Earlier this week, Matt Stiles noted that Mayor White had not yet taken a public position on the HISD bond referendum. Well, now he has, with an endorsement op-ed that's in the print edition of today's Chron but which for some reason I can't find online.
Nothing is more important to our city, state and nation than the education of future generations. I personally have seen schools within the Houston Independent School District in need of repair or reconstruction. So I support the issuance of bonds by the Houston Independent School District to pay for these school improvements. The alternatives would be to increase tax rates by financing improvements without the use of debt or to allow schools to deteriorate even more.I urge citizens not to vote against HISD's bond issue in protest. Students should not suffer because of the errors of individuals within school governance and administration.
Many citizens have doubts about HISD's bond issue because of concerns about school closings and consolidations. I share their questions about school closings, and have expressed myself forcefully to HISD. But school board elections, not the bond issue, are the best way to act on these concerns without hurting students.
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[T]he way to fight any particular school closure or consolidation is not to vote down the bond issue where the overwhelming bulk of the funds would be used to undertake the rehabilitation of existing facilities and expansion to accommodate overcrowded schools.
HISD worked constructively with me and others on the financing plan to eliminate the property tax rate increase which was originally contemplated. Superintendent Saavedra has given me his word that he and members of his management team will defer any final recommendations to the Board to close or consolidate schools until they can demonstrate to a broad group of stakeholders - including the business community through the Greater Houston Partnership and state and local elected officials - that the district explored and implemented every practical alternative. This includes the 16 elementary schools proposed to be consolidated into 8 new facilities built using bond debt.
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My Houston Hope program is resulting in hundreds of new homes being built in neighborhoods where few had been built before, giving us hope for reversing declining school enrollments and avoiding costly leapfrog development. Obviously there is some point at which a school is "too small," although many fine schools operate at smaller sizes than what HISD today considers a minimum. But if HISD decides to close neighborhood schools, over the community's objection, without viewing that measure as the last resort, then voters across the City in the next school board elections will hear from a new political action committee I will form this year. That is not a threat. It is a promise to those who join me in supporting the HISD bond issue despite their reservations about consolidation plans.
Any system of education that is premised upon, firstly, the sacrifice of individual rights to the collective benefit of "society" will not simply reverse its premise and commit suicide down the road - there is no altruism towards the individual from the collectivist's viewpoint. In fact, individual rights, as envisioned by our founders, is anethema to the collective will, euphimistically referred to as "the common good." To argue that if tax support for a quasi governmental monopoly is simply shifted to either all property tax or all state redistribution misses a fundamental point. Economic educational choice has to be, logically, the first premise and priority. The rights of parents are either primary or they are subordinated, and once subordinated gradually become non-existent over time. Without economic choice as primary you will never get real choice, because choice and ANY government monopoly (regardless of funding source) are logically and practically incompatible. Their ends are justified by their means. And their only means are the restrictions of your liberty with regard to your own children AND the coerced expropriation of your wealth to pay for their ends. The fact that it is done through a so-called democratic process does not make it moral.
Posted by: N. Onimous on November 4, 2007 4:49 PMI am stunned by this move by white. he wants higher office and guess what-he will need solid support from african americans to take him to high office. period. i was at a meeting tonight and the fury against bill white for his action was everywhere. houston's black community has united and is rallying against this non inclusive hisd bond and just may defeat it. now bill white -to add slat to the wounds-jumps in against them (or that is how it is perceived). feelings run deep on this bond and white is fixing to feel it big time.
Posted by: dontthinkso on November 4, 2007 11:07 PMN. Onimous -- that is simply argument, not fact. Read Rousseau, and you'll find a vastly different viewpoint.
Anyways, I think this is an interesting decision by the Mayor. I also think it is one that he probably struggled with thinking about.
Personally, if I were him-I might have decided simply not to endorse either way.
Posted by: Michael Hurta on November 5, 2007 3:27 PM