Two Billionaires Dragging Texas Hard Right, Trying to Destroy Public Education (Spent Millions on Huffines)

[TwiceHorn 31184]

4 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Dunn and Wilks. Haven't seen a photo but I am imagining obesity meets Western Wear. amiwrong amiwrong?

Dunn is a rather innocuous looking educated oil man and Tceh grad.  He's just ate up with the Holy Spirit.

Farris Wilks, on the other hand is a bricklayer that somehow stumbled onto a frac'ing company that he sold for a shit ton to someone else.  And also something of a religious nutball/cultist.  He's your Huckleberry.

[atomheartbevo 89362]

1 hour ago, A-Tex Devil said:

At what point do these guys' wants and needs start running afoul of the multinationals in Houston or the Joe Lonsdales and Elon Musks of the world and other PE/VC money coming to Texas (Vista, etc.)?  The playbook is there to spend a modicum amount of money on local races to get a desired result.  

1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Only if their taxes go up.  In other words, never.  Your taxes and mine on the other hand…

34 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

It hasn’t reached the point where they’re bad for business, yet, but I agree with your point.  If they push too far, there are deeper pockets and bigger interests that would return fire.  

The Texas Freedom Caucus (supported by these guys) in the Texas House of Representatives is already threatening companies and vowing to target any companies that support their Texas employees leaving the state for an abortion.  They are promising to criminalize it, and are already sending letters out to Texas law firms threatening to go after those law firms that help women seek out abortions in other states.  They are even talking about going after companies with Texas branches, that are based in other states where abortion is legal and the employee healthcare covers it.

Will they be successful?  Probably not, but with this Supreme Court…..

In the meantime they are going to suck up a lot of taxpayer dollars going after these companies, and these companies are going to have to spend a lot on legal defenses defending themselves and their employees.  

And they are going to create an extremely hostile environment for a lot of large companies.  Promising to create legislature that targets these companies could easily shut down a lot of future expansion in Texas, and even drive companies with smaller footprints in Texas to leave entirely.

And they are downright gleeful about going after these companies.

[Captainant 27311]

17 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Yeah, I have felt for a while that the issue in Texas that's going to eventually fuck them is going after public schools.  Small town folks love their local high school sports teams and are going to have a fit when they're put in danger.  Jr. is going to play football at Insert Name Here High School just like his dad did and if you do anything to hurt that, God have mercy on your soul.

inb4 they drop the school portion of public schools and simply offer public sports programs so they can still get their Friday night lights

[BLKNSTY 289]

I watched that series on the mormon fundamentalist branch that were under a "Prophet" and trafficked young girls.  These two guys def give off that "Prophet" vibe.  

Under the Banner of Heaven on Hulu? If so, that was all I could think about reading this thread. Highly recommend even though I may be a Lamanite.

[NameAlreadyInUse 5104]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

The Texas Freedom Caucus (supported by these guys) in the Texas House of Representatives is already threatening companies and vowing to target any companies that support their Texas employees leaving the state for an abortion.  They are promising to criminalize it, and are already sending letters out to Texas law firms threatening to go after those law firms that help women seek out abortions in other states.  They are even talking about going after companies with Texas branches, that are based in other states where abortion is legal and the employee healthcare covers it.

Will they be successful?  Probably not, but with this Supreme Court…..

In the meantime they are going to suck up a lot of taxpayer dollars going after these companies, and these companies are going to have to spend a lot on legal defenses defending themselves and their employees.  

And they are going to create an extremely hostile environment for a lot of large companies.  Promising to create legislature that targets these companies could easily shut down a lot of future expansion in Texas, and even drive companies with smaller footprints in Texas to leave entirely.

And they are downright gleeful about going after these companies.

I'm already thinking hard about where I'd want to move.  If they are successful enough with this campaign, maybe I can get my employer to pay my moving expenses because they want all their employees to GTFO of Texas.  I wouldn't hate that, selfishly.  But in the mean time, I know a whole bunch of Republicans who are not on board with this kind of thing, but are going to keep voting for it because they are just never made aware that this kind of stuff is what they are voting for.  My big question is, how do we change that?  How does this message make it into the public consciousness the same way that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster did? 

