Where Do Texas Officials Send Their Kids to School?
Whether Texas schools end up with $4 billion or $10 billion less in state funding by the end of the 82nd legislative session, lawmakers face historic choices in deciding what course public education will take.
Tribune readers, wondering what was personally at stake for the state’s education policy makers, asked us to check where lawmakers send their children to school. We obliged, and posed that question to all 181 members of the Legislature and 15 members of the State Board of Education.
The results? Overwhelmingly, about 75 percent of their children attend, or have attended, public schools.
A handful ...
Comments (12)
Mark Webber via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Interesting how more Democrats than Republicans have children in private schools! Overall, I wonder how these children are as students, and if they're slackers, do the politician/parents blame the teachers for poor performance?
Fred Hines
Mr. Bradley's comments about hypothetical requirements for serving on boards (being retarded to serve on the Mental Health commission) are extremely insensitive. Obviously, he doesn't understand the difference between mental health and mental retardation. Given the issues he will be dealing with as a State Board of Education member, he needs to be more up to date and understanding of issues and sensitivities.
August Whitaker via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I wonder how many of the public schools are charter schools....
Lisa Kalinowski via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I wonder how many attend title 1 schools; even in public schools money buys you options.
Leesa Monroe via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I think these numbers represent the population at large at least with the middle class. Democrats probably live in more urban districts so the schools may not be as academically strong as schools in the suburbs where the Republicans live. You can send your kids to private school and still support the whole idea of public school. Democrats aren't asking tax payers to foot the tuition bill like the Republicans.
Thomas Ratliff
In the interest of transparency, my two children attend a Chapter 42, Title 1 rural 2A school in Mount Pleasant. We have approximately 950 students K-12.
LuAnn Ferguson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
How many of the SBOE members have kids in public school?
Mack Simpson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Regarding Democrats vs. Republicans and private vs. public school enrollment, it looks like the Trib got their statistics wrong and corrected the record within their article.
Richard Garza
How many of them read to their kids? How many of them discipline and teach their kids manners? How many actually meet with and talk to their kids' teachers? How many take them to church? How many ask them about and help them with their homework? How many make sure they have a good breakfast and lunch money? How many of them do not allow television, video games or unrestricted internet access during the school week? How many of them require their kids to be involved in extracurricular activities; band, choir, scouting, athletics, music, dance, etc.
The problem is that most parents are doing a miserable job as parents because they are selfish!!
Heiwa Salovitz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
cuts cuts and still more cuts everywhere all Texans must Take a stand NOW we raise or we fall together
Proud Texan
Apparently Teri Leo thinks her contact phone number is "too personal" as well. Check out the SBOE website. Ms. Leo and Mr. Mercer are the ONLY members who don't put their phone number on the site. The message they are sending is LOUD AND CLEAR. "Don't bother me!"
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3803
drfinkster
It appears that David Bradley, R-Beaumont, lacks the intellectual capacity to serve on the Texas SBoE.
Does he really think that only retarded people are served by those agencies supervised by the mental health agency? Has he never heard of mental illness? And his idiotic comment on the Texas Funeral Commission really needs no further comment -- it stands on its own opprobrium.
His fundamental misunderstanding of what and how a board member's relevant personal experiences contribute to his or her understanding of the issues is, if not disingenuous, breathtakingly shallow. Can he not see that having personal experience with mental illness or mental retardation -- for example, having a wife suffer from sever mental illness, or watching a child fall victim to schizophrenia, or raising a child with Down's syndrome -- would greatly increase one's personal knowledge of the how well or poorly this state's mental health agencies serve its citizens (not to mention raise one's compassion for those living with and working with the mentally ill)? Doesn't he think that it would be preferable, before one serves on the Texas Funeral Commission, to have had the personal experience and solemn responsibility of being in charge of, and paying for, the funeral and burial of a friend or loved one?
On the other hand, unless you believe in vampires or psychic channeling, having personal experience with dying would not be of much use in this world.
Can he honestly not see that having had some personal experience with being the parent of a child going through our state's public school system (and not, to use his flawed analogy, his own personal experience with going through public school as a child) would provide a board member with a much better understanding of, and compassion for, the challenges faced by today's students and parents of students?