Enhanced Learning in Public Schools

We need our citizens to be as knowledgeable as possible. Public schools are not what they should be. They seem more like daycare than school. I think we should set new goals to give our public school students the best education our economy can afford. Skilled teachers are needed to make a leap to achieve a better educated society, and higher compensation is a perfect incentive to attract and keep more teachers. Texas independent school districts should increase school funding and increase salaries for teachers and school administration. With higher salaries the level of teacher quality should be raised. We should not allow someone who barely knows a subject to teach it. Is a high school gym coach qualified to teach subjects such as economics or government? Is someone right out of college fit to teach a class full of students single handedly? Paying experienced and skilled teachers to stay on the job will correct these mismatches that we have all seen. Along with a salary increase, better benefits should be given to public school teachers. Existing free public school education should be enhanced. Today one can rarely get a decent job with just a high school diploma. A public school system geared to the needs of the 21st century in a disciplined way would set a new bar for the jobs one could get with a high school diploma. Finally, higher education should be free for all who wish to participate. As it is now, a higher education cannot be afforded by all. Graduates of enhanced public school education would be prepared to handle the transition to college and should be provided the opportunity. Resources are needed to create the learning environment described here. Implementing these ideas would cause higher taxes but it would be money well spent. The smarter our people, the better we can all serve our society, and having schools highly educating students would balance out the dent in the state budget over all. It is one of the most important investments Texans can make.

The Twisted Truth

Steven Kreytak’s commentary on the court case in which state officials, associates of Tom Delay, are accused of illegally laundering money involves the larger issue that Republican justices in the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals are putting politics above law. Two Democrat and three Republican justices preside over this court, and biased actions by the Republicans have instigated infighting among the judges. The Republicans view prosecution of their fellow Republicans for laundering corporate money for use in state campaigns as political harassment. They have been tying up the prosecutions for over two years. The district attorney and Justice Jan Patterson (Democrat) wanted Justice Alan Waldrop (Republican) to step aside, due to bias. Chief Justice Ken Law (Republican) refused. Justice Patterson tried to file a dissent. The news article discusses how Justice Patterson asked the Texas Supreme Court to intervene after Chief Justice Law stopped a county clerk from filing her dissent. The action taken by Law shows his bias as well as his intent to save the public face of his fellow Republicans. Steven Kreytak’s commentary simply states that Law denied any wrongdoing, and it quotes Law directly. Readers can plainly see that, when asked to respond to the Supreme Court, Law came up with the story that he did not seek to stop Patterson from filing a dissent, he only wanted her to use the court’s internal procedures by circulating her opinion first among the justices. Kreytak’s commentary is very effective because his use of direct quotes credibly demonstrates that Law has twisted the truth. The audience consists of voters, and Law is up for re-election. The facts speak for themselves, and Law is not fit to continue as Chief Justice.