[ChiTownDoc 21091]

17 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

I'm already thinking hard about where I'd want to move.  If they are successful enough with this campaign, maybe I can get my employer to pay my moving expenses because they want all their employees to GTFO of Texas.  I wouldn't hate that, selfishly.  But in the mean time, I know a whole bunch of Republicans who are not on board with this kind of thing, but are going to keep voting for it because they are just never made aware that this kind of stuff is what they are voting for.  My big question is, how do we change that?  How does this message make it into the public consciousness the same way that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster did? 

Well, um, it being on CNN was a very big deal.  By hanging out here in the CR, I probably know more than the average person about politics.  I had no idea about these two nutjobs.  They hated it too - you saw how hard they were avoiding those prying eyes.  Again, this is good.  The enemy you know is much better than the one you don't. 

[A-Tex Devil 2444]

21 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

I'm already thinking hard about where I'd want to move.  If they are successful enough with this campaign, maybe I can get my employer to pay my moving expenses because they want all their employees to GTFO of Texas.  I wouldn't hate that, selfishly.  But in the mean time, I know a whole bunch of Republicans who are not on board with this kind of thing, but are going to keep voting for it because they are just never made aware that this kind of stuff is what they are voting for.  My big question is, how do we change that?  How does this message make it into the public consciousness the same way that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster did? 

This is where my initial line of questioning was going.  First, while I will not fault anyone for leaving Texas because of its legislation, that is exactly their aim.  And the more states that do this successfully, the more the minority rules federally.  Josh "Zippy" Hawley said as much.  But that is being addressed on threads across this board.

Back on topic.... if Elon Musk, for example, has his Texas tax paradise ruined by zealots such that he can't hire the talent he needs to surround him, I think he might launch a few bombs.  More extreme, if Robert Smith is told that his marriage is illegal, he's not going to lift Vista out of Austin.  I presume he'll work to get ahead of all of that.  

Whither Peter Thiel in all of this, frankly.  8VC and Mithril both have most of their presence in Austin these days.  So he has a bunch of money tied up in talent down here.  

Longwinded way of saying I could see an internecine capitalist war potentially coming to Texas.   I'll be curious what side of the scale Big Oil puts its thumb on. 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5104]

Yep, being in tech myself, I can foresee a point in the not too distant future where I'm going to have no choice but to move because no one will HQ here anymore.  Tech employees aren't generally big fans of Republican policies, and tech employers aren't big fans of HQing where they can't find qualified talent.

[hayden_horn 11360]

i have a weird perspective on this issue, i suppose.

my two sons are adhd and were very poorly served by their austin isd elementary public school. so we moved to a free, public, secular charter school, where my wife eventually worked as well. it was a great experience. class sizes were smaller, there was more attention paid to the students, etc, and my boys are further along now (the youngest going into aisd high school the oldest already there after doing aisd middle school), and my wife now works in aisd.

the problems i see are largely top down rather than bottom up, as is often the case in many organizations. aisd as an organization is a bit of a mess in and of itself, but it's also completely fucking hamstrung by the state and recapture. couple that with falling enrollment, and you have a dying school district that doesn't need to be dying. add in a massive layer of self-serving administration (that is a state-wide problem, to be honest), and you have a healthy appetite for public school alternatives that help serve the demands of more needy students, but that are still publicly funded, because believe it or not, folks who cannot afford private school tuition can actually still care about the educations of their children.

republicans are trying to kill public schools, when of course they should be trying to fix them. but why bother. they don't want to fix anything. they want to break everything. 

fuck them kids is the republican mantra. 

[hornmpa96 2598]

Big Oil needs talent to come to Houston. The Greater Houston Partnership lobbied against Dan Patrick’s Bathroom Bill. However, the GHP couldn’t get all of its board members to come together to lobby against the voting bills. 

[pyrohornIII 4801]

53 minutes ago, BLKNSTY said:

Under the Banner of Heaven on Hulu? If so, that was all I could think about reading this thread. Highly recommend even though I may be a Lamanite.

 

[Fudge Nuggets 19118]

27 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Tech employees aren't generally big fans of Republican policies, and tech employers aren't big fans of HQing where they can't find qualified talent.

Everybody works from home so problem solved.

