It’s election season, which means Texas local governments are, once again, asking voters to approve huge quantities of new debt. In fact, according to the Bond Review Board’s bond election database, Texas cities, counties, school districts, and special districts are seeking voter-approval for 199 separate propositions in all, which are worth a combined $24.4 billion...
Every parent wants a better life for their children. It’s built into us, in our spirit, in our DNA, however you want to look at it—the drive to do better for our kids is part of us. However, many among us are not able to answer that God-given mission to provide a better life for...
The following commentary is published on Thursdays as part of TPPF’s subscriber-only newsletter The Post. If you would like to subscribe to The Post, click here. Several school districts have taken the ethically questionable step of using public resources to lobby against school choice. Plano ISD posted a one-sided piece on its website and the superintendent...
Several years ago, an Austin American-Statesman reporter, Lori Hawkins, covered a gathering of several hundred Austinites who’d met to vent their frustrations over surging property tax bills and to express concern that they’d “soon be priced out of their homes.” Rather fortuitously, Hawkins interviewed an Austin homeowner in attendance, Gretchen Gardner, who inadvertently revealed some...
Senate Bill 17, which will close down the so-called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” offices on Texas campuses in January, was not passed to push an ideological agenda on Texas universities. Instead, the priority was to stop a sanctioned system of internal indoctrination that is making students stupid. Recent protests in Austin make it clear that for many...
What do you do if your school district advocates against you? Well, that’s what taxpayers in Belton ISD (BISD) are trying to figure out. On Tuesday, BISD’s communications team sent out an email blast deriding parental empowerment legislation being considered at the Legislature right now. In the statement, which is now prominently featured on the...
Alamo Heights ISD, a small affluent district northeast of downtown San Antonio, appears to be firmly against giving poor kids trapped in failing schools a way out. In a newly published letter, the school board makes a number of searing charges against Education Savings Accounts—a tool that allows parents to pay for tuition at any...
As the Texas Legislature meets in special session to debate whether or not to empower parents with school choice, the battle lines are being clearly drawn. Those in favor of expanding school choice point advance their case on the basis of both general principles and documented results. At the level of principle, they affirm that...
As most everyone can attest to, education reform is a hot button issue right now. Especially when it comes to parental empowerment. For various and sundry reasons, the effort to give parents the tools they need to pull their kids from failing schools has garnered the wrath of many modern-day progressives who’ve mobilized to protect...
Any effort to address this crisis must include securing the border. Last year in Carrollton, Texas, a few doses of fentanyl supplied by an 18-year-old distributor resulted in 14 overdoses among juveniles — and four deaths. But fentanyl is an Everytown problem, and it’s only going to get worse until the southern U.S. border is secure. More than five Texans...
Israel is pleading with more than one million Palestinian civilians to flee Gaza City. The vile terrorists in control of that doomed metropolis are telling innocent people to stay put. Hamas has used the Palestinian people as pawns for decades. It’s no surprise they’re now using them as human shields. On Thursday, the Israeli Defense Forces, massing 360,000...
Hamas may be trying to goad Israel into a costly and very bloody urban conflict in Gaza. As a U.S. Army intelligence officer, I was trained to brief the commander on the most likely course of action and the most dangerous course of action. How might that disciplined way of thinking be applied to the conflict...