For the third time in four legislative sessions, the Texas House of Representatives voted this afternoon to bar spending any public funds on vouchers for private and religious schools. The overwhelming vote on the amendment (offered by state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown) to the state budget bill is an important victory for supporters of public education. It comes after voucher advocates have spent a lot of time — in press conferences and legislative hearings — pushing voucher schemes that would drain millions of dollars from neighborhood public schools just two years after lawmakers cut more than $5 billion in funding from public education. We just sent out the following statement:
Overwhelming Vote Sends Message to Voucher Gang: Stop Wasting Time, Fully Fund Public Schools
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 4, 2013Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller is releasing the following statement after the Texas House of Representatives voted 103-43 today to bar spending any public money for private school vouchers. The vote came on an amendment to the state appropriations bill, Senate Bill 1. The House also voted overwhelmingly to bar public funding for private school vouchers in 2007 and 2009. Miller said:
“You have to wonder how many times the House has to slam the door before the voucher gang gets the message. Instead of wasting time with press conferences in private schools and hearings on voucher bills that won’t pass the Legislature, lawmakers need to knuckle down and work on fully funding our neighborhood public schools.”
Maybe the vote is a gift of sorts for state Sen. Dan Patrick, the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee whose birthday is today. Sen. Patrick, who has been demanding passage of a voucher scheme, revealingly held a press conference at an Austin private school last December to talk about reforming public education. So now he knows he can stop wasting everyone’s time and focus instead on what voters sent him to Austin to do: support the neighborhood public schools that educate nearly 5 million Texas kids.
However, it is probably only one of several such votes. Let us hope they stay the course!!!
Good for them! There is sanity in the house.
Well, God is indeed happy for Texas, separatin’ education from indoctrination… Ann Richards’ ghost has hope for us yet?
Indoctrination? You might want to look at CSCOPE and Common Core for indoctrination. Oh by the way, I went to a Catholic school and I was not Catholic. They don’t indoctrinate you into the Church. They give you life skills and work ethic so you can be a productive citizen in this world. You might want to really see who is indoctrinating our children. Check out CSCOPE and COMMONCORE.
As a greater level of scrutiny is being placed on the controversial curriculum systems CSCOPE (in Texas) and Common Core Standards (nationwide), concerned parents spoke about their troubling experiences, revealing that not even home-schooling is beyond the reach of these encroaching systems. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/02/want-to-see-what-cscope-and-common-core-even-homeschooling-lessons-look-like-these-parents-opened-up-to-theblaze/
Troy: You’ll have to sell the “indoctrination” hysteria about CSCOPE somewhere else. We’re not buying that nonsense here.
Thanks Dan. I took a look at that “Blaze.” Creepy stuff….
Except Catholic Schools use CSCOPE. So, are they teaching their kids to leave the Catholic faith and become Muslum or athiests?
Well, from the view of (many) RW religious fundies there is not much difference between Catholics and Muslims since both are devil-worshipping hellfodder. Don’t forget that they have no problem calling people atheist muslim communist nazis since the idea that some things are mutually exclusive does not occur to them.
So the Texas House amended the Senate’s state appropriations bill to bar public funds for religious schools by a lop-sided margin. Good. I hope the Senate agrees to accept this amendment and kill Patrick’s bad voucher bill. He, Dewhurst, and Perry can cry in their beer tonight.
Temporary setback for the Vouchers for Jesus crowd. They’ll find another scheme to shovel taxpayer money their buddies for personal profit under the guise of “education.”
@Doc Bill: You nailed it! Any ideas about what kind of scheme they’ll come up w/ next? So we can be proactive…. (It’s all about private profits, not about educating school kids….)
The CSCOPE hysteria is complete nonsense, all based on innuendo, distortion, and lack of context.
Yay! Some good news for a change from our legislature!
Patrick the Educaterminator:
“I’ll be back.”
About time.
well i,m catholic i fought invietnam watch out with the name calling as for becoming muslims fat chance damn just because they ar ebrown does make them mexicna americans either i do hope all our star reps grow some balls and tell alec and the koch brothers to eff them selves cause in17 months texas will become blue and abbott and rick perry will be history we dont need n o dad gum private schools using our taxes to enrich afew baptist teabeggars hell tis is america not some rwing police state where only the elites get an education .