Burnt Orange Report

I think everyone with an "Adios, MoFo" t-shirt should show up and smile and be friendly. Smile for the cameras that is.

Sounds like an attempt to copy the G W Social Security "Town Hall Meetings".

Perry's supposed to be signing an executive order about education, something about requiring public schools to spend 65% of their money on instruction. I'm all for that, but it depends on what "instruction" entails. Does instruction include teacher aides or classroom facilities? It didn't back in the specials, but who knows.

Funny, though...the state only pays for 1/3 of public school education, but we're going to tell them what to do with twice that much. Maybe if we actually put more money into schools we could actually see a difference...

Looks like Governor Goodhair had a "good hair day" and managed to do what the legislature wouldn't.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3320462

"Critics argued that the proposal would strip districts of local control and would hinder discretion of school administrators."

It also might put an end to those school administrators from using the funding to benefit everyone but the teachers and their students.

If education will determine who becomes governor next November, he may have just won the election.

Like it or not, he's walked his talk.

Governor Perry has just won the election???

Our schools need real education reform, not campaign boosts masked as education improvement.

Rural schools NEED money for transportation. It's how the children actually get to school. This executive order does nothing to help alleviate rural schools' need for more transportation funding from the state.

Schools NEED nurses, to help make sure children stay healthy in school. They also need library materials, so they can research and learn.

Schools also need teacher aides. Several formerly high-performing schools in Texas just received inadequate status (inculding my old high school, Anderson High, right here in Austin), because of the shoddy special education classrooms. This 65% mandate does nothing for that, because it won't include teacher aides, who are needed in special education classrooms.

This announcment also does nothing, NOTHING to put more money into our public schools, NOTHING to answer why Perry was unable to bring lawmakers together during all those special sessions he called, NOTHING to help solve the equity problem. It's an executive order to pass something most all the legislators had already agreed on, something Perry had never proposed before...

It's Perry taking credit for other people's work. Why, oh why, is that worth congratulating?

I'm not congratulating him. I might have had he done this to begin with instead of wasting time and taxpayer money knowing full well Crabapple and Dewdrop would sabotage whatever the House and Senate agreed on.

Just the same, he used his executive power as governor to address one of the major problems with public education in this state. The wasteful spending of taxpayer's money. Something the legislature itself never addressed. The only thing the legislature addressed was how to provide more funding for the local districts to waste. Maybe other districts don't do business the way HISD does. HISD alone is reason to change the current funding system. The way education funding has been legislated in this state, there has been very little oversight let alone any accountability with regard to that funding. The majority of Texans are fed up with being taxed to death. And with being told they will be taxed even further to pay for school district administrators to waste even more of their taxes.

That is not a Democratic or a Republican or an Independent issue. It is a taxpayer issue. Maybe you don't mind having your taxes wasted. The majority of Texans do. And Perry apparently DID "get that."

Unfortunately it's about all he's gotten. So don't accuse me of being a Perry supporter. The only thing about him that doesn't blow with the wind as far as I'm concerned is his hair.

I've looked in the Texas Constitution and in the Statutes, the only place where I see that he actually has the authority to issue an executive order is in the cases of a disaster. Legislation says that he can, but the Constitution doesn't say he can. I would ask the Attorney General's Office since that's what they do, but the last time I asked, they told me I wasn't privileged enough to get an answer.