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Given the dramatics of the ending of the last session, paradoxically, Senator Wendy Davis had mostly good things to report in her “State of the State” summary given to the members and visitors the Kennedale Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheon last week.?As she spoke first the following is part of what Senator Davis had to say. Representative Bill Zedler also spoke to the Chamber but his assessment of the session will be given in a separate article. ?{{more}}
“You all know that we had a lot to disagree about in the last two special sessions that we held and I think that you have heard all that you want to hear about that. What I would prefer to talk about ?. are all the things we agreed on and the challenges that we faced together as ?D? and as ?R? and also as senators and house members to do the work that the people of Texas sent us to the Capital to do.”
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“We had a really wonderful session, the best of the three sessions that I served in, in terms of our capacity to work across the aisle and to do some really constructive things on behalf of the people we represent. [We] started the session with some really good news ? we had 8.8 billion dollars more that we could have spent had we known about it in earlier session.”
?Davis went on to cite the accomplishments, first was restoring the education cuts (5.5 billion in cuts) made in the last session. She cited the figure of 25,000 educators who lost their jobs and the economic ripple effect that that made across the state. She told the group the schools had the highest increase in class sizes ever.?
“It helped that the local property tax evaluation increased. [We were] able to put 3.4 billion dollars back towards and another $600,000 back in specific education programs i.e pre-K and success initiatives for students who are really struggling and need extra help to be brought up to level.”
?She mentioned that although she had been removed from the Education Committee, she was allowed to attend their meetings and was allowed to ask questions. She thank the Education Chairman Senator Patrick for his willingness to let her participate in the discussions.?
“Also again in a bipartisan way we set out, both the House and Senate. ?. to fix the very broken accountability system in the State of Texas.”
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One of the things that they addressed she said was 15 end-of-course exams that our students had to pass to graduate.?
?To give you a relative comparison to what other states are doing, only about 5 other states have these end of course exams and the maximum number that they have is usually in the 4-5 range and Texas had 15. And it was having a very detrimental effect on our students.?
?As a result of action taken students in Texas will now take only 5 end-of-course exams.
She pointed to another important education change was in the core curriculum requirements ? she mention that there “many gifted young people who were having a tremendously hard time in graduating.”?
“We now have five new pathways to graduation. One of those we had heard a great deal from our community about and it was, why do we not have support for the students who want to go straight into the workforce out of high school? Why don?t we do more in the technology and careers to give those students more of a chance of success?”
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“We created a business pathway that students can go straight into the technology workforce, the medical assistance workforce, the nursing workforce, the computer workforce, film, radio, TV workforce. And I know that Kennedale is among the school districts that is really doing a lot in the innovation of career and technology. Also we kept intact the exemplary curriculum for the students who are really high achievers and who want to take the A.P. courses and really advanced themselves into the higher education arena.”
?Running out of time she quickly mentioned success in working out the problem with the pension system for both retired teachers fund and the government employees pensions; cutting the backlog of rape kits untested across the state; veteran programs that will help returning veterans re-enter the workforce; accountability and transparency of taxpayer funds for reinvestment funds; and, keeping bids in state whenever possible.?Fox News filed the following report??When asked about her intentions in the governor’s race, she responds??“Still working to try to make the decision about what’s best for me and hopefully we’ll make a decision that’s in the best interest of people in the state of Texas,” said Davis. “We’ll see, time will tell.” ?
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