Dan Patrick Wants to Increase Your Taxes

You gotta know the funding system for public education in Texas is in bad shape when you have Legislators admitting - in public - that they don't understand it, don't have the political courage to do what's right, and will raise your taxes to fix it. 

"We need to change our system so people understand it because we don't understand it," said Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, who co-chairs the special committee. . . . "We don't have the political will to change the system around to what we know is right to do," Shapiro said.

"We need to find a better system that works for all of us," said Shapiro, who also is co-chair of the Select Committee On Public School Finance Weights, Allotments and Adjustments.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said he favors a sales tax increase to fund public education instead of property tax revenue.

Maybe we should develop a TAKS or End of Course test on our public education funding system and require that legislators pass it as a requirement for serving. If they don't pass it, they get kicked out of the Lege. The cut score should be high, with no TPM applied. Remediation would be required for those who fail, and they could retake the test up to four times to try and pass. Their scores would be published in newspapers. 

All legislators would be required to take it, not just those serving on the public education committee. It would have Legislative Career Readiness components, and there would be 55 questions. They could take all day to complete the test. If they finished early, then could put their head on their Lege desks and wait for everyone else to finish. They would be provided a calculator and formula chart. 

The Lege dropout rate would increase dramatically, but Gov. Perry would attribute that to an increase in dead Legislators.