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Sherry Sylvester Show

The Sherry Sylvester Show | Ep 1: The War Against Texas History feat. Ken Wise

TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with noted historian and host of the Wise About Texas podcast, Ken Wise, to discuss the importance of accurately remembering days gone by in order to secure a better future for us all.

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9th & Congress

2023 Set the Stage for Big Victories in 2024

It is not the best of times. Our country is so hopelessly and hatefully divided that we can’t even agree on enough facts to have a decent argument. Millions of people from all over the world are streaming across the border, it seems like half the country is marching in the streets in support of terrorists and the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court is afraid to define what a woman is.

I had been thinking that 2023 would turn out to be worse than 2022, but as it draws to a close, I am feeling optimistic.

Looking back on the year through my newsletter and podcast — 9th & Congress—there are some clear signs that 2023 may prove to be a turning point that even the media can’t ignore. The world of irrational wokeness—critical race theory, gender identity and equity politics is beginning to crumble, and though it is far from over, there is a sense that we are at the beginning of the end.

Last month I wrote that the three Ivy League college presidents shocked America by their robotic failure to condemn the terrorist massacre of Jews on Oct. 7.

It was a stunning made-for-television moment that is serving as a wake-up call to every parent in America who is considering sending a child to college, because virtually all universities and college espouse the same Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) rubbish those college presidents spit out—even in Texas.

I reported that Texas A&M had its own “what could they possibly be thinking” moment when it hired a woke journalism professor to head up a new journalism school who stated, unequivocally, that some sides of a story should not be reported in the news:

“We can’t just give people a set of facts anymore. I think we know that and we have to tell our students that. This is not about getting two sides of a story or three sides of a story, if one side is illegitimate,” said Dr. Kathleen McElroy.  “I think now you cannot cover education, you cannot cover criminal justice, you can’t cover all of these institutions without recognizing how all these institutions were built.”

Guess who gets to decide which side is “illegitimate?”

At the University of Texas, I spoke with Professor Daniel Bonevac who had testified before the Texas Senate Higher Education Committee that DEI programs function like the “campus thought police” over on the vaunted “40 acres.”

Before Harvard President Claudine Gay embarrassed the oldest university in America in front of the whole country, Harvard had already made big news in 2023 when the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) found that it had the worst record for free speech of any college in America.  That’s why it was so laughable when Gay tried to pretend that “free speech” was the reason she didn’t condemn the protestors supporting Hamas. Laughably, Harvard had suddenly discovered free speech.

But the problem isn’t just at Harvard. We will learn in a couple days whether the University of Texas really has the No. 3 football team in the nation, but as I wrote last year, when it comes to free speech UT is rated number 236—almost as bad as Harvard, which is at the bottom of the list at 248.  Again, according to FIRE, excluding and shouting down conservative speakers is totally acceptable to the majority of Longhorn students.

spoke with Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, head of “Do No Harm,” which is fighting DEI in medical schools, who told me that some Texas medical schools are no longer looking at GPAs or requiring doctors to take MCAT tests before they are admitted apparently because the tests give an unfair advantage to the people who can pass the tests, regardless of their skin color or gender identity. Texans are not happy to learn this and changes will undoubtedly be made.

The biggest disappointment in 2023 was Texas’ failure to pass school choice, allowing parents to determine what school is best for their child. Just before the final legislative vote in October I wrote about what it has been like to watch this battle for over 20 years in Texas as teachers unions and their allies in the media fight parents and school choice. Though many of the legislators who led the fight against school choice are graduates of private schools and send their kids there, time and time again, they condemned poor and marginalized children to failing schools.

But one of the brightest spots in 2023 is the passage of one of the most important pieces of legislation in our modern history—Senate Bill 17, the anti-DEI bill by Senator Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, which outlaws DEI offices on Texas public university campuses. When a bunch Texas professors threatened to leave the state after SB 17 passed, we all knew they weren’t going anywhere. They haven’t.

Our challenge in 2024 will be to ensure that Texas colleges and universities actually follow the new laws against DEI. So far, not much of what we are seeing is promising. I spoke with Carol Swain, Ph.D., about her latest book, “The Adversity of Diversity,” earlier this month. As a former tenured professor at Princeton who also taught at Vanderbilt, Carol predicted that the DEI bureaucracy will not give up without a fight, which is certainly what we are seeing at Texas universities.

