Video Transcript

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Question: I'm not sure I'm as knowledgeable as I should be with these topics. Where can I learn more about public education in Texas?

 

Wooten: Well, you've run into one of my passions, which is public education in Texas. So I have arranged a forum, along with Detrick DeBurr and Flower Mound Area Democrats. And we have an expert. This is Dr. Herb Krasner, who's coming in. He's an educator, works at UT. And he would be coming to tell us about the state of play about public education in the state of Texas. And then he's also going to bring us statistics specifically for Lewisville ISD and some of the surrounding districts.

 

So he has information on how these vouchers are affecting the funding, because they put a billion dollars toward the vouchers, which means that's a billion more that we taxpayers have just given to rich people. And in an educational savings account paid by taxpayer dollars, not their savings account. So that infuriates me. But he understands how this plays out. He's been monitoring it in other states who have done ESAs or private school vouchers. And then he has statistics for all of us about how it's going to affect us locally.

 

And then he will also talk more about funding: what kind of funding do we need to have for the schools? One of the things the legislature did the last session was they did funding, but they put it all in little buckets themselves and did not give the local school districts the control of the additional funding to put where they most needed it in their district. So the other thing we need to address when I get to the legislature is local control over the more adequate funding we're going to demand, and the repeal of the vouchers.

 

But this is July 15th, which is a Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. at the Flower Mound Library. And we have Dr. Krasner speaking, and we also have a representative from the Gina Hinojosa for Governor program. Her representative is coming to tell us about her program that she calls Team Texas Public Schools. And that's one of her initiatives if she is able to become governor, which we hope.