[Nivek 16808]

1 hour ago, hayden_horn said:

i have a weird perspective on this issue, i suppose.

my two sons are adhd and were very poorly served by their austin isd elementary public school. so we moved to a free, public, secular charter school, where my wife eventually worked as well. it was a great experience. class sizes were smaller, there was more attention paid to the students, etc, and my boys are further along now (the youngest going into aisd high school the oldest already there after doing aisd middle school), and my wife now works in aisd.

the problems i see are largely top down rather than bottom up, as is often the case in many organizations. aisd as an organization is a bit of a mess in and of itself, but it's also completely fucking hamstrung by the state and recapture. couple that with falling enrollment, and you have a dying school district that doesn't need to be dying. add in a massive layer of self-serving administration (that is a state-wide problem, to be honest), and you have a healthy appetite for public school alternatives that help serve the demands of more needy students, but that are still publicly funded, because believe it or not, folks who cannot afford private school tuition can actually still care about the educations of their children.

republicans are trying to kill public schools, when of course they should be trying to fix them. but why bother. they don't want to fix anything. they want to break everything. 

fuck them kids is the republican mantra. 

Fixing things requires actions and attention.  Republicans refuse to do something because it will remove the ability to campaign on that idea for the morons.

 

[crash_davis 23078]

Republican congressman do what they can get away with. If their voters gave a shit or weren't so fucking stupid, they wouldn't do stupid shit. If their voters said enough with this Christiantaliban bullshit and started voting the assholes out of office, the insanity would stop. But here we are.

[Kel Varnsen 8425]

3 hours ago, Captainant said:

inb4 they drop the school portion of public schools and simply offer public sports programs so they can still get their Friday night lights

Too late. Several Texas school district boards have passed a rule that allows homeschool students to participate in UIL events and sports.

[UTGrad98 2257]

My views keep slowly changing as I get older and more cynical. I've always believed people want to control others. That's a given. What Ive started to come around to is many people NEED to be controlled. Add to that, and what I find the most disturbing is I am beginning to believe people WANT to be controlled. What other way of thinking could lead a significant part of earth's population, not just the US, to not only listen to this bulllshit but to actively seek it out and live by it. Independent thinking and freedom of choice is scary at times and for a significant portion of our human race, not an option. 

The Giver? 

Too extreme?

[CooterBrown 17875]

Yeah, I have felt for a while that the issue in Texas that's going to eventually fuck them is going after public schools.  Small town folks love their local high school sports teams and are going to have a fit when they're put in danger.  Jr. is going to play football at Insert Name Here High School just like his dad did and if you do anything to hurt that, God have mercy on your soul.

It won’t because those small towns yokels will welcome adding Christianity to their public schools. They want that shit. It’s the big city schools that are gonna be fucked.

[atomheartbevo 89362]

6 hours ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

  My big question is, how do we change that?  How does this message make it into the public consciousness the same way that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster did? 

Short term, a big part of the message will make it out to the general public if the Texas Freedom Caucus actually follows through in the legislature next session, and has the State of Texas pursuing criminal charges against companies that help their employees leave the state for an abortion.  

Going to be kind of hard for people to ignore Texas coming down on companies, since it’ll hit the national news, and the Texas Freedom Caucus will be dropping press releases like crazy bragging about it.

[TwiceHorn 31184]

11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Short term, a big part of the message will make it out to the general public if the Texas Freedom Caucus actually follows through in the legislature next session, and has the State of Texas pursuing criminal charges against companies that help their employees leave the state for an abortion.  

Going to be kind of hard for people to ignore Texas coming down on companies, since it’ll hit the national news, and the Texas Freedom Caucus will be dropping press releases like crazy bragging about it.

Well, it's going to be like SB8.  A sizable hunk of Texans will be cheering it, while the rational rest of the country is gobsmacked.

[ChiTownDoc 21091]

5 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Everybody works from home so problem solved.

Yeah but the R in Texas want you to work from your actual closet. That can be difficult.  Fuck them. 

[atomheartbevo 89362]

6 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

republicans are trying to kill public schools, when of course they should be trying to fix them. but why bother. they don't want to fix anything. they want to break everything. 

There’s a lot of money in education, and too many people/companies want a piece of that pie, and it doesn’t take many bribes donations/PAC money to get some of that taxpayer money diverted to for-profit companies.  It’s just icing on the top that some Christians will control them.

[tchookem 3900]

inb4 they drop the school portion of public schools and simply offer public sports programs so they can still get their Friday night lights

Homeschooled kids can already participate in public HS sports teams.

[Chico_SA 521]

16 minutes ago, tchookem said:

9 hours ago, Captainant said:

inb4 they drop the school portion of public schools and simply offer public sports programs so they can still get their Friday night lights

Homeschooled kids can already participate in public HS sports teams.

