Blog Stage 6 Response

I agree with you Ignacio, Texas politicians have too much of an obsession with the border wall even though all it would do is take away money from Texas. Texas politicians need to concentrate on things that would benefit the citizens of Texas. Spending billions on a wall that would do nothing since most illegal immigrants come through legal ports of entry, is a giant waste of money. The false narrative being conveyed of a mass migration evading our borders is creating an unnecessary fear from many Americans. Dan Patrick needs to be working on things that Texans need like better health care, Hurricane Harvey recovery, and better public schools. Stroking fear from a threat that does not exist does not help anyone. The whole border wall being pushed by many Texas republicans and the President just seem like a way to save face in the election. They don’t want to irritate their voting base, so they are trying to keep good on their campaign promises. Also, as a republican in Texas, disagreeing with the Presidents’ policies is like a death wish for their reelection. Therefore, many republicans just blindly follow the president, they don’t want to lose their chance for reelection. Your point of calling the state of emergency political ploy of the administration and Texas officials is a completely accurate description. I agree that Texan officials need to work on things that will actually benefit Texas.

Charter Schools in Texas

Charter schools are a controversial means of education that are currently being discussed in Texas State politics. Many people have arguments against and in support of this controversial means of educating our children. This issue has exploded to the forefront of our current state political talks due to current presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. He and his wife have launched a charter school in their home city of El Paso. But he now must walk a line of trying to figure out his policy on the very hostile issue.

Texans must decide whether the money allocated to educating their kids is going to go to a public school or a charter school. Many sides have very valid arguments to the support of their mode of education. Charter schools are usually very good at supporting very specific local needs. Amy O’Rourke, Beto O’Rourke’s wife, founded a charter school in a Hispanic neighborhood of El Paso that was designed to familiarize many Mexican immigrants, that recently arrived into the country, to English and American lifestyles. She believed that the current public-school system in El Paso was at giving these new Americans a chance at succeeding, by not giving them the proper English education. In an interview she said, "The local school district has failed to create an educational system that can generate true success for all students in the community." It was the first school in the area to take a dual language approach and caused it to catch on at many of the public schools in the area later on.

There is also the other valid argument that charter schools drain money from the public-school system and will eventually cause it to collapse. In many areas in Texas, if charter schools start to take away too many students from the public schools, it will start to cause the public-schools to become more underfunded than they already are. It could also lead to increased racial segregation in many cities in Texas. These arguments provide a good reason of why charter schools could be harmful to the majority of students that go to public schools.