Legislature Won’t Adequately Fund Public Education? Let’s Litigate!

The fly in the ointment, it seems, over our state government’s desire to end public education as we know it, in favor of privately run charter schools and private schools, is the fact that the state’s constitution won’t allow it. I’ve written about this elsewhere, but let’s just say that it is down in the constitution that the state legislature must adequately fund public education.

Not may, not might. Must.

So it comes as no surprise that another lawsuit is in the works. A lawsuit inspired by a woefully underfunded public education budget for both 2011-2012 and worse for 2012-2013.

Part of the problem is that many school districts cannot raise additional revenue as they are currently taxing at the maximum state-mandated limit of $1.17 per $100 assessed value. They depended on the state to stake them to their fair share, and the state reneged.

From The Chron:

“Humble ISD is one of about 220 school districts that have hit the maximum school operations tax rate of $1.17 (per $100 of property valuation) and cannot increase revenue.”

“The district's administrators have made cuts every year for most of the past decade and now face ‘even more devastating cuts,’ spokeswoman Karen Collier said: ‘Our backs are truly against the wall.’”

So when your back is against the wall, there is no other recourse than to litigate.

“’There's going to be litigation. The timing of it is really nothing more than putting together the case. We're still analyzing all the impact of the mess that they passed,’ veteran school finance lawyer Randall "Buck" Wood said.”

This isn’t a first, and it surely won’t be the last time there is litigation in Texas over adequate funding of public education. As long as there are forces in Austin that are actively lobbying for privatization of education, there will be inadequate funding of public education.

And there will be H-E-Double Hockey Sticks to pay at the polls if there is any justice on this planet.

Responding Rapidly in Austin

So I got a call Friday evening from Anthony. Actually he left a voicemail message. Anthony works for the Fort Bend Employees Federation (aka The Teacher’s Union) of which I am a proud member. He told me that they were organizing a “Rapid Response” protest at the state capitol building in Austin and would I like to go along.

I sat and thought about it for a few minutes ticking off the reasons not to go: been there twice this year already for two other rallies, now with the senate rules no longer in force these bad bills are destined to pass so what’s the point. I didn’t end there but you get the point. But then I thought – what else are you going to do on Monday, watch the grass grow? I also enjoyed my two previous trips and knew the conversation up and back would be interesting. Besides, this protest was going to be held inside – in the rotunda.

So it became a no-brainer and I called Anthony back and told him I would go.

So now I am just back with a camera chip full of photos and videos. Videos will need some time so for now I’ll just post some of the photos.

So here’s what we did. Entering through the East Entrance we were and our possessions were examined by state troopers.  I managed not to set off the alarm.

Then up the stairs to a 2^nd floor room where we encountered something close to 200 people listening to speeches. Then we all filed out of the room and spread over the entire 2^nd floor balcony area under the rotunda and cheered, clapped, chanted, listened to speeches (Wendy Davis, the new heroine of the Senate spoke for about a minute – video tomorrow).

Then we sang.

You read it right. We sang.

It was an adaptation of “The Eyes of Texas” (which is, ironically, an adaptation of the song “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”). Explicitly stated: our eyes are upon the legislature and yes, we vote.

Then we did it one better. We sang and marched around and around the rotunda, first on the 2^nd floor balcony, then on the ground floor, rotating counterclockwise (you know, to the left) then back upstairs where we gathered outside the entrance to the House of Representatives. Where we chanted, clapped, yelled, and yes, sang again.

Tourists were taking photographs of us.

Then we all quietly filed into, and filled nearly all the available seats on east side of the visitor’s gallery to make our presence known to the State Reps, and observed the Reps who had just started the afternoon session at 1:00, hard at work.

State Rep Donna Howard came to the podium and announced our presence to the Members, listing the organizations present and the many counties from which we had traveled that day to be there. We all stood up and waved, and some of the Members actually gave us a clap.

Then we all smugly sat down having been recognized by our state’s legislative  body.

Then after addressing some questions by Rep Elliott Naishstat over Perry’s veto of the bill to tax online sales (aka the Amazon.com bill) – he wants a vote to overturn the veto – the legislature abruptly adjourned.

Our eyes were upon them, but I guess they were having none of that.

Still, we all agreed that it had been fun and it was a good thing to see the Teacher’s Union taking it right to Austin, that votes to end public education as we know it have consequences, and that we will not let this be forgotten next November.

Photographs follow:



Here we are in the Rotunda. Some of us brought signs. All of them were spelled correctly.



There were lots of us. I counted 50 over a 90 degree angle and multiplied by 4.



Sign Number 1. Note the diversity of this crowd.



2nd Sign. The covered word is "Expect"



State Rep Roberto Alonzo giving a speech of encouragement.



Sign Number 4. Never met a home schooled State Rep that I liked.



Sign Number 5. My absolute fave.



Shouting out at the doors to the House of Representatives. This trooper was either describing the catch he pulled in this past weekend or issuing distance instructions to one of our number.