Jump to content

Texas Jeff

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    1215
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

2114 Surly 10%

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

  1. The list also had the Austin IRS complex on South IH-35 on it.
  2. Anyone else have the Governor of Maine as one of the first gutsy enough to stand up to a bully? Trump called her out face to face and tried to get her to comply with his Title IX orders regarding transgender participation in sports and she pushed back and said no way, see you in court. Later that day she released a statement: “I have spent my career – as a District Attorney, as Attorney General, and now as Governor – standing up for the rule of law in Maine and America. To me, that is fundamentally what is at stake here: the rule of law in our country. “No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold. “Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it – and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so. “I imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined. My Administration will begin work with the Attorney General to defend the interests of Maine people in the court of law. But do not be misled: this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”
  3. My prediction if this happens: Congress will pass legislation authorizing a one-time payment to taxpaying Americans as an "advance" on DOGE savings. Everyone will get a check in the mail signed by Donald Trump for $500 or so with a letter saying "here is an advance payment for your portion of the savings, enjoy!!!" And they will claw it back on everyone's tax return so that the overall effect is that everyone nets about $10. A check in the fall presented with much bravado followed by a reduced refund in the spring when no one wants to do the math.
  4. Ramonce Taylor. All he had to do was focus on speed not weed … and he chose poorly.
  5. In Texas, schools have to teach a certain number of instructional minutes, not a certain number of days. So a 5-day week where the kids are there for X minutes is just as good for funding as a 4-day week where the kids are there for the same X minutes. If the school is closed on the 5th day, they don't have to pay for transportation, cafeteria, janitorial service, or as much heating and cooling on that day. The teacher pay is the same. The teachers are there 4 days a week instead of 5 days, but for longer days. Some districts are using the 5th day for teacher planning and training, so the school might be open 5 days a week, but Friday becomes teacher-only day. It's not so bad of an idea for high schools that are already on an A/B schedule. It's probably better for affluent schools with a parent at home to turn Friday into super fun extra-curricular day. It's harder for poorer schools that rely on 5 days a week of other people watching their kids while parents work.
  6. Collectively, a bunch of things that add up. Some I can think of are: * School districts collect money based on their property tax basis. But the state allows them to have revenue based on average daily attendance. The state can control how much is spent on education regardless of the property tax raised by the local district. The state is raising the amount by less than inflation, or in some years not at all, so eventually district budgets get crushed. Cost of living rises faster than teacher salaries rise, so eventually teachers are priced out of the district they serve. * In AISD, they have 100,000 seats available but only about 73,000 students. Demographic projections show that they will be flat over the next 10 years, or slightly down. You don't want to operate at 1 kid 1 seat, but they could at least trim 15,000 seats and have room to spare. They still have to heat and cool and clean the empty spaces, and this costs money. As an example, LBJ in Austin has about 600 students. LASA has about 1600. They are in the same sized buildings and they have similar number of janitors. It costs more per kid to keep LBJ clean than LASA, just because the ratios are higher. The district has not balanced enrollment across the district and they are operating too many schools. The "small school" problem raises costs in other ways. You need more coaches, more band directors, more principals, more money for transportation, more lawn mowing. Schools try to share resources, like having a band director or coach cover two schools, but the person eventually bails when they find a job that doesn't require them to split their attention. * Districts spend more on some items than the state allocates. In AISD, here are a few: + Safety and Security: State allocates $2.5 M, AISD spends $23.3 M -- a $20 M deficit + Transportation: State allocates $5.8 M, AISD spends $38.2 M -- a $32 M deficit + Special Education: State allocates $96.6 M, AISD spends $169.8 M -- $73.2 M deficit * AISD didn't do much to maintain their schools from 1980-2010. They are now digging out of a big maintenance hole. So for the next 25 years or so, maintenance is going to be high. But, they have the bucks to do this, they are limited by the speed of construction.
  7. Off topic, but Austin High and all Austin high schools are getting turf for football/soccer, and lights for the turf field + lights for softball and baseball. That should happen in the next two years. It's not the same as the surrounding schools, but it's something. The Austin High baseball field is a little strange in that it's not actually on the high school campus. It's City of Austin, and there are agreements that allow CoA and AISD to share stuff around the high school. It was frustrating for me as a band parent in Austin ISD to travel to school districts like Seguin for contents, and see their better facilities, and look them up later and see how much they were getting from Robin Hood vs giving. The Robin Hood money mostly goes to teachers, but they are happy to include bond projects over the top for nicer facilities.
