Following her brief closed door, no media allowed meeting with President Obama on April 10, Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) is back on the campaign trail proving the old adage that if she tells herself something enough times, at least she will believe it.
On April 12, the Democratic challenger for governor spoke at the annual convention of the Texas State Teachers Association in San Marcos, outside of Austin. Davis again attacked Attorney General Greg Abbott, the GOP nominee for governor, on his pre-kindergarten (PK) plan, the first part of his Educating Texans platform that he recently unveiled on a road trip across the state.
Davis claimed that Abbott’s plan chooses “which of our students succeed and which do not,” according to the Dallas Morning News.
In response, Abbott spokesman Avdiel Huerta told the paper that Davis’ “lies about Greg Abbott’s early education plan have already been proven false by the fact checkers.”
Additionally, Rep. Linda Harper-Brown (R-Irving) called the Abbott plan sound in an editorial she wrote for Dallas Morning News on April 6. She said, in part, “No student will be held back. But program improvements will be made and curriculum successes shared.”
Davis also insisted Abbott said he favored testing four year old children when she spoke at this event. However, Texas does not even favor testing four year old children and because of that fact, Texas is one of only four states that does not require any assessments of its PK program, according to a 2012 policy information report prepared by the Education Testing Service (ETS) (p. 15).
Established in 1947, ETS is a non-profit that develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests each year in more than 180 countries such as the general graduate school entrance exam GRE, English language learner tests TOEFL and TOEIC, and teacher certification assessments, the Praxis Series.
Abbott did not say he favored testing children either; but Sen. Leticia Van de Putte did. She accused Abbott of the same thing last week which Breitbart Texas reported.
Van de Putte was also at the event with Davis. In November, she will face the winner of the GOP May 27 runoff between current Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Senator Dan Patrick of Houston in the general election. The Texas State Teacher’s Association has endorsed both Democrats–Davis and Van de Putte.
In front of this friendly audience, however, Davis admitted she would require standardized testing to measure PK performance on her proposed Texas taxpayer funded $775M a year universal early education plan, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Abbott Communications Director Matt Hirsch told Breitbart Texas in response, “Greg Abbott’s plan to elevate Texas schools to be ranked number one in the country includes a plan to create the most advanced pre-k 4 program in America. Sen. Davis, on the other hand, simply advocates spending billions of dollars on the status quo.”
Breitbart Texas has filed several reports on Davis’ reckless and false statements about Abbott’s PK plan. In the latest example, PolitiFact ranked Davis’ comments as “mostly false” on their Truth-O-Meter.
Follow Merrill Hope on Twitter @OutOfTheBoxMom
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.