83rd Legislature Faces a New Set of Priorities
The last time Texas lawmakers convened in Austin, they were absorbed with numbers and boundaries: how to make ends meet with a deflated state budget and draw new district maps the courts would approve.
But with improving fiscal conditions and redistricting mostly in the rearview mirror, they are approaching the 2013 legislative session with some pressing policy questions, from whether to introduce private school vouchers into the state’s public education system to whether they should put in effect — and accept financing for — major provisions of the federal health care overhaul.
Meanwhile, lawmakers will face the consequences of the sweeping ...
Comments (6)
Christine Lund
No more 'for profit' businesses taking over our education and prison systems. Cancel these contracts and make the government be responsible for caring for the most important people in our country. Our children and those the education system failed.
Christine Lund
The Texas Prison System is paying the highest paid CEO in the prison industry. We also have the largest prison population so why shouldn't we be paying the least and be able to supply the best rehabilitation system? I want to know how this 'for profit' prison system spends the money we pay them and make certain that the bulk of the money is spent on the prisoners' rehabilitation. And are the prisoners they graduate, actually better off than before they entered the system?
Specifically, how are the 'for profits' actually profiting Texans and the rehabilitation system. What kind of rehabilitation system have they devised and how is it profitting our prisoners?
Michael Miranda
The biggest priority needs to be Water!
Dormand Long
I suggest that the overriding priority should be on getting our public schools to the highest level of effectiveness. If this involves retaining outside evaluators such as the Rand Corporation or the Manhattan Institute, so much for the better.
We have far too much of simply going through the motions in our public schools and in our state higher education institutions.
If we seek to attract employers of the highest level, such as IDEO, Apple, Google, Amazon, SAS, Bain, and the many biomedical companies ubiquitous to New Jersey and its confiscatory taxation and openness to corruption, we have to be able to provide a well educated work force.
What is needed and required by these elite employers is the sort of employee who is clearly in the
"creative class", or capable of rendering competition's products obsolete with one single innovation.
You might want to read Ed Rubinstein's "The College Payoff Illusion" to see the difference between the value of rote memorization and true learning based upon critical thinking, analytical processing and superb communications ability.
Many friends with out of state colleges have confided that their schools have a problem with Texas public school graduates' ability to write. Writing is probably the most essential skill needed to succeed at the most selective colleges.
Much emphasis is place in Texas on the rediculous standardized tests and even on reciting the Pledge of Allegance daily to the Texas flag. Neither has one iota of value in more selective college work or in the workplace at elite companies.
One thing that the Texas Legislature might keep in mind is that once you get education right, many formerly weighty problems simply recede. As an example, if one plots the states by effectiveness of education and with obesity rates, there is almost a unitary correlation.
Kenneth Franks
A few of my priorities would be: restore funds to public education, say no to school vouchers, stop budget diversions, adopt a sensible start to a long term water plan by making an initial investment, don't allow our public schools to become armed camps, and begin working on a plan for non partisan redistricting and stopping the gerrymandering of districts.
Dana Cloud
State workers rally 1/8 1130 @cap south (rain rotunda) Tell leg defend public good vs cuts, privatization. http://tiny.cc/t4ceqw #Tseu#unions#txleg