It's up to local school boards.  Not going to be very common. 

 

[RPM 26185]

6 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Too late. Several Texas school district boards have passed a rule that allows homeschool students to participate in UIL events and sports.

Back around 95 I went to our local HS graduation. Both the valedictorian and salutatorian were homeschool kids that never sat foot in the building. That's fucked up.

Edited July 26, 2022 by RPM

[Burt 4062]

We have a family on the next street over who profess to be Catholic.  The Catholic church wasn't strict enough, so they bought a 38 ft camper and travel to attend an extreme church in North Dakota. They have six kids aged 3 to 16 (and another on the way) and home school all of them.  One girl is a year younger than my 9 yr old daughter, and I cant tell you the number of times she has knocked on our door in the middle of the school day, sometimes more than once a day. We have a park at the corner of our street and those kids are there sometimes 4 to 5 hours a day during school hours.

A couple of months ago, the 8 yr old wrote my daughter a note telling her how good of a friend she is. She showed it to me because she was concerned over her very poor spelling and wanted to know why it was so bad.

Not all, but many of those who homeschool and who are ultra-religious dont homeschool because they think they can provide a better education. They do it to shield their kids from experiencing the real world, and are actually doing more harm to the kids than the real world ever would. There is no way in hell that girl would be going into the 3rd grade in a public school from what I saw on that letter.

Also, yall can take these fucking Wilks brothers back. They're causing a ruckus up here, too, buying up acrage and cutting off access to public land.

[FartingDreamer 138]

14 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

Dunn reminds me of Ron Johnson and Wilks reminds me of that fat bald cop from breaking bad.   Neither of them are over the top in appearance.  Pretty low key looking guys.  

I watched that series on the mormon fundamentalist branch that were under a "Prophet" and trafficked young girls.  These two guys def give off that "Prophet" vibe.  

*FLDS

[Captainant 27311]

3 hours ago, Burt said:

We have a family on the next street over who profess to be Catholic.  The Catholic church wasn't strict enough, so they bought a 38 ft camper and travel to attend an extreme church in North Dakota. They have six kids aged 3 to 16 (and another on the way) and home school all of them.  One girl is a year younger than my 9 yr old daughter, and I cant tell you the number of times she has knocked on our door in the middle of the school day, sometimes more than once a day. We have a park at the corner of our street and those kids are there sometimes 4 to 5 hours a day during school hours.

A couple of months ago, the 8 yr old wrote my daughter a note telling her how good of a friend she is. She showed it to me because she was concerned over her very poor spelling and wanted to know why it was so bad.

Not all, but many of those who homeschool and who are ultra-religious dont homeschool because they think they can provide a better education. They do it to shield their kids from experiencing the real world, and are actually doing more harm to the kids than the real world ever would. There is no way in hell that girl would be going into the 3rd grade in a public school from what I saw on that letter.

Also, yall can take these fucking Wilks brothers back. They're causing a ruckus up here, too, buying up acrage and cutting off access to public land.

Mayhaps the problem is less that there are right wing shitheads trying to bootstrap a christofascist nation, and moreso that there's nothing to stop a rich and chudley oilman from taking his petrobucks and flooding politics with dark money

[Js1 85056]

8 hours ago, Chico_SA said:

It's up to local school boards.  Not going to be very common. 

 

Yes it will.  Because it's the fundamentalist parents are getting themselves elected to local school boards.  They'll home school their kids, while turning the public schools into de facto home school Christian-based curriculum, and still make sure their little precious fuck trophy will get to participate in the sports. 

[Pato del Muerto 52322]

I’m at a small biotech company in Austin. At this point I’m almost hoping they decide to move the entire operation to a more biotech dense market like Boston, denver, or Minneapolis and offer to pay those who will move with it. 
 

work from home doesn’t really happen with those of us that are doing the work in the labs. 

