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Friday, January 28, 2011

Watching the Texas Experiment of Fundamental Small Government and Lies


The hot bed of Republican governance is Texas. How will they deal with their states $300 billion deficit? They won’t:
Rick Perry prevailed upon Republicans to withdraw their children from the state's elementary and secondary public schools while giving a keynote address to a group of Texas conservative business leaders at a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Houston.
While conservative whine about the high cost of public education, the ever growing higher cost of private education is “no problem.” Imagine taxpayers doling out money for the following private school tuitions:
“Now I know most of you present here have already enrolled your children in some of our state's finest private schools. But I want to make private schools more accessible to Republican Christian families that cannot afford to pay high tuition and for those who cannot home school their children. In a city like Houston private school tuition can cost between $10,000 to $25,000 per year per child.”
Huh? So public education is killing taxpayers, but private school tuitions at twice the price will be more affordable?

Even more revealing is his open admission that it isn’t public schools so much as their liberal influence;
“I am concerned that some the highly diverse Magnet public schools in this city are becoming hotbeds for liberalism.  Do we really need free school bus service, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, ESL, special needs and enrichment programs like music, art or math Olympiad? I think we should get back to the basics of the three Rs, reading writing and arithmetic. I mean when is the last time a 6th grade science fair project yielded a cure for a disease?”
The audience chuckled.  
No outrage? Oh yea, this is Texas. Ready for another jaw dropping comment?
“I really don't see why high schools should have to teach college level courses like calculus, economics, physics, chemistry or biology. Oil field workers need to know how to operate machines that extract oil. They don't need calculus to do their job.”
The audience chuckled again.  
“The goal is to establish affordable fundamentalist Christian learning and cultural centers that would serve as an alternative to public schools.  I have no problem if curriculum specialists and teachers decide to replace language arts and literature with bible study. The Christian learning center's students will have to do quite a bit of praying once they graduate and enter the global market place.”
An editorial writer for the Houston Chronicle also reveals the forthcoming pain that will be delivered to the people of Texas; “Those cuts may lead to, among many other things, the elimination of nearly 10,000 state jobs and as many as 100,000 public education jobs, loss of financial aid for 60,000 students; and $2 billion in cuts to programs like Medicaid, CHIP and food stamps that keep our most vulnerable citizens alive.”
Welcome to the first third world state of the United States of America.  

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