TEXAS SCHOOLS – PART ONE!
POLITICALLY MOTIVATED DESTRUCTION.
Reading the Beaumont Enterprise yesterday an “Opinion” column, which is normally slanted so far left I just ignore it, a headline caught my interest. “Texas must study how others fund schools.” The first sentence really grabbed my attention, “The one piece of good news in last week’s ruling by a judge who declared the state’s public school finance system unconstitutional was that his ruling doesn’t take effect until next July.” Shades of common sense still escape our legal system as all decisions are now 100% politically driven. Our finance system for our schools has been unconstitutional for twenty years at least. Our entire state education system was high jacked by the Legislature a long time ago. This is a leadership problem and in Texas it is controlled by the Republicans instead of our national education disaster that is mismanaged by the Democrats.
When I went to Texas schools, the teachers were not required to pay for liability insurance to protect them from lawyer inspired frivolous law suits. Parents were required to discipline their children, not the teacher. Teachers did not have to learn martial arts to protect themselves from both the students and parents. Educators developed and approved textbooks, not politicians. I was given a chance to learn and my parents were responsible to motivate me to succeed. Failure was a biGGer problem when I got home than it was at school.
Watching one of the finest education programs in America being destroyed by politics is one of the saddest things I have watched in my 84 years. I am so old I only went to eleven years of education and graduated high school at sixteen. I finally finished my education with a Master’s Degree at forty seven. Now it takes fourteen years of education to graduate high school and today most who do graduate are qualified to possibly have an eighth grade education, when compared to what I was so fortunate to receive. Most, not all, graduate from college today with an education equal to what I received in high school. My teachers spent 100% of their time teaching and every student was given an equal chance to learn. Teachers taught their subjects and it was my responsibility to learn. Teachers were not evaluated on how many students passed some standardized tests that were developed in England, authorized by elected politically motivated and seldom qualified ego driven individuals swayed by narrow focused feelings rather than facts.
If that is not bad enough the money provided is by politically driven lawyers who are elected to serve in a State Legislature that is a part time job. The only reason most even want to be elected is an ego trip and a way to sell their professional services to the public when they are not in session.
Now schools “have” to take children who are so disabled physically and mentally they have zero chances to ever contribute to society. Making the schools provide what is nothing more than healthcare or baby-sitting is a tragedy. Having to hire full time nurse’s for some should not be intertwined or funded with education money. This actually penalizes those students that have no disability other than being a little slower to comprehend. I have witnessed children locally that can’t even feed themselves being cared for by a nurse one on one every day.
All afflicted children need care including some who even have a remote chance to actually learn something. We had this when I was a student but it was done in a separate facility, not in the normal schools. Making these children attend normal schools is a significant drain on the education money that is politically provided and is grossly unfair for the teachers and those children who actually have to struggle to understand.
“Part Two”, will address;
1. The failure of our politicians to provide adequate funding for our Texas schools that is readily available now.
2. Why the elected leaders are more concerned about getting elected and re-elected than they are about the children.
3. Why do the religious hypocrites fight to refuse providing the readily available funding that we watch go to the states of Oklahoma, New Mexico and Louisiana. Arkansas will likely join the others to suck up the money Texans pay for recreation that the Baptist’s can enjoy where they are not recognized. The price we pay for cowardice?
C Brewer
A Conservative View 