[TXSG8R 3355]

17 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

i have a weird perspective on this issue, i suppose.

my two sons are adhd and were very poorly served by their austin isd elementary public school. so we moved to a free, public, secular charter school, where my wife eventually worked as well. it was a great experience. class sizes were smaller, there was more attention paid to the students, etc, and my boys are further along now (the youngest going into aisd high school the oldest already there after doing aisd middle school), and my wife now works in aisd.

the problems i see are largely top down rather than bottom up, as is often the case in many organizations. aisd as an organization is a bit of a mess in and of itself, but it's also completely fucking hamstrung by the state and recapture. couple that with falling enrollment, and you have a dying school district that doesn't need to be dying. add in a massive layer of self-serving administration (that is a state-wide problem, to be honest), and you have a healthy appetite for public school alternatives that help serve the demands of more needy students, but that are still publicly funded, because believe it or not, folks who cannot afford private school tuition can actually still care about the educations of their children.

republicans are trying to kill public schools, when of course they should be trying to fix them. but why bother. they don't want to fix anything. they want to break everything. 

fuck them kids is the republican mantra. 

I’m curious what you mean by massive layer of self-serving administration specifically. My wife has recently moved into a district level job and yes, the pay is better, but she also now works year round. One week off during the summer, and just as much after hours/weekend work when she was teaching/counseling/APing. Her office is in one of the oldest buildings in town, and she gets plenty of duties outside of her scope because they don’t have the bodies to dedicate that work to. She just broke into a 6 figure salary despite having two masters degrees for over 20 years, and she’s in her 22nd year in the district and 25+ years of experience. I talked her out of pursuing her doctorate after her second masters because there was zero return on investment. There’s no incentive to getting a doctorate in education unless you’re gunning for a board or superintendent position. I’m ignorant of AISD’s structure, but I’m curious why you think it’s a statewide issue.  School boards have always struck me as more self serving, and super pay can look obscene, but when you look at the  number of employees, students, facilities, budgets, etc they are managing it’s likely still underpaid wrt peers in other industries. 

[Hornius Emeritus 12403]

18 hours ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Yep, being in tech myself, I can foresee a point in the not too distant future where I'm going to have no choice but to move because no one will HQ here anymore.  Tech employees aren't generally big fans of Republican policies, and tech employers aren't big fans of HQing where they can't find qualified talent.

Samsung is getting ready to invest 200 billion --- BILLION ---- in the area around Taylor between now and 2034.  For comparison, Elon's gigafactory is estimated to have cost one billion dollars.

 

[Hornius Emeritus 12403]

6 hours ago, Burt said:

We have a family on the next street over who profess to be Catholic.  The Catholic church wasn't strict enough, so they bought a 38 ft camper and travel to attend an extreme church in North Dakota. They have six kids aged 3 to 16 (and another on the way) and home school all of them.  One girl is a year younger than my 9 yr old daughter, and I cant tell you the number of times she has knocked on our door in the middle of the school day, sometimes more than once a day. We have a park at the corner of our street and those kids are there sometimes 4 to 5 hours a day during school hours.

A couple of months ago, the 8 yr old wrote my daughter a note telling her how good of a friend she is. She showed it to me because she was concerned over her very poor spelling and wanted to know why it was so bad.

Not all, but many of those who homeschool and who are ultra-religious dont homeschool because they think they can provide a better education. They do it to shield their kids from experiencing the real world, and are actually doing more harm to the kids than the real world ever would. There is no way in hell that girl would be going into the 3rd grade in a public school from what I saw on that letter.

 

Just playing devils advocate because I was curious and looked it up.

There are outliers in every endeavor, of course, but according to ThinkImpact, public school students received an average score of 21 out of 36 on the ACT, whereas homeschooled students received an average of 22.8.

As for the SATs, homeschoolers scored a nationwide average of 72 points more than their traditional schooled counterparts in the United States in 2020.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Hornius Emeritus

[CooterBrown 17875]

Yes it will.  Because it's the fundamentalist parents are getting themselves elected to local school boards.  They'll home school their kids, while turning the public schools into de facto home school Christian-based curriculum, and still make sure their little precious fuck trophy will get to participate in the sports. 

Exactly. A guy in my neighborhood ran for the State Board of Education a decade ago on the platform of abolishing public schools. His 7 kids are all homeschooled and the college age kids go to Liberty University. He was definitely a GQP trailblazer and a few years too early. He’d surely be elected today.

[CooterBrown 17875]

Samsung is getting ready to invest 200 billion --- BILLION ---- in the area around Taylor between now and 2034.  For comparison, Elon's gigafactory is estimated to have cost one billion dollars.

 

I hope they’ve had come to Jesus meetings with area school boards about what they need from local education. It’ll be money wasted if their hiring pool dries up because all the districts stop producing employable graduates.