Notably, Carol is one of the people whose work was plagiarized by Harvard’s President Gay. She wrote about it in the WSJ recently noting that the words Gay lifted from her book, “Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress” would have been familiar to others at Harvard who likely ignored the fact that Gay copied her work without attribution.

Much of what is wrong in education is linked to DEI, including its tie to Hamas, as we saw after the attacks on Israel and campuses exploded in support of the terrorists. I certainly wasn’t the only one who blamed DEI programs for the protests.

My colleagues Erin Valdez and Chuck DeVore presented a panel discussion on the “Woke Hamas Alliance” showing the depth of this long and dangerous partnership. We were joined on the panel by Rabbi Dan Ain.

It wasn’t long after Oct. 7 before it was easy to see that Hamas was using its own people to fight a media war. Civilian casualties aren’t collateral damage for Hamas, they are a feature of their strategic plan.  Now, almost 12 weeks later, they are obviously meeting with success as we see Biden waffling and many in the West flinching at the body count.

talked to Rabbi Ain again earlier this month about how his community is coping with the escalating war in Israel. He told me it had been difficult for many Jewish people to imagine that anti-Semitism wouldn’t be broadly condemned in America. As a native New Yorker who chose Texas as a refuge for himself and his family several years ago, Rabbi Ain’s observations on the war and the protests here are extremely insightful.

Of course, DEI is not only about Critical Race Theory and terrorism. It is also about something called “Gender Theory,” a topic you can major in at a couple of Texas universities. The end of the year fundraising appeal from the Texas Tribune, one of the state’s largest media outlets, assures us that it will continue to report on Texas priority issues in 2024 including “transgender rights.”

Last year, I reported exactly what Equality Texas, the leading advocate for so-called LGBTQ+, views some of those rights to be:

  • No restrictions on sex change surgery for children, which Equality Texas calls “lifesaving” and a “best [medical] practice.” No restrictions on cross-sex hormones and puberty blocking drugs.
  • All health care providers should be forced to provide sex change surgery to children whether the providers believe in them or not.
  • Insurance companies should be required to pay for sex change operations for children.
  • There should be no restrictions on classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity.
  • There should be no restrictions on classroom instruction using nudity and descriptions of sex.
  • Men should be allowed to play in women’s sports in Texas colleges and universities.

Equality Texas does not include a “right” to perform drag shows for children in public schools and libraries, although they insisted Texas legislature’s effort to restrict them was “life threatening.”

As a lifelong feminist, it continues to baffle me that there is no bigger outcry against drag shows, which are essentially a woman-focused version of blackface, which is universally condemned. In April I reported that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture describes blackface this way:

“Minstrelsy, comedic performances of “blackness” by whites in exaggerated costumes and make-up, cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core. By distorting the features and culture of African Americans—including their looks, language, dance, deportment, and character—white Americans were able to codify whiteness across class and geopolitical lines as its antithesis.”

Change blackness to womanhood and you have a precise definition of drag shows —”comedic performances of women by men in exaggerated costumes and make-up…” As the Smithsonian notes, blackface “cannot be separated from racial derision and stereotyping at its core.” Similarly, drag shows are all about misogyny and utter contempt for women.

Texas passed a law to restrict drag shows in public libraries and in June I wrote that “Texas May Be Winning the War Against Woke.”  As 2023 winds down, it looks like the rest of the country is also having second thoughts about the woke worldview too and not just businesses like Bud Light and Target which learned that it just isn’t worth it to push distorted gender identities. Just this week, big woke tech companies like Google and Meta revealed they are pulling back. Nationally, DEI job postings are down 44%. That’s one more reason to be optimistic about 2024.

Another is that Texans have faced tough times before. In our recent history, it is important to remember that Texas has not always flourished and our state leaders have not always been conservatives. Conservatives did not take control of the Legislature until 2003, just 20 years ago.  That’s why I reached out to several people who were part of the effort to change Texas from blue to red, including nationally known pollster Mike Baselicemedia guru David Weeks and communications expert Ray Sullivan to learn how Texas got it right over two decades ago. Their stories say a lot about who Texans are and what they believe.

Then, as now, Texans want small government, individual liberty and freedom and governing principles that allow businesses to prosper and make our state a force in the global market.

They also want to protect our history from the woke forces of DEI.  The state of Texas is finally building a world-class history site at the Alamo after overcoming assaults from the “Forget the Alamo” crowd who want to deny that anything heroic happened there.

