Edwards, Doggett attack Texas sovereignty

Democrat Congressmen Chet Edwards and Lloyd Doggett (along with other Democrats) have shown their true colors.
Not only did they and their Democrat cronies attach more than $20 billion in domestic spending provisions to the supplemental war-spending bill (H. R. 4899 passed by the House on July 1), but they attached Amendment #2 that is specifically focused on Texas as an attempt to take revenge on Texas Republican Gov. Perry and Commissioner of Education Robert Scott.
Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott were wise enough to recognize the dangers presented to our Texas public schools by Obama’s plan to federalize public schools through the Common Core Standards and Race to the Top: federal indoctrination of our public school children 
Texas has spent the last four years rewriting its own standards (English / Language Arts / Reading, Science, and Social Studies), and Perry and Scott refused to dismiss that excellent work.  They (along with Alaska) turned down the Obama administration’s federal “carrot” by refusing to participate in Common Core Standards and Race to the Top.
Now Gov. Perry and Commissioner Scott have a target on their backs.
Democrat Congressmen Chet Edwards and Lloyd Doggett added Amendment #2 to H. R. 4899 that will keep Texas state education officials from deciding how $800 million in federal aid to Texas’ public schools should be spent.
Amendment #2 states that for Texas to get the $800 million for the public schools, Gov. Perry would have to guarantee that the Legislatures for the next three fiscal years (through 2013) would appropriate school funding that would equal or exceed current funding. 
First problem:  The Texas Constitution does not give a Governor the authority to tell the Legislature how to spend its appropriations.
Second problem: The Governor does not have the Constitutional authority to bind future Legislatures to explicit appropriations amounts.
What Edwards and Doggett have done is to attach an amendment to federal legislation that usurps the authority of our Texas Constitution.  I wonder how most Texans feel about that?
Even if the two unconstitutional problems were resolved, Texas would not be able to utilize the $800 million in HR 4899 because those federal funds would have to be distributed through the federal Title I program.
According to data provided by the Texas Education Agency, 852 school districts would get less funding than they would get through Texas’ present state funding formulas.
This means that 852 public schools would actually lose money if Texas allowed the amendment designed by our Congressmen to usurp our Texas Constitution.  How crazy is that?
Here’s the biggest irony of all:  under Amendment #2, the public schools in Congressman Chet Edwards’ District 17 would lose $7,448,696.  Congressman Lloyd Doggett’s school districts (including Gonzales, Waelder and Nixon-Smiley) would lose $2,407,276.
I can hardly wait until the school superintendents in those Congressional districts learn what their Congressmen have done to them.
Last year, Congressman Lloyd Doggett complained loudly that the $3.2 billion stimulus funds should have gone to the public schools and that instead the money was kept in the Rainy Day Fund.
Is Doggett’s contention accurate? 
From the very beginning, Gov. Perry said Texas should only take Stimulus funds for one-time expenses. Texas school districts knew the funding was only for two years.
On July 20, 2009, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts said that the federal stimulus law sent Texas at least $6.4 billion for public education over two years.
A billion went for low-interest school construction bonds, renovation, and land purchases; and another $2.2 billion was sent to school districts for special education or at-risk students. The Stimulus money was not to be used by schools for maintenance costs.
The final $3.2 billion of the Stimulus money is what the Legislature used to plug budgetary holes.
Austin ISD received about $41 million over two years, and around $39 million was given to other Central Texas school districts.  Similar amounts went to school districts all across the state.
Were there definite accountability rules built into the Stimulus funds?  In today’s Dallas Morning News, it was reported that school districts were allowed to use up to $25,000 of the Stimulus funds with no federal reporting; unfortunately, it is almost impossible to track those funds.
On July 24, 2009 (Austin American-Statesman), Congressman Doggett reported: “The U.S. Department of Education has approved Texas’ application for using $3.2 billion in federal stimulus money.”
The American-Statesman went on to say:
“That money will be used to pay for textbooks and a $1.9 billion increase in school funding, which covers an $800 raise for all Texas teachers…There had been concerns that the Texas application might not win federal approval…Congressional Democrats had complained loudly that Texas misused its stimulus money by filling the state’s budget holes with the federal dollars while leaving untouched the $9.1 billion rainy day fund.”
The stimulus funds went to pay for special education and/or at-risk students, school construction bonds, textbooks, and teachers’ raises.  Texas kept its Rainy Day Fund locked away for future emergencies.
 The U. S. Department of Education approved Texas’ application for the $3.2 billion, and Texas public schools did indeed get a huge share of the Stimulus funds.
Michael Q. Sullivan of Empower Texans reported on May 19:
“Texas taxpayers now spend $11,084 per year/ per child on public education. But less than half of it makes it toward instructional expenses…Ten years ago Texas was spending just $5,857. (If per-pupil spending had increased with inflation, it’d be just $7,542 now, not $11,084.)…We had 22 percent more non-teachers on the payroll in 2009 than in 1999.”
I see no reason for Democrat Congressmen Edwards and Doggett to fault Texas for its use of the stimulus funds. The truth is that Texas public schools got a huge infusion of money, and the Democrats have no grounds whatsoever to add the Texas-specific Amendment #2 to the war spending bill.
Donna Garner is a former  schoolteacher and education activist based in Waco. Contact her via e-mail at wgarner1@hot.rr.com.