[TXSG8R 3355]

36 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Just playing devils advocate because I was curious and looked it up.

There are outliers in every endeavor, of course, but according to ThinkImpact, public school students received an average score of 21 out of 36 on the ACT, whereas homeschooled students received an average of 22.8.

As for the SATs, homeschoolers scored a nationwide average of 72 points more than their traditional schooled counterparts in the United States in 2020.

My wife’s sister homeschools her 3 daughters near Leander, mainly for religious and sheltering reasons. 1 is now 20, still at home, didn’t take any standardized tests because college wasn’t even a consideration. Middle kid is really smart, to the point that she had to attend some community college classes because the mom couldn’t keep up with the material. I would expect her to go to college despite her parents intent. Youngest is probably on the same path as the oldest.

I’m sure the higher achieving home school kids gain an advantage in the right homeschooling environment based on the 1:1 teacher to student ratio and curriculum that stays on pace with the child. I don’t think we have any real insight into how bad the lower achieving kids wind up if their parents aren’t disciplined enough to push their kids, the kids have educational needs that the parents can’t provide, or the parents only cared about pushing the Bible.  

[kevwun 15595]

The problem with homeschooling is crazy people teaching their kids to also be crazy.

Edited July 26, 2022 by kevwun

[Pescado_Rojo 19327]

15 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

My wife’s sister homeschools her 3 daughters near Leander, mainly for religious and sheltering reasons. 1 is now 20, still at home, didn’t take any standardized tests because college wasn’t even a consideration. Middle kid is really smart, to the point that she had to attend some community college classes because the mom couldn’t keep up with the material. I would expect her to go to college despite her parents intent. Youngest is probably on the same path as the oldest.

I’m sure the higher achieving home school kids gain an advantage in the right homeschooling environment based on the 1:1 teacher to student ratio and curriculum that stays on pace with the child. I don’t think we have any real insight into how bad the lower achieving kids wind up if their parents aren’t disciplined enough to push their kids, the kids have educational needs that the parents can’t provide, or the parents only cared about pushing the Bible.  

They'll end up under educated with no social skills and no real future prospects, so they'll sit around watching Fox news and surfing 8chan and blaming all their problems on immigrants and liburls. 

[Mole 4318]

38 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Just playing devils advocate because I was curious and looked it up.

There are outliers in every endeavor, of course, but according to ThinkImpact, public school students received an average score of 21 out of 36 on the ACT, whereas homeschooled students received an average of 22.8.

As for the SATs, homeschoolers scored a nationwide average of 72 points more than their traditional schooled counterparts in the United States in 2020.

We homeschool our kid because:

1. The homeschooled kids I teach in college are far better prepared due to attitudes about learning/education and skills in self-teaching. This is even when their content knowledge is inferior coming in. The homeschoolers that I see in college engage with the material in ways that public school students don’t and simply learn better.

2. I don’t trust my community to take my child’s education seriously. That’s kind of the crux of this thread. I get the desire to stand and fight, but I’m not willing to make my child fight that fight.

3. Teachers are awesome, but the system teaches things that are contrary to a healthy approach to education. Some of these problems would take a radical reordering of our society and values to fix.

4. We both love hanging out with our kid and learning together. It’s really fun and rewarding.

5. The earth is actually a concave bowl and we intend to teach our child the truth.

Regarding the data concerning homeschoolers, it’s seems like homeschooling correctly done can do at least as well or better than public schooling, but there’s a likely big sample bias in the test scores. I suspect that homeschoolers taking college entrance exams are self-selecting for higher achievement vs. public schoolers.

[TXSG8R 3355]

17 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

They'll end up under educated with no social skills and no real future prospects, so they'll sit around watching Fox news and surfing 8chan and blaming all their problems on immigrants and liburls. 

They are definitely stunted socially, which was by design. This is being driven largely by the father. Outside of the home schooling they are big tree hugging hippies. Lots of camping and annual trips to rock crawls. They don’t lean right on much outside of sheltering their kids AFAIK. No guns, no interest military/police/law and order, etc. If I had to put money on it the religion push is more about trying to shelter his girls. I could be wrong though, we don’t talk very often.  They have withdrawn more and more over the years, I think largely to avoid the awkward questions about the kids. They used to come to all our holiday get togethers and we would watch their dogs when they went on long trips. He yelled at his wife in our house during one of our holidays and my wife stepped in and gave him the not in my house speech.  He’s been butt hurt ever since.

