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The destruction of America's public education system


Captainant

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5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You're getting some of it.

There are plenty of good, ethical, long-tenured private schools in the state that won't play that game: Paragon is likely one of them, St. Marks, the Jesuit schools, St. Agnes, ESD, etc.  They'll still accept the same number of kids, but now the group of kids who need financial aid will be reduced.

There are also plenty of schools that aren't as ethical (and some to be founded in short order, but my Freedomeaglegunjesuspatriot Academy is NOT among them, and I won't have you besmirch our good name!), and they will absolutely charge whatever they can to maximize their revenue.  Because they will be purely dollar-extraction enterprises, built to take tax dollars from Texas taxpayers and put them in the pockets of wealthy donors to the Regime.

And then, as a bonus, public schools will be fucked and starved of funding, as is the stated intention and design of the Regime and its biggest supporters.  Because ignorant and uneducated rubes are 1) their future voting base, and 2) their future wage slaves, voting repeatedly for the very people and policies that have buttfucked them unceasingly, because "they ain't no woke libtards!"

good school or bad school, the private tuition is being subsidized by the state. that subsidy comes from education funds, reducing the per-head funding in public schools.  there doesn't have to be a dishonest school in the state for this to result in hurting public education.

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Just now, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

good school or bad school, the private tuition is being subsidized by the state. that subsidy comes from education funds, reducing the per-head funding in public schools.  there doesn't have to be a dishonest school in the state for this to result in hurting public education.

I know.  That's why I said the third thing.  Maybe you missed it.

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They already have.  It isn't enough.  The insane MAGA draw is just too strong.  The faces are going to keep voting for the Leopards until there are no faces left to eat.

Well, I'm glad Sark can recruit nationally.
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Posted (edited)

For decades, the obvious goal has been crystal clear, at least since W was running things. 

-- To completely undermine the public secular schools to empower Christian-Evangelical-Fundamentalist domination, with all their idiot world creationist anti-science, bogus BS history, faith-based fact-free worldviews.

-- What's eventually left of the public schools will be little more than educational work camps with massively overworked, underpaid teachers, trying to educate poor frustrated students ... with hallways and playground patrolled by armed guards.

-- Meanwhile, the Christian schools will be rolling in $$$, with Bible "education" for the future frat boy fascists to run the state, while the sorority girls raise the kiddos just like Joel Osteen and all the preachers say it should be ... with the poor kids working as wage slaves at the Starbucks drive through serving the sorority moms in their monster SUVs.

I'll say it again: Christianity gets a free pass in America, no matter how much the insanity and hypocrisy. And that unlimited free pass will be the death of democracy, sanity, and secularism in Texas and this country. 

Those who voted for W enabled all this stupidity.

Edited by BevoAbyss
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5 minutes ago, BevoAbyss said:

For decades, the obvious goal has been crystal clear, at least since W was running things. 

-- To completely undermine the public secular schools to empower Christian-Evangelical-Fundamentalist domination, with all their idiot world creationist anti-science, bogus BS history, faith-based fact-free worldviews.

-- What's eventually left of the public schools will be little more than educational work camps with massively overworked, underpaid teachers, trying to educate frustrated students .... with hallways and playground patrolled by armed guards. Meanwhile, the Christian schools will be rolling in $$$, educating the future frat boy fascists to run the state, while the sorority girls raise the kiddos just like Joel Osteen and all the preachers say it should be ...

I'll say it again: Christianity gets a free pass in America, no matter how much the insanity and hypocrisy. And that unlimited free pass will be the death of democracy, sanity, and secularism in Texas and this country. 

Those who voted for W enabled all this stupidity.

I think we can all pack it up and go home now, @BevoAbysshas spoken and ruled thusly. 

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Posted (edited)
On 5/15/2024 at 3:47 PM, Dutchrudder said:

Yup, this is my district, and it's quite the learning experience I'm going through right now. The measure to remove chapters of science books that cover vaccines, climate change, diversity and other topics came towards the end of a 5 hour board meeting. This was after parents were allowed to talk (1 minute each), budget discussions, awards, staff changes, announcements, etc, it was not on the published agenda. There was no expert testimony about it, there wasn't much discussion at all, just the opinions of several board members that don't have any background in these subjects. The board voted 6-1 to exclude those topics and that was it, it took less than 30 minutes. Really a shame that my kids are going to have to go through this dumb culture war over topics that these people don't understand, but here we are. My first kid is going to kindergarten in the Fall, so it won't hurt him much right now, but in a few years those topics should be covered. 