I talked with legendary Texan and historic preservationist J.P. Bryan who has been fighting that battle his entire life, making sure that left-wing historians don’t re-write our history to reflect their Marxist world view. Every Texan should be very grateful that J.P. hasn’t backed down from this fight. Next week I will host Judge Ken Wise, President of the Texas State Historical Association, on the podcast. It should be interesting, so listen in.

Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. Subscribe to her 9th & Congress newsletter to be the first to receive columns like this.

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9th & Congress

9th & Congress | Episode 12: Coping with Societal and Literal War with Rabbi Dan Ain

TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with Rabbi Dan Ain, Founder of “Because Jewish,” to discuss how Texas’ Jewish community is coping with the continued strife in Israel.

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9th & Congress

3 Elite College Presidents Shocked America

During the legislative battle last spring to end the racially divisive and cynically named “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) programs in Texas academic institutions, faculty members called the effort racist and extremist. Hundreds of University of Texas at Austin students and professors flooded into the Capitol building to smirk and boo former HUD Secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, the pre-eminent African American physician, who explained that DEI is a sham. Many stood with their backs toward lawmakers and Dr. Carson—like petulant children—to show their disdain.

Fearful that funding would be cut, administrative leaders from Texas flagship universities insisted to legislators that DEI was simply a program to help students who needed extra support to succeed in college—minority and marginalized students, first generation students, even veterans. Who could be against that?

The truth about DEI—that the world is divided into two groups, oppressors and the oppressed, has been difficult for normal Americans to comprehend. With academic administrators insisting they were simply continuing the work of making college accessible to everyone, donors, parents and students haven’t really pushed back. Texas and Florida are the only states that have banned DEI outright, and major universities like Michigan have doubled down.

All that changed last week when over a billion people viewed video clips of three elite university professors who declined to condemn threats of Jewish genocide on their respective campuses.

People who have been mystified by pro-Palestinian student marches since Oct. 7 that proclaimed America to be an evil oppressor while insisting the Hamas terrorists are the good guys finally have an answer—these awful sentiments are coming from the top.

When the now-notorious college presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard, Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Liz Magill from the University of Pennsylvania, told a congressional committee that calls for genocide and intifada by students on their campuses would have to be “considered in context,” their frightening insensitivity shocked some sense into the country.

These DEI “pod people” presidents repeatedly refused to condemn threats of genocide and violence against Jewish students even when given several chances to recant. Their worldview is so distorted that they could not bring themselves to say what is obvious to most Americans—attacking and calling for the deaths of Jews, or any group of people because of their race or ethnicity—is wrong, unequivocally. There is no “context” in which it would be okay.

The blowback was immediate. The presidents were called on to resign and donors threatened to withdraw millions in contributions from their universities. Magill, at the University of Pennsylvania, is already out, although the move is hardly a setback for her. She is still a fully tenured professor in the UPenn law school.

Apologies also came quickly as Gay at Harvard explained that she was focused on the free speech policies at Harvard rather than the recent demonstrations.

Free speech is a good argument to make, but the president of Harvard cannot credibly make it. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Harvard has the worst record on free speech of any university in the country.

At Harvard, the failure of anyone—student or faculty—to call a man who thinks he’s a woman “she” can get you fired. In fact, Devon Buckley, a radical feminist, was disinvited from speaking at Harvard because she has written that “gender is binary.” Even Lawrence Bacow, a former president of Harvard, was drummed off the stage there because students disagreed with his position on disinvestment from Israel.

Every Harvard student must take Title IX training where they learn that expressing any hint of “transphobia,” “fatphobia,” or “cis-heterosexism” is abusive.

Magill and Kornbluth also apologetically said their focus in the Congressional testimony was free speech, but their records are no better than Harvard. The Arab Alumni Association of MIT demanded that Miri Eisin, a former colonel in the Israel Defense Force, not be allowed to speak on campus and she was disinvited. Former CIA Director John Brennen was shouted down at the University of Pennsylvania and his lecture had to be cancelled.

To take a credible stand for free speech, you must stand up for all speech—but these presidents and all universities that are steeped in the ideology of DEI simply don’t allow that.

