Texas Loses out on Education Funds

I hope Texans are embarrassed right now. They've got a huge ass for a governor.

In 2009, when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act started handing out funds to stimulate the economy, a sizable chunk of this was earmarked for schools. But what did Governor Rick Perry do?

He accepted the money and then cut school funding by an equal amount. In other words, he pocketed the money to use for the state's rainy day fund, bypassing the earmark.

Seeing this was more than a bit of a dick move (although it's happens all the time), Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin added an amendment to a more recent federal handout making sure Texas couldn't pull the same trick again.

So what did Perry do? When applying for $830 million for schools, Perry wrote in on the application that the feds had no right to tell Texas how to use the money it was being given and they could shove it. He told the Austin American-Statesman that he would, "look for ways around the requirement that the Texas governor assure that the state would maintain a level of education spending for the next three years."

Naturally, Texas' application was turned down. So where does that leave schools?

Apparently, 14,500 education related jobs are in danger in Texas due to budget shortfalls. The money was to follow a Title I distribution which would give the majority of the funds to areas with the poorest students so it would invigorate the highest need communities.

This coming after promoting creationism and "performance-based payment for teachers" which fails to take into account the difficulties of certain areas and demographics, thereby making a bad problem worse.

Education in Texas is looking more and more like a joke lately. As I finish my certification, I look more and more at areas I'd consider teaching. Texas is definitely on the list of places not to even consider.