In the meantime, we are facing a $138m deficit in Cyfair. We are losing 2/3 of our librarians, and the ones that are retained will be assigned to multiple campuses. Other staff like janitors, teachers, summer classes, etc are being cut as well. A lot of it is due to being underfunded by the state, who is currently withholding tax dollars to public schools because Abbot will not sign any increases until vouchers are passed in some form.  That amounts to ~$1100 a student across the state, and about 20% less funding overall.  That's significant, and I certainly don't know any family or business that wouldn't be severely impacted by being forced to live off their 2019 budgets today, so it's pretty sad to see Abbott trying to blame it on the ISDs for not being better money managers.  

If yall are in Texas, and whether you have kids in school or not, please look into your local school board elections and vote. It really does matter, I know a couple of our board members won by slim margins. They were all within 2-3k votes of the normal people who care about education. 3 of the dumbasses that voted for this will be up for re-election in 2025, and I hope we can dump them if we can raise awareness and get out the vote. 

This is crazy.

And even crazier is I work with a guy who literally moved his family out of the district to who knows where, because the Cypress school district (and outlined above ^^) was "too work".

Can you imagine the level this guy must be on if that stuff is considered woke?

Granted this was 2 or 3 years ago-- I wonder if this sort of stuff would have made him stay, now that I think of it.

Edited by BeardIP
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Posted (edited)
30 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

And that private schools can reject whoever they want from being accepted. Like, you know, THOSE people. 

That can also include kids with ADHD, dyslexia, etc. You know the types of vulnerable kids that can be very successful if they are given help and guidance, but there won't be any more help or guidance because of the resulting loss of funding for public schools.

Edited by HornOnTheBayou
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17 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

@BevoAbysshas spoken and ruled thusly. 

Nah, I have't ruled anything. Just observing...

While sitting on the edge of the abyss and sipping tequila ... as Texas slides inexorably over the edge ... to be followed by the rest of America. 

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13 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

Can you imagine the level this guy must be on if that stuff is considered woke?

People who are scared of "woke" whatever usually can't define "woke" when you ask them on the spot.

And they usually overlap with the idiots who foam at the mouth over "CRT" even thought they typically can't define it either.

These people get upset by things like this being taught in schools: https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html because it shows that the Texas government of the 1850s/1860s was hell-bent on preserving slavery "in all future time":

Quote

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

These morons try to tell you what our founding fathers or politicians from over a century-and-a-half-ago meant, but when you quote the actual writings of those politicians, the morons lose their shit and try to claim that they didn't really mean what they were writing down and signing and using a reason to do what they did in the 1860s.

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1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

People who are scared of "woke" whatever usually can't define "woke" when you ask them on the spot.

And they usually overlap with the idiots who foam at the mouth over "CRT" even thought they typically can't define it either.

These people get upset by things like this being taught in schools: https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html because it shows that the Texas government of the 1850s/1860s was hell-bent on preserving slavery "in all future time":

These morons try to tell you what our founding fathers or politicians from over a century-and-a-half-ago meant, but when you quote the actual writings of those politicians, the morons lose their shit and try to claim that they didn't really mean what they were writing down and signing and using a reason to do what they did in the 1860s.

Well, that's because -- and this is really, really important, it kinda explains everything we're dealing with -- MAGAs are breathtakingly stupid.  We're talking "I have a good imagination, and not in my wildest dreams could I imagine someone that stupid" levels of stupidity.

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1 hour ago, Stringer said:

Is that right? So Paragon Prep just gets to raise their revenue by 50% on the backs of state taxpayers?

Oh, did I mention that Paragon is owned by a PE Fund owned by “Chinese persons residing in Hong Kong”? So, now we’re just shipping Texas tax dollars to Hong Kong?

44 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

And that private schools can reject whoever they want from being accepted. Like, you know, THOSE people. 

Correct.  The really nice private schools that some MAGA idiots think they will be able to get their kids with vouchers into still won't take their kids in, but will benefit financially.  If you want your kid in a good private school, and your kid matches what that school wants, and you don't quite have enough money, there is financial aid/scholarships/whatever that can make it happen if that school wants your kid. With that said, many/most of these schools prefer parents who don't need vouchers, because parents who can afford it without government help probably have a little extra cash laying around that they will donate to those schools, or at the very least, there's no issue with the checks clearing.

This is all about making a bunch of wealthy Republican donors even wealthier by ramping up a bunch of for-profit private schools that will probably pack the classrooms with a lot more kids-per-teacher than is good for education.

And the rural counties are going to be turbo-fucked.

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Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

the Texas government of the 1850s/1860s was hell-bent on preserving slavery "in all future time":

Indeed. But there is much more. And it will never be taught in Texas schools.

After the Alamo and founding of Texas and even after the Civil War, the State of Texas -- populated with all those Christian settlers from Europe seeking "religious freedom" -- enforced a massive ethnic cleaning program (some would say genocide) to annihilate the Native Americans and seize the remaining lands in West Texas. How did UT get the massive lands in the Permian Basin, after all?

