Action Update - Issue 86 :: January 11, 2007
Making History for the Citizens of Texas
Grassroots leaders WIN it in Court
"This is an enormous victory for taxpayers," said Peggy Venable, the Texas director of Americans for Prosperity. "The judge read the law like we did, and (the association) was in flagrant violation of that law over a long period of time."
The Americans for Prosperity seeks to limit the size of government and taxes.
Judge rules county group cannot continue lobbying (read media report)
“Taxpayers should not be forced to finance lobbying activities. Taxpayer-funded groups lobby for more of our tax dollars and oppose taxpayer protections. It is a vicious cycle, and it’s fiscally, morally and ethically wrong”.
Several Texas members of the grassroots organization Americans for Prosperity filed a lawsuit in June 2005 against Williamson County for violating a state law that prohibits using general revenue funds to join organizations that lobby the state legislature.
Peggy Venable, Texas director of Americans for Prosperity, joined AFP members Janice Brauner and Judy Morris, in filing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asserts that Williamson County has used general revenue funds to support county associations, including the Texas Association of Counties (TAC). TAC employs registered lobbyists and participates in lobbying activities.
According to
state District Judge Ken Anderson's
decision, state law prevents an association funded by tax money from directly or indirectly attempting to influence legislation.
<Full press release>
Baron & Blue join forces with Houston trial lawyer Mark Lanier ?
In the strangest twist of politics....the financier of the Texas Democrat Party is accused of a liaison with a social conservative financier of Republicans.
Brenda Sapino Jeffreys of the online journal TexasLaw.com has reported about lawyers suing lawyers. No surprise there. However, this story reveals a relationship of the most liberal ultra rich lawyers in Texas working along side the most social conservative ultra rich lawyer possibly in the nation.
Fred Baron, asbestos litigation attorney of Dallas, is known for giving millions of dollars to the most liberal candidates in Texas and the nation. He is single-handedly reviving the Texas Democratic party with a constant infusion of cash. Now Baron and his famous wife, Lisa Blue, are being sued by their former law firm Baron & Budd for numerous infractions. One of the breaches is for an alliance with the famous mega-rich Houston Vioxx attorney, Mark Lanier. Lanier is well-known for giving money to conservative Republican candidates and officials.
Apparently when the paycheck is big enough - all ideology can be cast aside !!
For more stories, go to Texas Shark Watch .
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San Antonio Demonstrates Power of School Vouchers
Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster © The Amarillo Globe-News Online
As the Texas Legislature gears up for another debate over school vouchers this session, naturally Texans are looking for evidence on whether they work.
They should look at their very own long-running voucher program in San Antonio. As with programs across the country, the evidence shows that vouchers work.
While Texas doesn't have a government-sponsored school choice program, San Antonio has had a voucher program funded with private contributions since 1998. It allows students in public schools in the Edgewood school district to attend private schools they otherwise couldn't afford.
Many people think that voucher programs will hurt public schools, draining them of the talent and resources they need to succeed. Others suggest that vouchers will improve public schools by exposing them to greater competition. Because most students will remain in public schools even with a voucher program, the most important empirical issue about vouchers is determining how they will affect achievement in public schools.
We conducted an analysis to determine whether Edgewood's public schools have been improving or declining since the creation of the voucher program. We compared the year-to-year changes in Edgewood's performance with those of other Texas school districts, controlling for factors such as race and income.
We found that Edgewood started producing outstanding academic improvements after the voucher program was created. What had long been an extremely troubled school district began to outperform 85 percent of Texas school districts, given their demographic characteristics.
That may come as a surprise, but it shouldn't. Nationwide - including four independent studies in Florida, two in Milwaukee, and one each in Maine and Vermont - there is a large body of research finding that public schools exposed to vouchers make superior test score gains. On top of all this, we are not aware of any empirical studies in the U.S. that have found that public schools get worse because of school vouchers. That's an impressive track record.
The evidence that vouchers work for the students who use them is even stronger. There have been eight studies of vouchers that used "random assignment," the scientific gold standard, to compare very similar treatment and control groups. Seven of the eight studies found that voucher students outperformed students who applied for vouchers but did not receive them. The eighth also found higher test scores for voucher students, but the result failed to achieve statistical significance.
Other questions have been raised about vouchers, such as whether they will provide adequate services to disabled students, whether they exacerbate racial segregation, and whether they will undermine the teaching of civic values. In all three cases, the evidence shows that vouchers produce better results than public schools.
We conducted an empirical analysis of a voucher program for disabled students in Florida. We found that disabled students using vouchers to attend private schools received better services than they had received in their public schools. They also were less frequently bullied and assaulted by their peers - a major problem for disabled students.
There have been seven studies of racial segregation in voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. that used valid empirical methods. All seven found that the private schools participating in these programs were less racially segregated than the public schools in those cities. Public schools assign students to schools by neighborhood, ensuring that residential segregation will be reproduced in schools; vouchers break down neighborhood barriers.
And what about the teaching of civic values?
Pat Wolf of the University of Arkansas collected the results of all empirical studies that measured the civic values of public and private school students - whether they tolerated the rights of those they disliked, whether they voted, whether they volunteered, and so on. Across the board, the available studies overwhelmingly found that private school students had stronger civic values than public school students.
San Antonio students get a better education because of vouchers. This include not only the students who can choose the school that works best for them thanks to vouchers, but also the students who remain in public schools and benefit from vouchers' competitive effects.
Now the only question is whether the rest of Texas wants to reap the same benefits as San Antonio.
Jay P. Greene is head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas in Fayatteville. Greg Forster is a senior fellow at the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in Indianapolis. They are coauthors of "Education Myths" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
RECOMMENDED READING:
Don't let the liberals control the blogging world! Jump into this online discussion for
Texas conservatives!
INFORMATION:
Janelle Shepard, Executive Director
Texans for Texas, Inc., 815-A Brazos St #384, Austin, TX 78701-9996.
© 2004 Texans For Texas, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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