The Difficulties of Public Education

Who knew Texas public education could be talked about so badly? I went to a high school, Anderson High School specifically, where the principal always told the students how smart we were, how great of TAKs scores we get, and how highly ranked our school is. I of course new that my high school was ranked higher than McCallum High School for example, but naïvely assumed that just because my high school was very good, that all public high schools not just in Austin, but in all of Texas were as good as the one I went to. It was a harsh reality when I found out Texas education is actually suffering dramatically.

In 2011, Bloomberg News stated that Texas’ ACT and SAT scores were lower than the national average, and that the state was in the bottom 10 of states in estimated graduation rate. I had mixed feelings when hearing this, but mainly was just shocked and embarrassed. Because I had these feelings, I decided to look up some reasons that might help to explain the bad connotations Texas education is associated with. The first thing that I saw was that Texas currently has a $27 billion budget deficit and is partly trying to balance the deficit by making huge budget cuts in schools (http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/school-daze). When I read this, I immediately remembered that in my senior year, the principal was forced to cut one teacher from each department (English, History, etc). Although the principal was not happy with what she was doing and did not want to be cutting teachers, it was not her decision – the government was forcing all schools to cut back.

This made a large number of Texans associated with the education system furious and were demanding that the government stop the cuts since it is obviously not helping Texas to have a good ranking in estimated graduation rate. Although it is unfortunate to be cutting education expenditures, Texans need to realize that we still have a $27 billion deficit, and have to figure out some way to fix that. The government just decided to fix it partly by cutting on schools.

I therefore started thinking of all the other things the Texas government spends money on that they could potentially reduce not just to reduce the deficit, but also to reduce the school cuts. Although the government spends money on an enormous amount of items, the first thing that I thought of was something currently happening in my neighborhood. I live in the Allendale neighborhood, and the local government is thinking about putting up a wall in order to block noise from MoPac. There are mixed feelings about this of course – some people think it will be great because our neighborhood is currently too noisy, and yet others believe it will not reduce the amount of noise significantly and will therefore be a waste of money. I happen to agree with those who believe it is a waste of money. It will not be a cheap project and I do not think that a wall which will be a maximum of 20 feet high can reduce a lot of noise.

My point is that government spending on things such as walls should be considered with great thought before spending thousands of dollars because that money can go to a better cause – helping our schools to providing a better education. 

Can Texas really become a swing state when it is obviously majority Republicans right now?

In the commentary Texas Burka Blog, an article titled “Politico: In Austin, Obama Predicts Texas will be a swing state,” posted by senior executive editor Paul Burka suggests that for many years now, Texas has been a Republican dominated state, but in the near future, Texas will switch over to become a swing state. Although this blog was not written by Paul Burka but he rather reposted it to his blog website, the unknown author is not siding with Republicans or Democrats but rather making a point that Obama’s statement about Texas becoming a swing state is very probable.

President Obama’s audience is all of the Democrats in Texas because he is saying for them not to give up when voting for the Democratic Party because soon Texas will be a swing state rather than an obvious given Republican state. The author’s audience on the other hand is all of Texans in general because he is not agreeing or disagreeing with Obama but rather letting Texans know what Obama has to say and what he (the author) has to think of Obama’s statement.

In the blog, the author both agrees and disagrees with Obama to some extent. The author agrees with Obama in that there is in fact a good chance that Texas will someday become a swing state. Nonetheless, the author disagrees with Obama because President Obama thinks Texas will be a swing state in the 2012 Presidential Election, and the author does not think Texas will become a swing state until around the year 2020.

Overall, I really enjoyed this blog because the author was not extremely liberal or conservative and therefore the blog was relatively unbiased. Although the author was not as blunt about his opinion as some authors are, I still think the author had an argument which was that Texas will eventually become a swing state and Texans – especially Republicans – need to be ready for that. The author stated that “Hispanics accounted for 65% of the states…new residents over the decade 2000-2010.” This illustrates Texas will become a swing state because the Hispanic population is growing remarkably fast, and the Hispanics are known to be Democrats.

I really liked that the author gave an example explaining why Texas may potentially become a swing state, however I also wish the author touched up on one more subject. Part of the title of the blog is “In Austin,” which makes me curious whether Obama only thinks Texas can become a swing state because Austin is so liberal. Even though I am still curious about that, I think the author wrote an interesting blog, and I do agree with the author – I do not think Texas will be a swing state by November 2012, but I do believe in a couple years, Texas has the chance of becoming a swing state. 

The difficulties of health insurance

In an editorial article from Austin American Statesman published on July 14, 2012 titled “For better health, pay Perry no mind,” an anonymous author provides his thoughts on Governor Rick Perry’s decision not to expand Medicaid in Texas. Although the author’s name is not provided, the website states that the person who wrote the article is part of the Editorial Board from American Statesman. This illustrates that the author is a respected member of American Statesman because he wrote not just a pure news article with facts, but a report with his opinions in order to persuade his audience.

Although I imagine the article is aimed at all Texans to some extent, I believe the author’s main audience is intended to be Republicans who support Perry’s decision on Medicaid. The author says that “more than 6 million Texans lack health insurance...[which] represents about 25 of the state’s population, giving Texas a dubious No. 1 ranking: the highest rate of uninsured residents in the nation.” This exemplifies the author is disturbed by how many Texans are uninsured and therefore believes Perry should have agreed to the Medicaid program in order improve our health insurance. Unfortunately for the author, Perry rejected the proposed Medicaid program and as a result, the author is trying to persuade Republicans to change their viewpoint on Perry and agree with Obama’s Medicaid program.

Even though this article was an interesting read, I do not think the author went into enough detailed information about why Perry rejected the proposed health care policy. With my parents working in the business field, I tend to hear a good amount about politics and have therefore heard that Perry rejected the Medicaid program because the state government, with its current level of income from taxes, cannot handle the monetary burden that would have been caused by the adoption of this program. If I had not known some of the reasons why Perry rejected the program, I may have been persuaded by the author and wanted to agree with him in that Texas should have indeed accepted the health insurance plan. Nonetheless, being brought up in a very Republican family, I cannot help but retain my conservative views. 

Hospitals agree the Medicaid program is severely flawed. However...

On Monday, July 9, 2012, Texas Insider published an article titled “Hospitals agree the Medicaid program is severely flawed. However…” The article points out that both hospitals and Governor Rick Perry agree that there is something wrong with the Medicaid system. Even though the Governor has stated there is a major problem with Medicaid since many people in Texas are uninsured, Perry also “made clear his opposition to…the expansion of Medicaid” due to financial reasons. This illustrates that not just Medicaid, but politics in general is blemished. This is because Perry acknowledges that there is a problem, but does not actually try to resolve the issue. Furthermore, the title of this aritcle has “However…,” illustrating that even though politicians are very aware the Medicaid program is flawed, and know that something needs to be done to fix it, no actions are being taken. Overall, this article exemplifies that whether a person considers themselves conservatives, republicans, or something else, there will always be some type of flawed structure within the government.