The Kalven principles, adopted by the University of Chicago, has a different free speech model. It proscribes that every issue is open to debate and universities should be neutral, protecting all sides to speak. University of Chicago students are rallying for Palestine on that campus, but Jewish students are rallying as well. Though there is backlash from both sides, the recently stated position of the University of Chicago on the Middle East is that they have no position—on this or any other issue. Students are free to speak.

If the three presidents had told the congressional committee that their institutions did not take positions on issues, the hearing would have been over, but, again, their record makes it clear that’s not true. While they ignored the attack of Hamas terrorists on Jews on Oct. 7, all three institutions spoke out almost immediately after George Floyd was killed. Harvard not only affirmed its support for Black Lives Matter, it also attacked the Harvard University Police Department. MIT quickly issued a statement promising to increase its diversity and equity efforts, and at the University of Pennsylvania, the official statement issued immediately said that the University community “weeps for the loss of life.”

Their statements called on the community to embrace Black Lives Matter. They also essentially reiterated the DEI principle that we are all either oppressors or oppressed and must continue to fight the racism inherent in everyone, whether they know it or not.

It would be a mistake for universities or any of us to demand that Jewish people be moved from category A (oppressors) in the DEI dichotomy to category B (oppressed). What we should see clearly in the weak and evasive testimony of the three elite university presidents is that the entire ideology of DEI must be overthrown. There is no place for it in academic institutions where all ideas are debated freely and every individual must be judged on his or her merit, achievement and character, not group identity. When that happens—and terrorists launch a genocidal attack on people anywhere—it should be resoundingly condemned, no matter who the victims are.

Oct. 7 should have been an easy call. It is tragic these academic leaders couldn’t make it.

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In The Media

Adversity of Diversity: A Deep Dive on the Damage of DEI Programs

Tuesday, December 5, 2023 | 12 PM CST

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have become deeply rooted in American society, becoming a top priority for corporations, universities, and colleges across the country. But does pursuing diversity actually unify Americans?

Please join Dr. Carol Swain in a discussion about her new book, Adversity of Diversity, taking a deep dive into the world of DEI programs and the damage they are causing to American society. Moderated by Sherry Sylvester, this event will trace the roots of diversity, equity, and inclusion, why universities and corporations everywhere are adopting them, and why we must institute real unity programs in their place.

Speakers

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9th & Congress

9th & Congress | Episode 11: How Texas Got It Right, Part 3 with Mike Baselice

TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with nationally and internationally preeminent pollster Mike Baselice to discuss the electoral trends that turned Texas red and what he predicts for the future.

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9th & Congress

9th & Congress: For Hamas, This is a Media War

Media prophet Marshall McLuhan revolutionized our understanding of communications in the 1970s when he observed that “the medium is the message.” For the terrorists of Hamas, murder and medieval slaughter are clearly the medium. They are also the message.

The Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel was so horrific that it was not immediately apparent that Hamas’ violent actions were chiefly a media operation designed to drive a narrative and impact public opinion.

The mission of Hamas is to kill all the Jews, but they are also propelled by Iran to inflame anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism, not just in the Middle East, but worldwide. On Oct. 7 and in the days since, Hamas has demonstrated they are willing to let thousands—maybe millions—of Palestinians die to achieve that objective.

The deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza aren’t “collateral damage” in this war—they are the strategic feature. The higher the body count, the more effective Hamas can be in pushing the narrative that civilians are the victims of Israeli aggression—even though Hamas started the war.

That’s why Hamas has embedded its military operations in hospitals, schools and mosques. When Israel retaliates against their attacks, Hamas can blame them for killing Palestinian civilians without ever acknowledging that killing Palestinians was part of the Hamas plan.

We don’t know how many civilians have been killed because Hamas releases dubious numbers of casualties—like the 500 people who were supposedly killed by Israel in Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. In fact, many fewer were killed in that hospital from a rocket launched by Hamas.

American mainstream media is key to driving the terrorist narrative, but even CNN has confirmed that Hamas has been storing weapons and staging assaults from hospitals. Independent observers were able to quickly uncover the facts about the Al Ahli hospital, but if the protesters on the streets of America and Europe knew the truth, they ignored it.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib stuck with the hospital lie even as she was censured in the U.S. House. She continues to clamor for a ceasefire, forgetting that a ceasefire was in place until Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

As the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) continues to pull bodies out of the rubble from the first attack, more and more evidence is being found that Hamas and Iran have been planning this assault for months, perhaps years. In addition to digging tunnels in Gaza and taking paragliding lessons in Iran, Hamas laid the real ground work far outside the Middle East.

