Greg Abbott Gets Scathing Rebuke From Largest Texas Newspaper: 'Disturbing'

[Rogue Valley]

Greg Abbott gets scathing rebuke from largest Texas newspaper: "Disturbing"

The Houston Chronicle rebuked the governor's school voucher program on Sunday following Super Tuesday's results.

www.newsweek.com

3.10.24
Texas' largest newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, rebuked Governor Greg Abbott on Sunday in an editorial over a "disturbing" school voucher program. The governor had been on a mission this primary season to unseat the House Republicans who repeatedly voted against his school voucher program. Campaign finance reports show that Abbott spent $6.1 million between January 26 and February 24 to deliver on his campaign promise. In an op-ed published by the Chronicle on Sunday titled, "Abbott's Super Tuesday triumph in voucher battle is no win for Texas" the newspaper's editorial board warned of the damage Abbott's "obsession" with school vouchers could do and wrote, "While Abbott exults, schools around the state—large and small, urban and rural—are grappling with massive budget deficits, thanks to Abbott's voucher obsession and a Legislature diverted during four sessions last year from meeting its constitutional obligation to adequately fund public schools."

The newspaper also wrote in its editorial, "What's disturbing about the governor's voucher obsession is his naked obeisance to wealthy special interests who manifestly do not have the best interests of the people of Texas at heart." According to the Chronicle, The "wealthy special interests," in which it names West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn of Midland and the Wilks brothers from Cisco, are looking to "redirect public resources into private Christian education" with the help of the governor. "Their ultimate aim, even if it's not necessarily the governor's, is to transform Texas into a Christian-dominated, biblically based state.

As with most Christian nationalist polititians, Gov. Abbott wants Texas taxpayers to fund religious schools and has fought for 4 years to bring this crusade of his to fuition.

Abbott's goal here has been aided by religious billionaires and the conservative US Supreme Court.

Supreme Court poised to further open the door for taxpayer funding of religious schools

Court's conservatives say denying taxpayer funds to church schools is discrimination against religion.

www.latimes.com

 

[bongsaway]

Greg Abbott gets scathing rebuke from largest Texas newspaper: "Disturbing"

The Houston Chronicle rebuked the governor's school voucher program on Sunday following Super Tuesday's results.

www.newsweek.com

As with most Christian nationalist polititians, Gov. Abbott wants Texas taxpayers to fund religious schools and has fought for 4 years to bring this crusade of his to fuition.

Abbott's goal here has been aided by religious billionaires and the conservative US Supreme Court.

Supreme Court poised to further open the door for taxpayer funding of religious schools

Court's conservatives say denying taxpayer funds to church schools is discrimination against religion.

www.latimes.com

Bless his little heart.

The christian nationalists went berserk about sharia law but have no problem forcing their christian laws on everyone. Once again I will say, I so hope there is a god to judge these people.

 

[HIP56948]

I don't mind (and paying for) young children reading stories and/or being read stories like "Three little pigs, Tinkerbell, and other various fairy tales.
When schools start teaching about supposedly actual Fairies..my support ends.
Parents can teach their children worn-out 4000 year old bullshit but, not on my dollar.

 

[Mr Person]

"The American Taliban" was never hyperbole. This people really are planning on forcing a theocracy on the rest of us by any means necessary. The Democrats need to fight fire with fire on all things if there even is to be an America in the future.

 

[Loulit01]

It's unconstitutional. It just is. There's not a lot more to be said.

How our present reactionary SCOTUS will rule is anybody's guess, but there's no doubt it's unconstitutional.

 

[Integrityrespec]

Greg Abbott gets scathing rebuke from largest Texas newspaper: "Disturbing"

The Houston Chronicle rebuked the governor's school voucher program on Sunday following Super Tuesday's results.

www.newsweek.com

As with most Christian nationalist polititians, Gov. Abbott wants Texas taxpayers to fund religious schools and has fought for 4 years to bring this crusade of his to fuition.

Abbott's goal here has been aided by religious billionaires and the conservative US Supreme Court.

Supreme Court poised to further open the door for taxpayer funding of religious schools

Court's conservatives say denying taxpayer funds to church schools is discrimination against religion.

www.latimes.com

A news outlet know for it's left leaning reporting.

LEFT-CENTER BIAS​

These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation. See all Left-Center sources.

• Overall, we rate the Houston Chronicle as Left-Center biased based on editorial positions

 

[zincwarrior]

Its interesting that conservative rural districts were the ones championing defeating the measure during the last state session.

 

[roguenuke]

Its interesting that conservative rural districts were the ones championing defeating the measure during the last state session.

Rural students are actually far more likely to be harmed by voucher programs because few private schools are available to rural students, so families in rural counties wouldn't be getting much of a choice. Even if a few opened, were opened by various churches, they really couldn't count on covering even a quarter of the students in the area, particularly in a reasonable amount of time.

I did an analysis of how many potentially open private school spots could be available in one of the more rural counties here in NC and how that compared to the student population in that county in public schools. It was Haywood County (I believe, there is a chance I swapped up the name of the county here). I found that they had about 6600 public school students (that's a rounded off number). They only have about 3-5 private schools that have any students in K-12 (they have a couple of private preschools in the area). One of their private schools is only for students with special needs. I estimated about 250 total students could attend all those schools combined, and that is going off of their given enrollment for each of those schools at the moment and what they estimate their capacity as. Even at twice that enrollment, they'd still be looking at over 6k students left in their public schools, likely closer to 6500. So no real change in their enrollment, but losing 50-100 students, or worse funding from 250 students, would likely greatly harm the public schools in that county.

Whereas my county, Wake County, could easily open several private schools alongside the ones we already have, and still do fairly well in many parts of the county with more private funding of the public schools (we have a lot of fundraisers already and our county is pretty well off overall). That's not to say I want public school funding to go to private schools here either. I think that is horrible, only that we are a bigger county, with more available options, even if still limited. And we have extensive public transportation here, unlike Haywood County.

Haywood County, North Carolina - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[j brown's body]

Rural students are actually far more likely to be harmed by voucher programs because few private schools are available to rural students, so families in rural counties wouldn't be getting much of a choice. Even if a few opened, were opened by various churches, they really couldn't count on covering even a quarter of the students in the area, particularly in a reasonable amount of time.

I did an analysis of how many potentially open private school spots could be available in one of the more rural counties here in NC and how that compared to the student population in that county in public schools. It was Haywood County (I believe, there is a chance I swapped up the name of the county here). I found that they had about 6600 public school students (that's a rounded off number). They only have about 3-5 private schools that have any students in K-12 (they have a couple of private preschools in the area). One of their private schools is only for students with special needs. I estimated about 250 total students could attend all those schools combined, and that is going off of their given enrollment for each of those schools at the moment and what they estimate their capacity as. Even at twice that enrollment, they'd still be looking at over 6k students left in their public schools, likely closer to 6500. So no real change in their enrollment, but losing 50-100 students, or worse funding from 250 students, would likely greatly harm the public schools in that county.

This is why his voucher scheme hasn't passed yet. Rural Republicans know that this bill hurts their students and so they have voted accordingly. But it also pretty much hurts everybody when wealthy private school students scarf up the money for themselves.

Other than helping the rich, this bill's attractiveness to Republicans is that it helps tear down the public education system.