[Hornius Emeritus 12403]

35 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

They'll end up under educated with no social skills and no real future prospects, so they'll sit around watching Fox news and surfing 8chan and blaming all their problems on immigrants and liburls. 

So no difference from their public school counterparts?

[The Royal We 3059]

17 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

They are definitely stunted socially, which was by design. This is being driven largely by the father. Outside of the home schooling they are big tree hugging hippies. Lots of camping and annual trips to rock crawls. They don’t lean right on much outside of sheltering their kids AFAIK. No guns, no interest military/police/law and order, etc. If I had to put money on it the religion push is more about trying to shelter his girls. I could be wrong though, we don’t talk very often.  They have withdrawn more and more over the years, I think largely to avoid the awkward questions about the kids. They used to come to all our holiday get togethers and we would watch their dogs when they went on long trips. He yelled at his wife in our house during one of our holidays and my wife stepped in and gave him the not in my house speech.  He’s been butt hurt ever since.

Your wife sounds like a real one, good on her.  If he's yelling at his wife in front of other people outside of his house then it's likely worse when they are alone.

[C-Man 26992]

3 hours ago, Js1 said:

Yes it will.  Because it's the fundamentalist parents are getting themselves elected to local school boards.  They'll home school their kids, while turning the public schools into de facto home school Christian-based curriculum, and still make sure their little precious fuck trophy will get to participate in the sports. 

This is 100% happening. I've seen it first-hand with back-to-back, contentious school board elections in HPISD. It really ratcheted up during COVID. There were reports of one candidate raising $40K or so -- most from one local (out-of-district) donor -- for a fucking school board seat!!!!

[TXSG8R 3355]

12 minutes ago, The Royal We said:

Your wife sounds like a real one, good on her.  If he's yelling at his wife in front of other people outside of his house then it's likely worse when they are alone.

Oh I’m sure. It’s a bizarre transformation for her sister. She used to be extremely strong willed, and now she’s very passive and apologetic for him. Might be age (over 50 now), kids, religious brainwashing, or all of the above. She and her husband are both college educated, both went through public schools, and now they are completely against their daughters being exposed to all of the things that they “survived.”  No clue what they expect to happen when they pass and their kids are still sheltering at home. 

[atomheartbevo 89362]

4 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Samsung is getting ready to invest 200 billion --- BILLION ---- in the area around Taylor between now and 2034.  For comparison, Elon's gigafactory is estimated to have cost one billion dollars.

Friend that works at Samsung believes their healthcare covers out-of-state stuff.  I’d like to see the Texas Freedom Caucus/legislature tangle with Samsung, Apple, Facebook (leasing a huge chunk of the tallest tower in Austin), HP (who explicitly stated they support employees going out of state for abortions), Google, Microsoft, etc.

Because these groups may have solid funding, but they are up against companies with deep pockets and lots of employees, not to mention HIPAA regulations, client-attorney privilege (in the case of the letters they are threatening law firms with), etc.

I’m sure Bristol Cain, with his law degree from South Texas College of Law Houston, and his other buddies in the legislature have thought all of this through.  Just kidding, they are just interested din cashing the checks from the PACS.

[atomheartbevo 89362]

3 hours ago, TXSG8R said:

I’m sure the higher achieving home school kids gain an advantage in the right homeschooling environment based on the 1:1 teacher to student ratio and curriculum that stays on pace with the child. I don’t think we have any real insight into how bad the lower achieving kids wind up if their parents aren’t disciplined enough to push their kids, the kids have educational needs that the parents can’t provide, or the parents only cared about pushing the Bible.  

My wife taught in public schools for years.   She had plenty of solid home-schooled kids that ended up in her classrooms and did quite well, but she also had plenty of sheltered home-schooled kids who had very little in the way of social skills - spending all of their time with their moms or siblings does little to prepare them to deal with a bunch of kids in a classroom or playground.  

The sheltered kids - the few times that the parents brought in stuff to show what curriculum they were using, she said it felt like a mixture of an extended vacation Bible school combined with some age-appropriate activity books most likely picked up off of Amazon.

She also had home-schooled kids who maybe had difficulties that needed solid SPED teachers, and either the parents weren’t getting those services before at whatever school they were at, or just believed that they understood their kids better and could do a better job, and those kids had it rough, because most parents do not understand what’s involved with SPED.