  8. I think we will gradually head to a two-tier school system. Some will take the $10k, add their own $10k, and go to a very nice school with no hard to educate kids. Everyone else that has something in their way, like not being able to come up with the extra $10k or having a disability, will go to what remains of the public system.
  9. The last time I was car shopping, I got in the Model 3 ready to love it and got out 10 seconds later because it sucked. No turn signal ... you had to push buttons on the steering wheel instead. A giant touchscreen for everything. The interior felt cheap. Perhaps the younger folks enjoy doing everything through a screen and pushing buttons to turn but it was not for me. My wife liked the Mach-E and we almost went down that road. It sucked less than the Tesla. How hard is to make a car with a reasonably nice interior with just a few knobs and dials instead of a giant monitor?
  10. It's not just local property values declining. They are also choosing to spend $52 million more this year than originally planned, which is increasing their deficit, because the deficit is the difference between what they spend and what comes in. The deficit honestly doesn't matter that much ... because it is so large. They are lawn darting towards having no money in reserve. They have a board policy that says that they need to keep 20% of spending in reserve each year to help them get through the fall, help them pay teachers before taxes start getting paid in January. They are on track to drop below that amount sometime around the end of this year and spend the entire fund balance by the end of next year. They have to hope for more money from the Leg and/or get serious about significant cuts. They are being very transparent about it. All of the numbers are online. They are having lots of open discussions about it but they are not making enough cuts to balance the budget.
  11. George Bush replaced Ann Richards as our governor 30 years ago. Since then we have had exactly three governors. Bush used the office to run for president. Perry inherited the office from Bush and then wouldn't leave. When Perry finally left, Abbott got 91% of the primary vote and of course as a Republican he was able to beat Wendy Davis in 2015. It's been ten years since then. Abbott can probably win again if he wants and continue to serve until 2032 or beyond. In the 30 years prior to 1995, Texas had six governors. They used to serve reasonable terms and then bring in some other person. Fresh ideas. Now we have little kings that stay too long.
  12. BTW, I am no fan of vouchers ... but I have some thoughts on this. I think exactly what you say will happen, but it will mostly benefit "easy-to-educate" kids ... mostly wealthier kids without disabilities. People think Austin ISD gets about $6160 per kid, which is about the standard allotment. I knew they got more money than that, because of bond expenditures, title 1, and so on, but I was really surprised when their efficiency report revealed that they received $13,802 in revenue per student in the 2022-23 school year. That number is after recapture. In 2023-24, before recapture was paid, they collected over $25,000 per student. The amount of money they spend per student varies widely throughout the district. Easy-to-educate kids get less and hard-to-educate kids get more, which makes sense. In your scenario, the "easy-to-educate" school would see an increase in funding. The "hard-to-educate" school would see a drop. Vouchers are going to attract the "easy-to-educate" kids, who will see an increase in their school funding and have the ability to add to that advantage via additional private tuition. Austin ISD received $2000 more revenue per student in 2022-23 than their peer districts, but paid a lower base salary to teachers, paid less to administrators, and paid the superintendent less than their peer districts. I am a fan of Austin ISD but I don't think they are efficiently using what they have.
  13. Some numbers on what is being proposed, more info at the Texas Tribune: The Texas Senate is planning to spend $1 billion at first on vouchers. Homeschool kids get $2000 each. Non-homeschool kids sign up for $10,000 each, or $11,500 if they are disabled. So, even if the homeschool kids are not included in the $1 billion and no disabled kids sign up, the plan is limited to 100,000 kids. Texas today has about 350,000 kids in private schools. Any student can sign up to get the money, but 80% goes to kids under 500% of the poverty level, which is $156,000 for a family of four. The rest are entered into a lottery if there is any money left. However, the legislative budget board has said that costs will grow in future years. Voucher costs will jump from $1 billion in FY 2027 to almost $3 billion in FY 2028 and $3.7 billion by FY 2030. Of course, those numbers are beyond the current biennium, but it's easy to see how this expense could take off in future years.
  14. trump is talking about the US owning Gaza.
  15. He did not launch it. The FAA published guidelines trying to recruit more people with targeted disabilities in Feb 2013. He kept it going in his first administration. Elon has recently been compiling about the FAA DEI policy. I suspect that Trump had no idea that FAA DEI existed and didn't care that this was going on during his first term. But now Elon has Trump's ear, so we are all talking about it. Some reading: https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/01/15/faa-dei-initiatives/ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/trump-dei-plane-crash-fact-check.html From The NY Times article, on the effectiveness of these efforts: and
×
×
  • Create New...