Unfortunate
goal of school choice movement - Pastors
for Texas Children
Many years ago, Jerry Falwell articulated the
goal of the school choice movement well when he said, “I hope I live to see the
day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public
schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be
running them. What a happy day that will be!”
Since the
beginning of the religious right movement with Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Pat
Robertson and others, the aim has been to destroy public education in America.
Today they are closer than ever to achieving their goal because it is now
being promoted by the president, his education secretary Betsy DeVos and
Republican leaders in Texas government including the governor,
lieutenant governor, attorney general, agriculture commissioner and land
commissioner.
This is
what you have elected in Texas, my friends, by choosing party over sanity.
Vouchers,
school choice, education savings accounts — they are all code words
intended to mask the real aim of this movement: destroy public education in
America and turn all schools into institutions of religious
indoctrination.
Now you
may say, “Well, David, you are being an alarmist. It would never go that far.
Why not try it in Texas?”
Pastors
for Texas Children, on whose board I serve, will host an information
session at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 9, at Southland Baptist Church.
Speakers will include Veribest Superintendent Bobby Fryar and Barry
Haenisch, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Schools. The
purpose is to answer that very question for you.
But let
me do my best to answer it here. I live in the Wall ISD. If 20 students get
$5,000 apiece to leave the public school to attend a private school, Wall
ISD will lose close to $130,000 that can’t be replaced. That money is just
lost. No teacher can be fired, no bus route stopped, no money on utilities
saved — they just lose the money.
So let me
speak bluntly to my friends in the Wall ISD (and you can apply this to
any ISD in our area) — when you keep electing right-wing, religious
right Republicans at the state and national level, you are voting to close our
schools. Please figure that out before it’s too late.
Notice I
didn’t say all Republicans. State Rep. Drew
Darby is a Republican who opposes vouchers. No, I said “right-wing, religious
right” Republicans such as Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton, Ted Cruz, Sid Miller (yes,
we have a Texas agriculture commissioner who is trying to destroy our
rural communities — he sponsored the voucher bill when in the Texas
House). Please take the time to learn where different Republicans stand on our
children’s education.
Now let
me warn you about something else. Since 2008, the state has reduced spending on
education by $339 per student and reduced the state’s share of spending on
public education from 44.9 percent to 38.4 percent. They keep pushing the
burden onto local taxpayers while bragging they are cutting taxes. (They
do this to our counties as well).
Public
education already is underfunded by the state; if vouchers pass we will be
using tax dollars to support both public and private schools, which will harm
our public schools even more.
David R.
Currie, Ph.D., serves on the board of Pastors for Texas Children and is the chairman
of the Tom Green County Democratic Party.
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