed around a distinctive set of values or mission offer ‘vastly increases[s] the odds of students acquiring academic and civic knowledge, skills, and sensibilities,’ according to Ashely Berner,” says TPPF’s Erin Valdez. “Mr. Pondiscio goes one step farther than this anodyne assertion and reveals the ingredients that make up that sauce—family self-identification, sweating the small stuff, making hard decisions, and the full buy-in of all the grown-ups.”

Local Debt

What to Know: Last week, voters approved most of the $9 billion-plus in new debt pitched by local officials. Texas’ debt-laden local governments now have permission to go even further into the red. 

The TPPF Take: This isn’t good news for taxpayers.

“Texas’ local governments are addicted to debt, and it’s driving taxes higher and making the future bleaker,” says TPPF’s James Quintero. “Taxpayers cannot afford for the status quo to continue. State lawmakers did well to pass several new laws last session to get a handle on the problem, but it’s clear that there’s more work to be done.”