Grading Texas

The State Board of Education is sure to include a healthy dose of patriotism in the social studies curriculum standards it is revising this spring for Texas public school students. The board also should include a high school level course in how and why our democracy and freedom, after 250 years, are alarmingly eroding.

Or at the very least the board should include as a reading requirement for high schoolers the latest annual report by Freedom House, which warns that the United States is slipping dangerously into autocracy and under President Trump had one of the biggest declines in freedom of any country last year. Czechia, Croatia, Argentina, Estonia, Romania, Lithuania and many other countries scored higher on the report’s freedom scale than the U.S.

Dominated as it is by conservatives though, this board isn’t likely to take either option. Instead, it will continue praising the popular version of American and Texan exceptionalism, rather than take steps to educate young people on how to keep our state and country strong, safe and welcoming for all freedom-loving people.

Freedom House, based in Washington, is a nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization founded in 1941 to promote democratic values. It has published annual reports since 1973 assessing the health of democracy, political freedom and human rights throughout the world. In its current report, it examined 195 countries and 13 territories, based on 25 indicators of political rights and civil liberties, to determine if a country or territory is free, partly free or not free.

The United States – the traditional “land of the free” – scored 81 (a low B) out of a possible 100 points, keeping us rated “free,” but on a level with South Africa, Jamaica, Seychelles and Suriname. It was a three-point decline for the U.S. from the previous year. We have been declining since earning a high of 93 on the 2006 report.

Freedom House cites these factors as some of the reasons for our country’s decline:

• Chronic partisan gridlock and dysfunction in Congress and escalation in the power claimed by the president. This issue has intensified with President Trump’s executive orders and other actions – many legally questionable – that the Republican majority in Congress has seldom challenged.
• The Trump administration’s disregard for conflicts of interest and weakening of anti-corruption safeguards and enforcement practices. Trump has removed or replaced numerous independent inspectors general from many federal agencies.
• Gerrymandering of legislative districts to reduce the potential influence of political opponents.
• Undermining the media’s influence and freedom. Trump and Congress abolished funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year, cutting off a critical source of funding for PBS and NPR. The Trump administration also has tried to intimidate independent media organizations with lawsuits, and Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair has threatened TV stations with the loss of broadcast licenses for carrying news reports and entertainment the administration dislikes.
• A multiyear rise in threats and reprisals for political speech as well as government efforts to punish nonviolent expression by noncitizens. The worst examples of this were the killings last year by federal immigration officers of two American citizens who were peacefully demonstrating against abusive immigration enforcement tactics.

As the San Antonio Express-News noted in a recent editorial: “The United States is a nation synonymous with democracy, one that other countries have historically looked to for modeling democratic values. It should always score an A – and not just an A but an A-plus.”

Only one country, Finland, scored 100 on the freedom scale, closely followed by Norway, Sweden and New Zealand with 99. While the U.S. got 81, the average score for European Union countries was 90. Canada scored 97.

Why would Donald Trump – or anyone else – think that any freedom-loving Canadian would want to become part of our 51st state?

Freedom House: The Growing Shadow of Autocracy 

America’s rating in freedom and democracy continue to decline under Trump 

Clay Robison

Presumably, a basic understanding of the three branches of government – the executive, the legislative and the judicial — will remain in the social studies curriculum standards that the State Board of Education is revising this year. But will the board revise the standards so that Texas students also understand what can happen when the legislative branch fails to do its job of checking and balancing the powers of the executive?

Probably not, and that’s too bad because what can happen is happening.

The legislative branch of the federal government, of course, is Congress, a law-making and policy-setting body with a lot of power under the Constitution. But under Republican control during the second Trump administration, Congress has become little more than a rubberstamp for whatever illegal action Trump wants to take next, moving the U.S. closer and closer to authoritarianism.

While the Democratic minority has fumed, the Republican congressional majority has mostly watched as the Trump administration has cut or rediverted billions of dollars in funds appropriated by Congress, laid off government workers approved by Congress and started dismantling the Department of Education, an agency created by Congress. A host of other outrageous actions, of course, include efforts to stifle free speech, repeal civil rights initiatives and dictator-like immigration-enforcement policies that have terrified school children, disrupted hundreds of peaceful families and resulted so far in the shooting deaths of at least three American citizens by federal officers.

Meanwhile, the judicial branch’s record on the president’s power grab has been mixed. Many lower court federal judges have tried to shut down many illegal Trump policies, from education to immigration enforcement and the hiring and firing of federal workers. These judges often have been ignored by Trump functionaries or later reversed – at least temporarily – by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 ruling that struck down Trump’s tariffs program was the high court’s first decision blocking a major Trump policy imposed during the president’s current term. And Trump quickly tried to circumvent the court’s decision by issuing new tariffs under a different law.

Interestingly, Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, wrote a concurring opinion in the tariffs case, in which he scolded the Republican Congress’ subservience to Trump.

“Yes, legislating can be hard and take time,” Gorsuch wrote. “And yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.”

