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86th Texas Legislative Session 01/08/19 - 05/27/19 thread of fail

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Message Board User

Message Board User 12395

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This is the latest list of candidates to replace Straus that I could find:

Republicans Walter Price IV of Amarillo, Travis Clardy of Nacogdoches, Drew Darby of San Angelo, Phil King of Weatherford, Tan Parker of Flower Mound, John Zerwas of Richmond, and Democrat Eric Johnson of Dallas.

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DanRydell

DanRydell 799

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It'll be interesting to see what happens with school vouchers. Government funding of parochial schools is Patrick's wet dream. It's an issue that puts rural state reps in a tough spot because the school districts in their districts strongly oppose it but their evangelical constituents strongly support it. Straus protected rural House R's from having to vote on it last time around. It was mainly being pushed for by suburban Republicans but they got pretty wiped out last week.

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Voldemort86

Voldemort86 2259

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44 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Can we go ahead and legalize marijuana now?

Thanks.

They’re still just trying to get decriminalization and the stick up their ass repubs are having none of it. What an embarrassment. 2nd biggest state in the country and we still treat weed like it’s dangerous. Idiot politicians.

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kevwun

kevwun 15783

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Yeah, anyone they hate is probably an ok fellow.  They only support batshit crazy fundagelicals.  They supported an absolute kook in my house district in the primary.  I have never gotten so many mailers in race before.  Thankfully she lost.

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Larry T. Spider

Larry T. Spider 1746

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11 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

Starts next Tuesday, kids. Buckle up.

My guy that is in the know says school finance is gonna get a MASSIVE overhaul this session. Like, this may be one of the biggest changes since robin hood started.

1. As an AISD employee, this is a huge need. The system is broken with us paying almost 700 million a year to the state while teachers with 10 years and a masters degree still make less than 50k. New out of college teachers in other Texas cities are starting off making more.

2. The legislature is still full of clowns and I have no faith that they will fix the problem with a solution that doesn’t involve teaching that Jesus punched trans people while riding a dinosaur.

 

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relapse98 634

Posted
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7 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

1. As an AISD employee, this is a huge need.

As I am sure you are aware, one of the requests(?) that the legislature is going to have is that certain districts (Hi AISD) strongly consider consolidating schools. I know AISD has started down that road again, but I think the legislature is looking for more consolidation. They are also working on a way to get those teeny tiny districts like Prairie Lea with 225 kids to strongly consider merging. They want to more even out the size of districts so we don't have districts ranging in size from Divide with 11 kids to Houston with 215k kids.

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while teachers with 10 years and a masters degree still make less than 50k

Look for a lot more incentive based pay to come from the leg this session.

 

Quote

2. The legislature is still full of clowns and I have no faith that they will fix the problem with a solution

The legislature is, but some of the staff is as smart as can be. If they will follow the staff's guidelines, it will work out.

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Huckleberry

Huckleberry 32859

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25 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Agree on all of that. 12 schools are on the aisd list. The district would have done it long ago but it’s a political nightmare. The budget is bad enough now that it’s worth the fight.

I'll give the district $3.50 if they change the name of Austin High back to Austin High School.

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relapse98

relapse98 634

Posted
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12 minutes ago, Message Board User said:

Any word on how much money we'll have for the budget?  Deficit?  Surplus?

We have a large surplus thanks to the current drilling. The fight is going to be (and this involves school finance) the rainy day fund and not pumping much to it this time.

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CooterBrown

CooterBrown 18010

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On 1/3/2019 at 9:59 AM, relapse98 said:

Starts next Tuesday, kids. Buckle up.

My guy that is in the know says school finance is gonna get a MASSIVE overhaul this session. Like, this may be one of the biggest changes since robin hood started.

We can only hope they do something.

Maybe if more stories like the one about a district receiving Robin Hood funding building a fucking water park get some traction, they'll be forced to act.

In mid-spring, as the sun was starting to fade near the Texas border with Mexico, about a dozen teenagers were getting training on CPR among other rules of how to keep children safe while they swam.
"Check for injuries, then call 911," the instructor tells them.
The instructions continue as they prepared for a grand opening at a brand new water park at the time would be coming soon. Now open, the park expects thousands of visitors if for no other reason than the complex cost: a cool $20 million.

Rest of the article

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bolverk

bolverk 29671

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1 hour ago, elfenix said:

raise your hand if you've ever driven through there and wondered why the fuck it had its own ISD

I don't even know where Prairie Lea is, and part of my job involves knowing Texas geography fairly well. But to the point, consolidation absolutely has to be at least one part of the solution, and that really sucks for some small towns whose entire identity (and economy as the biggest employer) is built around the schools.

Since we're not going to have a statewide income anytime soon to provide equitable funding, I'd suggest going for a more regional approach. This might be going too far, but the TEA already breaks up the state by service region. Why not pool all property taxes at the regional level and distribute funding as necessary to the various schools. My other thought would be to have the ISDs conform to county boundaries as much as feasibly possible. 

But the bottom line is that the State needs to up its share of public school financing to at least 50%.

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relapse98

relapse98 634

Posted
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Was refreshed on something last night.

A few years back, the Texas Senate had a rule that required 2/3 of the Senators to vote to move a bill forward - 21 senators.

Then they changed to 3/5 required to move a bill forward - 19 senators.

Currently - there are 19 republican senators. So it takes every one of them to move a bill forward if no democrat wants to.  I wish I was listening closer, but apparently there is a republican senator that has his panties in a wad and is pretty much going to refuse to vote to move anything forward. I Think it was Creighton. Due to whatever, the senator is going to lose his chair and possibly vice chair (or not reappointed when the lt gov makes the appointments). So - unless they change the rules, it will take at least 1 democrat to agree to move any bill forward, which means we might have a somewhat clean session - no fricking whining from Goeb etc. However, my friend is also quite concerned that because of this, he'll probably be working in Austin all summer as the governor calls one special session after another.

 

tldr; bipartisan in austin or nothing is going to happen.

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Posted
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4 minutes ago, Message Board User said:

Nice of them to take down the placque, 2 months after Election Day when there aren't any real consequences of such action (i.e., pissing off the Cletuses and Lurleens that make up the GOP base).

It's nice that they voted to take down the plaque.

I'll patiently wait to see the plaque actually taken down.

2 different things.

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relapse98

relapse98 634

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It's one of those cognitive dissonance things. "People" get upset about teachers that are just there collecting a paycheck and pass students onto the next grade that aren't ready, giving athletes As that don't deserved them, etc. and then "people" go absolutely bat shit crazy over "high stakes testing".

To cut down on the former, we have to have the latter. I just don't see how we can avoid it. You want to pay the best teachers, this is how we determine who the best (admittedly, that's still going to be a subjective decision somewhat) teachers are.

We need a way to track student progress from the day they enter the school system until the day they graduate, and possibly beyond to see if it worked.  But don't dare say that to people that are anti "high stakes testing" because oh lord their kids cry, the teachers teach the test, blah de fucking blah.

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Larry T. Spider

Larry T. Spider 1746

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I’m fine with this formula, but as was stated, get ready for a lot of test prep. I do think the idea is based on a false premise though. It basically assumes that teachers aren’t already doing all they can to prepare students and that if money was tied to the test they would be more motivated. I see teachers that a very stressed about how their students will perform on the test and do all they can to help despite many obstacles. There are exceptions but overall teachers are very motivated to have their students do well, often to the detriment of skills that many of us would consider more important.

The reason that I said I was ok with it is because the current funding system is such a scam. I should not have teachers in Austin isd with 10 years of experience and a masters degree making less than 50k while schools in poor districts have a water park.

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