From the Amazon blurb:

"Portraying 19th-century Texas as a cauldron of racist violence, Gary Clayton Anderson shows that the ethnic warfare dominating the Texas frontier can best be described as ethnic cleansing....

Piercing the very heart of Lone Star mythology, Anderson tells how the Texas government encouraged the Texas Rangers to annihilate Indian villages, including women and children. This policy of terror succeeded: by the 1870s, Indians had been driven from central and western Texas."

The real history is far different than the Christian version or John Wayne's Alamo Hollywood propaganda.

ConquestTexas.png

Edited by BevoAbyss
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Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, BevoAbyss said:

Indeed. But there is much more.

After the Alamo and founding of Texas and even after the Civil War, the State of Texas -- populated with all those Christian settlers from Europe seeking "religious freedom" -- enforced a massive ethnic cleaning program to annihilate the Native Americans and seize the remaining lands in West Texas. How did UT get the Permian Basin, after all?

From the Amazon blurb:

"Portraying 19th-century Texas as a cauldron of racist violence, Gary Clayton Anderson shows that the ethnic warfare dominating the Texas frontier can best be described as ethnic cleansing....

Piercing the very heart of Lone Star mythology, Anderson tells how the Texas government encouraged the Texas Rangers to annihilate Indian villages, including women and children. This policy of terror succeeded: by the 1870s, Indians had been driven from central and western Texas."

The real history is far different than the Christian version or John Wayne's Alamo Hollywood propaganda.

ConquestTexas.png

Just a few years ago, staunch Republican Jerry Patterson helped lead the charge of remembering, memorializing, and taking some official steps to heal some of the harm done by the Porvenir Massacre -- the 1918 slaughter of 15 people of mexican descent by the Texas Rangers.  A racially motivated mass murder by state actors.  Which is, as most sane people would agree, a BAD thing that should not be repeated.

Jerry Patterson certainly thought so: https://bigbendsentinel.com/2021/08/11/amateur-historian-continues-to-raise-awareness-of-porvenir-massacre/

Today, just a few years later, Jerry Patterson has no place in the Texas GQP.  I know Jerry, I've worked with him.  He's as old-school conservative as they come -- there's plenty we disagreed about.  But he believed in Texas, and in serving ALL the people of Texas.  Today, he's a woke libtard who couldn't even get 30% of the vote in a GQP primary.

His stance on Porvenir would get him shamed out of any modern GQP gathering, because 1) how dare you bring up history that might make White Texas look bad, and 2) what are you doing standing up for those dirty mexican rapists and criminals anyway?  The Rangers shoulda killed a lot more of em!

Edited by Brisketexan
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HISD had its budget workshop yesterday, it is livestreamed to YouTube.

A couple of take-aways:

They decided to move the meeting up to 4 PM due to the number of speakers that have been showing up for their 60 seconds (an impossibly short time to talk about budget concerns) in order to limit the number of active participants (during school hours) and to try to get out of there early.   With 200+ people regularly showing up pissed off, they just sit through it emotionless and often checked out until the end.   Yesterday, one of the HISD board members started laughing as the last speaker started calling them out for being complicit in the corruption.   Here is their presentation materials.

The finance guy (Jim Terry) gets up there and starts talking about utter nonsense and generic statements about commitment to quality education but never goes into details what that means (because it is to lull people to sleep before he gets to the numbers, IMO).  He talks about the potential taxable property value and exemptions as if this is relevant.  Never getting to the point of what money is being allocated to HISD from property taxes of residents and what is being siphoned off (he did talk about how RobinHood took 1.1 billion from HISD in 2016-2017, but how is this fucking relevant?).   He harps on about attendance and how attendance is linked to achievement, then shows a figure that indicates attendance is nearly 93%.  Is he attempting to blame residents for this? Is this low? No follow up or context.    He then makes a suggestion that May 5th 2023 was the perfect representation of student attendance and that should be the day in which the future budget should be based.   Not some averaging which might make more sense.   He is clearly a big thinker.   He surprisingly shows something about how poorly funded Texas schools are relative to the nation and is completely tone deaf as to why and who created this.  He remarked about other school districts also having funding issues, again without point to the cause.   He talks about the decreasing enrollment in HISD schools by approximately 4000 students from last year.   No context as to why provided.   I know of families that have kids in SPED programs that left.  They left in response to the shitty support service they were getting.  As a reminder Miles fired the Autism Specialists in the district, 1 week before the start of the school year.   

The finance guy finally gets to the budget.  From what I can tell, nearly 20% is going to administrative overhead but it is partitioned in smaller groups.  There are facilities, food, bussing service included, but also nearly 77 million dollars put into something called "Payments to Tax Increments Fund" which from a quick google search appeared to be an HISD fund set up to build up infrastructure or development.   Here is an older document which also talks about the threshold for how HISD is bound to this shitty agreement.

