Testimony of Chris Patterson before the SBOE

Student-Athletes Are Not Employees

College athletics is approaching a crossroads. After years of rapid, sweeping change in student-athlete compensation practices that have left a patchwork of state regulation in its wake, some in Congress now propose to reclassify collegiate student‑athletes across the country as employees of their universities. While we sympathize with the desire to provide certainty and uniformity to student-athletes and universities, and although we see the need for some revenue-sharing framework, workplace regulation...

TEA Commissioner: Public School Enrollment Continues to Struggle  

On Monday, the House Committee on Public Education held a public hearing to discuss the “State of Education” in Texas, with a particular emphasis on assessing academic outcomes, enrollment trends, and school budgets. Among the many revelations to come to light was that public school enrollment continues to struggle.   According to Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath’s invited testimony, public school enrollment decreased in the...

Meeting Texas Workforce Needs with ESAs

Texas is unique because of its unparalleled dedication to CTE training. Our state, alone, gives schools $3.2 billion as a CTE allotment (three times more than the Federal Government gives to all 50 states), but schools are only required to spend 55% or $1,76 billion of hte allotment on CTE, incentivizing schools to offer cheap...