[Kel Varnsen 8425]

The next thing to watch for is these groups using a TEA program SB 1882 to funnel public school money to private schools. Essentially making the public school a proxy for vouchers. There is a hard core push for this in Wimberley right now. 

https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/texas-schools-charter-schools/texas-partnerships-sb-1882

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2 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The next thing to watch for is these groups using a TEA program SB 1882 to funnel public school money to private schools. Essentially making the public school a proxy for vouchers. There is a hard core push for this in Wimberley right now. 

Surly should start up a for-profit private school and get in on the grift.  A bunch of us are married to teachers, are teachers, or are in school administration.

[SydneyCarton 47809]

13 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The next thing to watch for is these groups using a TEA program SB 1882 to funnel public school money to private schools. Essentially making the public school a proxy for vouchers. There is a hard core push for this in Wimberley right now. 

https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/texas-schools-charter-schools/texas-partnerships-sb-1882

How many charter/private schools are there in the Wimberley area right now?!? The main HS has, what, 800 kids?

[NameAlreadyInUse 5104]

On 7/26/2022 at 2:59 AM, Burt said:

We have a family on the next street over who profess to be Catholic.  The Catholic church wasn't strict enough, so they bought a 38 ft camper and travel to attend an extreme church in North Dakota. They have six kids aged 3 to 16 (and another on the way) and home school all of them.  One girl is a year younger than my 9 yr old daughter, and I cant tell you the number of times she has knocked on our door in the middle of the school day, sometimes more than once a day. We have a park at the corner of our street and those kids are there sometimes 4 to 5 hours a day during school hours.

A couple of months ago, the 8 yr old wrote my daughter a note telling her how good of a friend she is. She showed it to me because she was concerned over her very poor spelling and wanted to know why it was so bad.

Not all, but many of those who homeschool and who are ultra-religious dont homeschool because they think they can provide a better education. They do it to shield their kids from experiencing the real world, and are actually doing more harm to the kids than the real world ever would. There is no way in hell that girl would be going into the 3rd grade in a public school from what I saw on that letter.

Also, yall can take these fucking Wilks brothers back. They're causing a ruckus up here, too, buying up acrage and cutting off access to public land.

My cousin doesn't believe in doctors so has had something like 12 kids at home.  ~4 of them died in childbirth or shortly after.  They were all "home schooled"w, and my understanding of their home schooling was they watched TV and went to WalMart with their mom while the dad was at work all day.  The oldest ran away from home when she was 18 to get away from the crazy.  The others are all still at home with mom.  And at this point I guess the youngest is probably 16.  I'd be shocked if any of them have better than a 3rd grade education.  CPS has been called on her multiple times by multiple family members, and every time CPS responds, the cousin just moves.   I think that home schooling can be great if it's done well.  The problem is that there is really no oversight to make sure it's done well.  

I do have another friend who is doing it right, and those kids are whip smart.  Plus she works with other home school parents to get the socialization part included and so I have no concerns at all about those kids.  But for every success story, there's my cousin as a counter.

[Goredho 17302]

23 hours ago, Mole said:

We homeschool our kid because:

1. The homeschooled kids I teach in college are far better prepared due to attitudes about learning/education and skills in self-teaching. This is even when their content knowledge is inferior coming in. The homeschoolers that I see in college engage with the material in ways that public school students don’t and simply learn better.

2. I don’t trust my community to take my child’s education seriously. That’s kind of the crux of this thread. I get the desire to stand and fight, but I’m not willing to make my child fight that fight.

3. Teachers are awesome, but the system teaches things that are contrary to a healthy approach to education. Some of these problems would take a radical reordering of our society and values to fix.

4. We both love hanging out with our kid and learning together. It’s really fun and rewarding.

5. The earth is actually a concave bowl and we intend to teach our child the truth.

Regarding the data concerning homeschoolers, it’s seems like homeschooling correctly done can do at least as well or better than public schooling, but there’s a likely big sample bias in the test scores. I suspect that homeschoolers taking college entrance exams are self-selecting for higher achievement vs. public schoolers.

Your #2 was why we said fuck Texas and moved to Colorado after years of fighting and fighting for special ed for our kids.  I don't think it is in the macro best interest of the country to cede states like Texas to the red plague.  But my kids were going to be who paid the price for any ideological stand on principle, and I will not do that.