There has been a constant assault on public education systems here in Texas in the past couple of sessions. There's been a recent push for this thing called ESAs or the school voucher program, but you must understand that every school voucher that is used will take money out of public funding and instead put that into private schools. We in Texas have a massive, massive surplus right now. We are bloated in the pockets.
You know, we can spend additional money on our roads, we can spend it on an infrastructure. We can actually, if you really want to have school choice, we can take our massive surplus and give some money to the private schools. However, that is not the voucher program that has been proposed by the Republicans in the past couple of sessions. Instead, their ESA vouchers would take money and sacrifice public
money, public school funding, and instead give that to private schools. This in a situation where we've already are experiencing losses. We've experienced a 40% loss of our school staff in the past two years, mainly due to underpaying our school teachers and staff and burnout. A lot of people blamed politics as well on this. School teachers are not being treated with respect that the
way that they should, especially ever since the pandemic. What we need to do is we need to support our public education system, not put this final nail in the coffin, which is what the ESA or school voucher program would be. I understand that it's tempting as a parent to have air quotes school choice. But that choice, school choice, as they call it, the
school choice program takes the public school option away from those parents who do like their public schools. So it's hypocritical to call a school choice program school choice when you're taking the choice of public school away from parents and hurts the parents in rural communities the most. Because if you live in the big city, hey, you might have a couple of private schools around you, maybe
you have some options, but if you live out in rural areas, how close is the closest private school going to be to you? And goodness knows if your kid's even going to be accepted into that. These private schools, they don't accept every single child into their schools. No, no.
They all have entry exams. entry exams If your kid doesn't do well enough on these, they don't get let in. So if your kid has any mental disability at all, then you are SOL But you know, if your kid is an athlete and does a really good job at that, you are in luck.
Then again, I hope your kid doesn't break their leg because you know these private schools, they can kick their kid out anytime they want because they're private institutions, after all. And if we defund our public schools in order to support these private schools, if goodness forbid you wind up not liking the private school option after all, what are you gonna go back to?
It's not like you can go back to public schooling because after all, we just defunded them with the school voucher program. That's why this is so absolutely dangerous and detrimental to the public education in Texas. And by the way, it's not just Democrats, it's rural Republicans as well. Rural Republicans will get hit the worst by this, which
is why in the Texas State House, the school voucher program has been consistently shot down. Because it's only the city Republicans that are on board with this. Keep in mind in Texas, Republicans dominate the state house, they dominate the state senate, and the Republican is a governor. So Republicans run the show, but this school voucher program
is so, so absolutely not popular, even with the Republicans in control, they just can't get this past the state house. They're only able to get it past the Senate, and that's it. Now, at this point, you're probably wondering, well, then why is there even a push for this? Why does Governor Abbott all of a sudden want to
push for this legislation? Make all these special sessions? Well, it's actually not really him. Here's something that you may or may not know. There are two Texas billionaires who run the show in the GOP state of Texas. Their names are Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes. They're billionaires.
They are not just Christian nationalists. They are, in fact, Seven Mountain Dominionists Seven Mountain Dominionism, for those who don't know, is a subsect of Christian nationalism. With the Seven Mountain system, they believe there's the Seven Mountains or seven pillars of everything that must be dominated or dominated in order for the second coming of Jesus Christ to come to Earth.
They believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, their Lord and Savior, is put on pause until these seven mountains are dominionated. But what's more problematic about these two guys is they're billionaires in Texas. They are spending a lot of money, particularly in school board races. They really truly are believers.
They've drinking the Kool-Aid and they're willing to spend their millions and millions and millions of dollars to influence politics here in Texas. Hey, don't take my word for it. Here's a State House representative talking about Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes and their crazy ideologies and theology that they believe in. They say climate change is God's will.
They compare homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. They think only Christians have a right to serve in public office. In fact, they told the former Republican Speaker of the Texas House, Joe Strauss, that he didn't have a right to serve as Speaker because he's Jewish. But the scariest part is that they are turning their toxic theology into law.
Dunn and Wilkes have already poured more than a hundred million dollars into our politics. According to those close to Dun and Wilkes, their ultimate goal is to replace public education with private Christian schooling. Republican state Senator Bob Duell said they want to destroy the public school system. Now they're taking their final step. Defunding our neighborhood schools with a vou.cher scam
Dunn and Wilkes are an existential threat to the project of public education and therefore to the project of democracy. We have to stop them. The influence of Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes spreads wide. Here's another example of the TX ledge just wanting to give a slight constant living adjustment or as pay increase to school teachers. Now watch this get shot down hard by one of
the most conservative, most insane right-wing Republicans that we have in the House, a man named Jared Patterson of HD 106. Earlier this session, um there was a press conference that I believe every member of your caucus likely attended, talking about a $15,000 pay raise for teachers. And I notice that your amendment has a $10,000 pay raise for teachers.
Are you saying that teachers aren't worth that extra $5,000 that y'all had were in this room just two months ago talking about? No, sir. We we did that on purpose. So this is your opportunity to bring an amendment to the amendment. You want to join me?
$15,000? Let's do it. I'll put my signature down if you put your down. Would you do 30,000 for teachers? Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. Yeah. Would you like 30,000?
You want to you want to be a big boy? Let's do it. Would you I'll just I'll delay. Would you do 30,000? Do you need how much time do you need? Would you do 30,000 for teachers? Hey, are you gonna sign it? For 40,000?
Are you gonna sign it? Jeep seats, man. Come on. Let's go. No, we'll just vote it down. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you for not caring about teachers.
Look, everyone here who really knows what's going on knows that the school voucher program is detrimental. It doesn't help public schools, it destroys them. Here's another school voucher supporter on C-SPAN, even getting called out on that. Just because. you say school choice doesn't mean your child's going to get into that charter school or magnet school It depends on the board of directors and what they
want. They want that public money for the first two or three years, but then after that, now there's a lottery system for this high school. They pick and choose now who comes to that school now. If you're a good athlete from another school, you get in trouble.
So bingo, you're gonna get in. David, let's get a response. And and David, if you're in education, try to make your question a little bit sharper. But you're right, there is a difference, and not every student can get into every school. I'm Dale Frey, and I'm running for the Texas State Senate.
The reason I'm running for the Senate is because right now, as it stands, the Texas State House is the only chamber that's supporting our public school teachers right now. They're the only thing that is stopping the ESA program, the school vouchers from completely destroying our public schools. We need to have state senators who support our teachers. Because right now, the Senate's not doing that. The state senate in Texas is the one that is
passing this legislation in order to destroy our public schools. Thank God the House says no. But we don't know how long the House can hold on. What we need to do is we need to have Texas state senators who support our public schools. I'm Dale Freight running for the Texas State Senate, and I wholeheartedly support public school teachers.