Academic institutions have been engaged in a war on the West for decades, teaching that virtually everything that has been achieved by mankind—art, science, progressive thought, all advancement—is basically bad, illegitimate, rooted in white privilege and falsely linked to phony standards like merit and achievement. This crowd proclaims that most every facet of life in America is bad.

American elites have bought into this message and once you believe America is bad, it apparently is not all that hard to swallow the lie that terrorism via Hamas is good.

Hamas’ global communications plan is working masterfully. Influential elites in both America and Europe have rallied behind the terrorists.

They marched in the streets of the world’s largest cities even after the release of tapes which show Hamas gleefully killing, raping and mutilating Israelis in the Oct. 7 massacre. They are demanding a ceasefire even after the tape of the phone call of the young Hamas terrorist happily reporting, “Dad, Dad, I killed 10 Jews today!”

They are not even demanding that American hostages be released or acknowledging that a ceasefire would simply allow Hamas to regroup.

Bari Weiss reminds us that this most recent manifestation of the oldest ethnic hatred in the world is not just about the Jews, it is about all of us.

That is why it is so horribly ironic that over the past several weeks, the terrorists have had such an easy time getting Western leaders, particularly on the left, to take their side. In addition to the very sad “Queers for Palestine” crowd, it is almost laughable that Christian churches in America have signed a joint letter calling for a ceasefire. Homosexuality is a capital crime in Palestine and what do you think Hamas would do to American Christians if they aren’t stopped?

The ultimate goal for the terrorist collaboration headquartered in Iran is to obliterate the “great Satan,” which is the Western world in general and the U.S. in particular. Everyone who celebrates America freedom is on their list of infidels. They hate us.

Those who are calling for a cease fire insist they have the moral high ground, as they tell us that the lives of all children matter. They are right about that. That is exactly why Israel is fighting back and America is supporting it—because we believe that the lives of all children matter. All life is precious and the freedom to live those lives is sacred.

It is important to remember that in addition to the more recent pauses, Israel has from the beginning pleaded with Palestinians to get out of harm’s way and, from the beginning, Hamas has threatened to kill its own citizens if they attempt to leave.

Those calling for a ceasefire are missing the key difference in worldviews here. Hamas and their allies are not outraged about the lives of those children—they are just tools in their messaging war. Hamas wants a world where all the Jews are dead and America is brought to its knees. They don’t care how many children die to achieve that goal.

Israel is defending itself and all of us against Hamas’ dark and evil world view. That’s why America is supporting it in its fight to ensure that this does not ever happen again. Pray for them. Also pray that President Joe Biden is not pushed by Hamas’ allies on the left to back away from his support for Israel.

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9th & Congress

9th & Congress | Episode 10: How Texas Got It Right, Part 2 with David Weeks

TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with renowned political and public affairs consultant David Weeks to discuss his experience on the Texas Quarter Dollar Coin Advisory Committee, where he contributed to the design and creation of the Texas state quarter that is in circulation today, the current state of Texas’ political climate, and all things in between.

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In The Media

The Woke/Hamas Alliance: The Dangerous Partnership

As Israel fights to destroy Hamas and violence in the Middle East threatens to escalate, the collaboration between radical progressive “woke” groups in America and radical Islamists is becoming glaringly visible with a resultant surge in anti-Semitism. The present unrest in America has its roots in identity politics and its ongoing war against Western ideas and moral order.

TPPF hosted a livestream discussion of this dangerous partnership and the vulnerability the radical progressive groups are exposing America to at every level. TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester, Chuck DeVore, and Erin Valdez, along with Rabbi Dan Ain, have everything you need to know about the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.

Speakers

  • Sherry Sylvester (Moderator) – Distinguished Senior Fellow, Texas Public Policy Foundation
  • Rabbi Dan Ain – Rabbi and Founder, Moontower Minyan
  • Hon. Chuck DeVore – Chief National Initiatives Officer, Texas Public Policy Foundation
  • Erin Valdez – Policy Director, Next Generation Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation
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9th & Congress

Two Decades in the School Choice Trenches

The Texas AFT has bullishly pledged that it will never surrender in the war against school choice in Texas. That’s no surprise; I have watched teachers’ unions fight school choice all over this country for more than 20 years, often successfully. Lost dreams and opportunities for millions of children are the collateral damage.

