DALLAS, Texas — Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) is grasping at any opportunity to attack Greg Abbott, her GOP gubernatorial opponent, these days. She even used the first day of school at a Houston elementary to do it by staging an insipid publicity stunt on August 25.
While reading to children at Cummings Elementary, Davis knocked Abbott with tall tales started by Sen. Leticia Van De Putte (D-San Antonio), the challenger to Tea Party favorite Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston) in the Lt. Governor’s race.
Last Spring, Van de Putte attempted to stir the pot with wild accusations that Abbott included standardized testing for four year-olds into his pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) education plan.
Not only did the Abbott camp step up to address this outrageously inane remark, fact-checkers rushed in, debunking the false information which Breitbart Texas reported. But why let the facts stop Davis. On August 25, she parroted Van de Putte’s discredited comments in front of the youngsters present.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Davis also isolated all the ills of Texas education at the hands of Austin insiders “like the Attorney General.” She called out education as having a “resource problem” that the next governor will have to address followed by her standard lamentation, which is the 2011 legislative education cuts.
In 2013, a portion of those education funds were restored by the 83rd legislature. For Davis, it comes down to feeding the education beast and that means stuffing the state’s education coffers.
Breitbart Texas spoke to Abbott spokesman Avdiel Huerta on Davis’ latest rant. He said, “While Greg Abbott is fixed firmly on the future, Sen. Davis continues to focus on the past and wants the courts to decide public policy issues rather than the Legislature.”
He was referring to more of Davis’ criticisms over Abbott’s role as Attorney General in representing the state’s interests in the 600 district education funding lawsuit. Despite her complaints, even the Houston Chronicle article cited that Davis “unveiled little new that would explain how she would shore up funding woes that have led to teacher layoffs.”
Earlier this year, when she initially announced her bloated full-day universal pre-K plan, Davis skirted around any taxpayer costs. The Dallas Morning News reported that originally she mulled the idea of pulling funds from places like the state’s emergency “rainy day fund,” the same place Van de Putte recently proposed siphoning $2 billion for completely state subsidized two-year college for all Texas students.
Huerta told Breitbart Texas that Davis’ proposals lack substance, throw more money at the status quo, and she is unable or unwilling to tell Texas taxpayers how much her plan would cost. It is still unclear from where the funding will come and when the Davis campaign finally slapped a price tag on their pre-K plan, it came in at a hefty $750 million a year.
Breitbart Texas also reported that Davis is a big fan of “Pre-K for SA,” the full-day universal pre-k signature program from former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro turned HUD czar. The program maxed out the city’s sales tax rate. It’s not free for all, though. Nor have all of the original takers continued with “Pre-K for SA” into the 2014-15 school year, opting back into their own “high quality” already taxpayer funded school district programs. Still, Davis would like to use it to build her “Pre-K for Texas.”
Meanwhile , State Rep. Joaquin Castro is also championing brother Julian’s “Pre-K for SA” in Washington, DC under the “Pre-K for USA” banner.
Abbott, on the other hand, proposed a manageable $118 million dollar plan that seeks a more common sense approach to improve existing pre-kindergarten programs and then expanding upon them as part of his Educating Texans plan Breitbart Texas reported.
Huerta added that Abbott, as governor “will get Texas schools out of the courts and empower parents, teachers and principals to provide a better education for our children, ultimately making public education in Texas top-ranked in the country.”
Follow Merrill Hope on Twitter @OutOfTheBoxMom.
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