All six of the Texas State Representative candidates for District 2 attended a Candidate Forum in Sulphur Springs last week. The Forum was sponsored and hosted by Hopkins-Rains Retired School Personnel and was focused only on education issues. This group is a local chapter of the statewide organization, Texas Retired Teachers Association. HRRSP and TRTA do not endorse candidates, but members wanted to hear how each candidate feels about education issues.
District 2 includes Hopkins, Hunt, and Van Zandt counties. There are about 25 independent school districts in the three counties. Current educators, retired educators and the general public were invited to attend the forum.
Since the Governor has focused on vouchers, or Education Savings Accounts, many of the questions were focused on that issue. Superintendents in the three counties have expressed concerns about vouchers because private schools don’t have the same levels of financial transparency and student academic accountability as public schools, as well as the likelihood that already insufficient funding for public schools will be transferred to private schools.
Two of the candidates, Heath Hyde and Kristen Washington, supported the superintendents and stated they were against vouchers. Both stated they are very concerned about private schools discriminating against special needs students, and Ms. Washington stated that vouchers will specifically target poor students. Candidates Jill Dutton, Doug Roszhart, and Krista Schild all support Education Savings Accounts, but believe the private schools should be held to the same level of financial accountability as public schools. Candidate Brent Money supports Education Savings Accounts and believes that the private schools will be held accountable by the parents.
All of the candidates agreed that the A-F school accountability system needs to be abolished. All of the candidates agreed that teachers should receive a pay raise, but Mr. Money and Ms. Schild think that current funding should be redistributed to pay for those raises.
A related education issue concerns Proposition 9 on the November 7 ballot. The moderator briefly explained that Proposition 9 will authorize a Cost of Living Adjustment for public school retirees. The public is generally not aware that most retired school employees do not receive Social Security and have not received a COLA in 20 years. The cost of living adjustment has already been funded and will NOT cost taxpayers any money if approved, so attendees were encouraged to “vote for Proposition 9.”
Submitted by Hopkins-Rains Retired School Personnel