Early in my career I worked in the Northeast. In New Jersey, teachers’ unions blocked school choice proposals over the objections of inner-city parents including a statewide coalition of African-American leaders. It was only years later, when now-U.S. Senator Cory Booker became mayor of Newark, that school choice programs were established, pulling that state’s educational system from the brink of ruin.

The New Jersey teachers’ unions didn’t make demands for more funding in public schools, like they have in Texas, because they’d already won the money war. Even 20 years ago, they had some of the highest per-pupil spending and teachers’ salaries in the country. I wrote at the time that the state of New Jersey was spending about the same amount as parents who sent their kids to Harvard but the money didn’t help. In Newark, the graduation rate was 4%.

Texas teachers’ union representatives said during testimony over current school choice proposals this session that no increase in school funding could induce them to support parental rights.

When I first moved to Texas, I was a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, where I watched teachers’ unions and the newspaper demonize Texas Public Policy Foundation founder, Dr. Jim Leininger, for creating a privately funded program that would pay the tuition of any student who wanted to leave the notoriously low-performing Edgewood Independent School District. Dr. Leininger and others invested $50 million for the 10-year program. The school district is still bitter about it, even though results showed increased graduation rates for those inner-city kids who participated in the very popular program.

In addition to private school tuition, Leininger’s program would also have paid for out-of-district tuition for Edgewood students who wanted to attend another public school. Education bureaucrats wouldn’t let that happen. Applicants from the program were rejected.

Think about that scene. A poor child, probably a Hispanic child, from a bad school showed up at a top performing school in San Antonio with funding to pay out-of-district tuition. The child was turned away.

What kind of school official would do that? What teachers’ union or school board member would allow that to happen? How can some of those same people stand up with straight faces today and pretend that their opposition to school choice is based on their concern for children?

I watched the Texas House block school choice for at least four sessions. One 2015 image etched in my memory is a gaggle of Democrat state representatives—many of them African-American and Hispanic, huddled around the front mic of the House smugly attacking school choice, pretending they had the moral high ground.

Many of those elected representatives were private school graduates. Others sent their own children to private schools. However, by standing against school choice, they denied the children of their own constituents, often trapped in the worst schools in the state, any hope of going to a better school. The level of hypocrisy and elitism was staggering.

This is particularly damning when you consider the results of a study published in the Urban Review in 2013 that found that “high achieving black males who attend private high schools are dramatically more likely to attain a bachelor’s degree than similar students attending public schools.”

majority of Texans support school choice in every poll including nearly 60% of Black Texans, even though most of them also vote Democrat, and killing school choice is part of the Texas Democrat Platform. Texas parents also know that Florida schools went from 33 in the nation to No. 1 by establishing a comprehensive school choice program.

Most parents are like Texas parents. I lived in New York City in the 1990s when public schools were not only dismal, they were dangerous. Nobody I knew, including the lowly underpaid secretaries and custodians in the building where I worked, sent their kids to a public school, because no responsible parent would do that. They worked as many extra jobs as they needed to in order to pay tuition and get their kids in a school where they would have a chance. There is still no real school choice in New York except charter schools and teachers’ unions work tirelessly to close those down.

Parents care about their kids, but there’s very little evidence that education bureaucrats do. Twenty years ago, I interviewed a couple members of the Newark School Board about why they believed the school district should provide them with a car—which it did. One member told me it was absolutely necessary because he had to get to lots of athletic events and with school district plates, he could park without getting a ticket. He didn’t see any relationship between his car and the 4% graduation rate.

I thought the car story was just a New Jersey thing, until I found out that in Texas today, the superintendent of Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, whose base annual salary is $521,000, also gets an additional $24,000 car allowance. No doubt he has a lot of athletic events to attend too—just like nearly every parent who lives in his district and pays his enormous salary with their property taxes.

Even if you believe that pouring more money into our public schools would make the schools better, and we have mountains of evidence that it won’t make any difference, it wouldn’t fix them in time to impact the lives of the kids who are in school today. If your child is in a school where he or she is not thriving, then you want to find a pathway out of that school and into another that works for your child as soon as possible.

That’s why parents across Texas are fighting so hard for school choice. They know that regardless of what Texas decides to do on the issue of school funding, their child cannot wait for another session or a better political climate.

This is their year. Every class in school now is the class of 2023. They only get one shot.