Teachers shouldn't expense their out of pocket but private planes need tax deduction

You are very fortunate. Most teachers I know, including my wife and myself, spend $700 - $2500 of their own money each year. I think a lot depends on PTA and other budgetary issues.

 

Those efforts do exist in California, but it usually isn't lead by the Democrats.

 

Kinda sad since it was just the previous Republican Presidency.

 

That is just 100% false, not sure where you got that. I read all the bills that go against teachers/public education here and it’s always democrats

 

I got that because as a teacher, I also study the bills that affect education. I also work on and follow the campaigns for candidates for the school board and the positions they support. I look at the people who fund different candidates for the positions.

 

I think this is right. It looks like much the same approach the GOP has taken to Obamacare -- since they can't stop it, they'll degrade it to the point where no one wants it anymore. Now, I think I agree with the goal of privatizing education. I think it is possible to do it well where children continue to be protected and market mechanics drive better value without bifurcating people. But, I wouldn't really trust Republicans to build it, and I certainly don't appreciate the strategy of strangling the public option to make one's preferred policy outcome more likely. It does seem though that it has been the last decade in Texas that they've gotten aggressive in 'driving efficiency' by cutting funding without concern for the consequences.

 

Why should I care? I am not a teacher. Signed-- a conservative/"libertarian.

 

I ask again - did any of these pass in the Democrat-dominated legislature? And do you believe that lifetime tenure after 2 years for teachers is good policy for public education? Do you think circulating bad teachers around the state is a good way to run an education system?

 

I'm vehemently against privatizing education mostly because the free market mechanisms are not there, and cannot be constructed overnight. Even though most Trump fans here probably think I'm a flaming liberal, I'm pretty damn free market minded. Its just that what I see as a free market, and what a Trump voters sees as a free market are two totally different things.

Reg education markets - Just go look at the list of DFW or Houston based private schools. If you want your kid to go to grade school under 30K a year, they WILL BE going to a Christian school. There is no question about it. You will have no freedom from religious indoctrination in this country if the GOP is successful in privatizing education. Secular private academies are far out of the price range of normal working class people.

Go look at the top 50 private schools in Houston. Looks like 40 of them have some sort of religious affiliation. I think the conversation should really be public vs Christian school vs. high end prep school. Its not as simple as public vs private.

And if you think your local tax is just all the sudden going to go down enough to be able to afford 15 to 30K a year in cash, you are kidding yourself. Even if you cut the amount of classroom participants in public schools, the operating costs are still likely to stay stagnant.