That is what the writers of the Constitution had in mind when they created the three separate, independent branches of government. At present, though (and rewriting Gorsuch a bit), the combined political will and courage (not wisdom) of the people’s elected Republican congressional representatives is just not strong enough to challenge that egomaniac in the White House.

But we won’t see that in Texas’ next set of social studies curriculum standards.

Clay Robison

The gluttonous beast has been unleashed.

Texas parents eager to tap into state tax dollars to help pay their kids’ tuition at private schools or help cover their home-schooling expenses can start applying this week (Feb. 4) for the inaugural year of Texas’ new private school voucher program.

The Legislature set aside $1 billion for the 2026-27 school year, an amount that legislative budget experts have predicted will increase to about $4 billion a year by 2030. Then, fasten your seatbelts because before you know it, the program will be costing Texas taxpayers and our public schools untold billions of dollars a year.

Gov. Greg Abbott and other voucher advocates deny the diversion of billions of tax dollars a year to private schools will hurt school districts and their students. Don’t believe them.

Several states with existing voucher programs already have been documented robbing from their public schools to feed their voucher programs, and if you think our current state leaders won’t do the same thing, you haven’t been paying attention to their school privatization campaign.

According to a report, linked at the end of this post, by Public Funds Public Schools, several states with some of the longer records with vouchers have made substantial increases in state funding for vouchers over the years as they cut per-student funding for public schools.

Public Funds Public Schools is a partnership between the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Examples in the report, released in 2023, include:

• Florida – This state, like some other states, has multiple voucher programs, and spending on three of the oldest programs increased by 313 percent between 2008-2019, while per-pupil funding for public education was cut by 12 percent.
• Arizona –Increased spending on voucher programs by 270 percent between 2008-2019, while cutting per-pupil spending for public education by 5.7 percent.
• Georgia – Increased spending on vouchers by 883 percent between 2009-2019, while cutting per-pupil spending on public schools by 1.9 percent.
• Indiana – Increased voucher spending by 796 percent between 2012-2019 and cut per-pupil spending on public education by 1.5 percent.
• Wisconsin – Increased voucher spending by 119 percent between 2008-2019, while essentially freezing per-student funding for public education.
• Ohio – Increased spending on vouchers by 416 percent, while limiting per-student spending for public education to only 14.2 percent.

As the report noted, “Private school voucher programs are initially proposed as limited in size and scope, then grown as existing programs are expanded and/or additional voucher programs are established. This results in greater and greater amounts of public funding diverted to private educational institutions and private corporations. At the same time, as noted, funding for public schools in these states has largely decreased.”

Meanwhile, most students in these states and in Texas are attending public schools, which are losing money to the privatization monster. Its appetite will also grow in Texas if public education advocates don’t start working to slay it, beginning with this election year.

Read more.

Clay Robison

Gov. Greg Abbott has frequently made the point that public schools “are for education – not indoctrination.” He is correct, but he doesn’t believe what he says any more than he believes the moon is made of cheese. What Abbott really believes is that public schools should be forced to participate in selective indoctrination, the kind of indoctrination that promotes his political career and undermines the truthful, unbiased education that children really need.

Abbott is all in on promoting the Trump world view that panders to racism, bias and fear; denies the reality of climate change; sanitizes history; and promotes authoritarianism and the myth of Christian nationalism. Increasingly, he and his legislative allies are using Texas’ public schools to indoctrinate students with this partisan, right-wing ideology.

Abbott has encouraged school districts to ban books about the LGBTQ+ community and signed a law forbidding instruction about diversity, equity and inclusion and banning DEI clubs in schools. He also has signed laws restricting what educators can teach about slavery and race relations and requiring school districts to post copies of the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.

The governor claims that teaching about DEI or promoting DEI programs is “indoctrination.” It is not. It recognizes the fact that Texas is a multicultural society and that every child – regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identify – should be welcome in our public schools.

Now, Abbott has joined Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to launch a campaign to create chapters of the right-wing organization Turning Point USA on every high school campus in Texas. These chapters are called Club Americas. Patrick has pledged $1 million of his own campaign funds to pay for them.

Turning Point USA was founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who was praised by conservatives as a champion of free speech. But many Americans – including some people of color, non-Christians and LGBTQ+ individuals – fear attack by the organization if they open their mouths.

Turning Point already operates on many college campuses, where students are older and better prepared to form their political views. Now, the organization is expanding into high schools, where it hopes its Club America chapters can build conservative networks and help students register to vote.

It is not clear if Abbott plans to force school districts to create the conservative clubs, but he said he expects “meaningful disciplinary action” against any school that tries to prevent the formation of a Club America.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism, says Turning Point’s “primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists.”

What if the Southern Poverty Law Center or the American Civil Liberties Union were to try to establish student chapters in Texas high schools? Abbott would scream, of course, about political “indoctrination.”

Texas launches plan to open Talking Point USA chapters in every high school 

Clay Robison