Burrows accuses Texas public schools of threatening campus closures

State Rep. Dustin Burrows, suggested public schools are “threatening” to close campuses to influence Texan’s votes this election in a recent opinion piece.

In an op-ed for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Burrows noted that some schools are announcing they could close campuses amid huge shortfalls.

“A scan of newspaper headlines in other Texas cities shows that school boards across the state (and nation) are talking about closing schools,” Burrows wrote. “Some districts began this conversation many months ago with a sober tone based upon the numbers. Others seemingly timed their announcements to coincide with early voting to stoke outrage that could affect choices on individual ballots.”

He compared this case to gangsters blackmailing someone in a movie.

“In gangster movies, we’re all familiar with shady characters saying, ‘It’s a nice place you’ve got here. It would be a shame if something should happen to it.’”

“In the progressive left’s spirit of letting no crisis go to waste, many are stirring the pot with political statements about school finance and school choice, urging parents to vote for Democrats based on false school finance fears,” Burrows added.

School districts across the state have announced they’re facing huge shortfalls this school year, many of them blaming the fact that the state hasn’t increased funding since 2019, when inflation was far lower.

Burrows, on the other hand, blamed what he called “a gang of education associations,” referring to associations such as the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) and the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) for the school’s problems. He argued these associations and their lobbyist led an effort to block House Bill 1, a bill that would have increased state funding and eliminated the STAAR test but that also contained a controversial voucher program.

Last legislative session, HB1 was ultimately killed by its author, Republican Rep. Brad Buckley, after a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans voted to strip the voucher proposal out of the bill. Abbott said he would refuse to increase public school funding without a voucher program attached to the proposal.

Many public school advocates, including Republicans, criticized this move, saying Abbott was taking advantage of the school’s need to advance his own agenda.

“The inescapable fact is that Abbott held the needs of school districts hostage for his private school voucher plan,” State Rep. Steve Allison, a Republican, wrote last June.