Texas Republicans Have Decided They Need to Do More Damage to Our Schools – The Texas Legislature convened Tuesday for a Special Session to try and pass the enforcement tools necessary to cut public education funding by $4 billion, plus another $1 billion in cuts to programs like Pre-K grants and services to help students achieve. Additionally, the Special Session again will include attempts to gut the class-size law, cut teacher pay and weaken other education quality standards.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst spent much of Monday, the last day of the 2011 regular session of the Texas legislature, trying to get four-fifths of the Senate—25 of 31 senators—to suspend the rules and approve a radical new proposal on school finance, implementing deep cuts in public education, that most lawmakers first saw only yesterday. Republican Dewhurst could not persuade 25 senators to grant his wish. (The Senate has 19 Republican senators and 12 Democrats.)
He then asked Gov. Rick Perry to call an immediate special session, beginning at 8 a.m. Tuesday (May 31) and lasting up to 30 days, to consider this school-finance bill and a wish list of eight other controversial bills. These include a revived version of HB 400/SB 12, the legislation that would permanently gut class-size caps, state pay standards, and contract safeguards for educators. (HB 400 and SB 12 could not win enough support to pass in the regular session.)
Gov. Perry on Monday evening obliged the lieutenant governor by calling a special session for tomorrow as requested, including on the agenda “measures that will allow school districts to operate more efficientlyâ€â€”code words for HB 400/SB 12 legislation at the expense of students and teachers. (Also on the agenda are measures to reduce state health-care outlays.)
Lt. Gov. Dewhurst vows that Senate rules in this special session will be changed to override the Senate procedure requiring a two-thirds vote to bring bills to the floor. He claims the reason for this extreme step is “the unwillingness to find consensus†of a small number of Democrats.
We invite you to judge for yourself whether the troubles that beset Lt. Gov. Dewhurst’s last-minute school-finance bill were due to someone else’s “unwillingness to find consensus†or to legislative leaders’ own failure to get their act together. See the recitation below of the actual facts about legislative leaders’ maneuvers that led to the failure of their school-finance plan in the regular session.
But more important than what these politicians say and do now is what you will say and do, as the legislature reconvenes to decide issues posing great risks to you and the students in your classrooms. With a special session starting as the school year winds down, the folks in charge at the state capitol seem to be counting on fast action to force through obnoxious legislation before you can refocus on this threat and mobilize in opposition.
Regards,
Jim
Andy Hailey