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Education on School Finance
May 16, 2004
For this show, Valley NewsLine deviated somewhat from our normal format, and presented clips from the Border Summit on Education held in Austin on May 10-11, 2004. Valley lawmakers, businessmen, and educators attended this Summit to discuss the problems of financing our public schools and addressed issues related to the adequacy of schools to run efficiently, and how the Texas state government should go about financing our schools. If "Robin Hood" is "killed," our already underfunded schools will lose millions of dollars, and to replace those funds will require some increases to already existing taxes (other than property taxes) and even some additional NEW taxes!
Scott McCown, the Director for the Center on Public Policy Priorities gives an excellent presentation on the current school financing situation, and Ron also interviews Mack Quintana, the President and Publisher of the "El Paso Times" and also the co-chair for the Texas Business and Education Coalition, as well as Steve Helbing, the President of Wells Fargo Bank in El Paso, both gentlemen calling El Paso "home," who are in the same "boat" as those of us here in the Valley! \
It is imperative that everyone get involved in the planning for how to fix our public education system before and during the next special session, for Texas is the fastest growing population in the US, and if our schools don't receive the equitable funding for all of our students, we will be essentially reverted to a "serfdom" where the richer students receive a significantly better education than the poorer students, which will increase the disparity between rich and poor in this state and will seriously damage the economy of this state!
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