Pre-Filing, Day 1: Education Legislation

Here is a brief look at a few education bills (excluding higher education, which we discussed here) we found interesting from the first day of pre-filing:

HB 106 by State Rep. Larry Phillips (R-Sherman): This legislation adds three steps to the state minimum salary schedule for public school teachers, counselors, and librarians beyond year 20.

SB 150 by State Rep. Todd Smith (R-Fort Worth): An oddball of a bill addressing a topic we’ve never thought much about: sales tax on concessions sold at school events. The bill would exempt from sales tax food sold at school events if the concession is run by a school employee or volunteer, if the proceeds of the sale “benefit the district.” The intent of this bill is clear: It is to exempt from sales tax food sold by band and athletic booster clubs, etc., at school events–food sold by the school districts themselves are already tax exempt if done during the school day and the proceeds don’t benefit an individual. While the intent is clear, I question whether or not this bill accomplishes what it sets out to. The “benefit the district” is language that is both specific and ambiguous at the same time. In theory, sales of food by a band booster group “benefit the district” because they aide the booster club that in turn aides the school band. However, they also beneift the group itself, as the group draws revenue. It is also unclear whether or not “benefit the district” would include booster groups that raise money and then spend that money on college scholarships for individual students. Technically, that isn’t an activity that “benefits the district.” Granted, it doesn’t pose the constitutional questions of a strip club tax, but it is an interesting point to ponder.

SB 101 by State Rep. Eddie Lucio, III (D-Brownsville): This bill falls under the category of, “Holy mother of God, you mean the Legislature has to regulate this crap?” Evidently the folks at the old University Interscholastic League are playing favorites about what venues host what regional and statewide extracurricular events, because, by God, the Legislature wouldn’t be wading into this thicket of brambles unless there was a damned good reason (we assume). We kid you not when we say that the bill would prohibit the UIL from hosting a statewide or regional extracurricular (that includes sports, music, and academic) event at the same venue two years in a row unless another suitable venue could not be found. A couple of things on this: what about area-level competitions–are they exempt? Second, we assume that “academic” as included in the language includes “drama” and we wonder just how much of an uproar there will be when UIL is forced to move the state finals for One-Act Play from the University of Texas at Austin to a location somewhere else.  Texas’ high school drama teachers and One-Act Play coaches had better pick up a Greater Austin phone book and turn to “L”–for LOBBYIST.

SB 183 by State Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands): This bill falls under the category of “let’s see how much lipstick we can smear on a voucher bill and how convoluted we can make the language so it doesn’t sound like we’re giving tax dollars to private and religious schools.” Congratulations. We fell asleep by the time we got to the section on eligible students. No, seriously, we were wide awake. Essentially, this is a voucher program that would cover every special education student in Texas (I suppose that is one way to pass an Autism voucher bill…..probably not one that will work, but still….). This is actually worse than bills that take vouchers and target them much more narrowly to address a single-issue like Autism. This voucher program could essentially destroy special education in Texas public schools and result in special ed students who are less prepared for the real world than they would be with a public school because they’ll be attending schools that, under the bill, are held to almost zero accountability for the quality of education they are providing or the tax dollars that are being spent.

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