There is one more thing to think about.  With all of the decreasing enrollment (they harped on 14% over the past few years) why are class sizes getting larger?    Ill stop here.  

 

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Austin ISD's budget is in bad shape, although IMHO the admin is doing the best they can with the constraints they have.

Austin ISD thought that their deficit for next year was going to be around $60 million, and they had a goal of cutting $30 million without touching classroom spending to get to a $30 million deficit for next year.  Attendance was less than projected and home values did not go up as much as planned.  They are now an additional $30 million in the hole ... so even with the admin cuts they are looking at a possible $60 million shortfall.

Once solution to this is to ask the voters to up the tax rate to close the gap.  They can, with voter approval, raise taxes by 9.1 cents -- this is called a VATRE tax election.  0.1 of these cents are "golden" pennies, meaning that the district gets to keep all of the money.  9.0 cents of these are copper pennies, which are subject to recapture.  At Austin ISD's recapture rate, 75% of the copper penny funds will go to the state, and the district will keep 25% of the taxes raised.  The state currently has a surplus, so these "extra" Robin Hood funds won't go towards education, they will just make the surplus larger.

Austin ISD would get to keep about $41 million of the new tax revenue.  From that bucket, Austin ISD teachers and librarians would get about $15 million and district would spend about $25 million on other stuff (individual specialists, registrars, reducing the deficit).  The state of Texas would get about $120 million.  Austin voters will probably have a chance to vote for or against this tax at the November election.

The district can't deficit spend forever.  Within a few years, their fund balance will hit a critically low level and there will be no more savings to spend.  Without legislative action, they are turbo-screwed at that point, even if the new VATRE tax passes.

Also, Austin ISD is currently under a TEA monitorship because of past problems with special education evaluations.  As part of their punishment, the trustees had to agree to a "Lone Star Governance" TEA-approved process.  Part of this process mandates that the board can only spend 50% of their time talking about issues that do not relate to student outcomes.  The budget is a non-student outcome issue.  So if they want to talk about the budget for an hour, they have to also talk about "student outcomes" for an hour.  Talking about student outcomes is great, but at some point in the year you have to buckle down and talk about the friggin' budget for a few days -- and the board has to be very careful to not violate their agreement with TEA to avoid a state takeover.

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On 5/20/2024 at 3:02 PM, Stringer said:

So, for months, I have been trying to get my head around why vouchers are good. Last night, I was thinking about the flow of the voucher program in regards to Paragon Prep here in Austin. I don’t know their tuition, but let’s assume it’s $10k.

So, any student would get $10k of taxpayer money to decide where to go to school, so Paragon Prep gets that and the family would owe $0. Great for the family! But Paragon Prep already gets more applicants than they accept, so they decide to up tuition to $15k. They would get the $10k from the taxpayer funds and then $5k from the family.

Is that right? So Paragon Prep just gets to raise their revenue by 50% on the backs of state taxpayers?

Oh, did I mention that Paragon is owned by a PE Fund owned by “Chinese persons residing in Hong Kong”? So, now we’re just shipping Texas tax dollars to Hong Kong?

Paragon Prep would fire its CEO and CFO if they didn’t jack up tuition by $10k at least.

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51 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Paragon Prep would fire its CEO and CFO if they didn’t jack up tuition by $10k at least.


all of this, every private or pay for school is jacking up tuition by the amount the state is soon to be handing out. If it’s a school with more applicants than spots, they’re going to up it even more. People will pay it 

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On 5/20/2024 at 3:21 PM, Brisketexan said:

They already have.  It isn't enough.  The insane MAGA draw is just too strong.  The faces are going to keep voting for the Leopards until there are no faces left to eat.


very funny part, the best private (hell even mid) schools don’t want kids from broke ass typical maga families 

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very funny part, the best private (hell even mid) schools don’t want kids from broke ass typical maga families 
I doubt they would want their kids in those schools. Those schools are too elitist. As long as they get a little extra cash to pay for a church school, or homeschooling materials, or any school that doesn't have so many of "those kids" in it they'll be fine with it.

It's just another example of a poor man giving a rich man a dollar, as long as he gets a penny out of the deal.
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On 5/20/2024 at 3:57 PM, SydneyCarton said:

And that private schools can reject whoever they want from being accepted. Like, you know, THOSE people. 

The west Texas oil barons have their people in place to execute their vision. Now, tax monies will be diverted from needy public schools in rural Texas so that Christians can send their kids to schools like this one bankrolled by those very same west Texas billionaires:

https://www.mcaknights.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=386607&type=d&pREC_ID=879161

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