Reps discuss education legislation
October 18th, 2008
Mt. Pleasant Daily Tribune
Local State Representatives Mark Homer and Steven Frost spoke at the Northeast Texas School Board Fall Dinner Meeting Thursday night in Mount Pleasant about the problems and perils education legislation faces in Texas.
Frost (D-Atlanta) said attitudes are changing for the better in Austin. He said during his first term another legislator suggested cutting textbook funding “because the kids can download everything off the Internet.”
Frost told the attendees at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center he wanted the legislature to insure “you have the tools available to do your job.”
He attacked the TAKS test - to great applause n saying student assessment need to be done by teachers, administrators and parents.
Frost, both of whose parents were teachers, says he also has to stand up in the legislature for the needs of rural school districts. “I always have to watch we don’t get left out,” he said. “Not every kid lives in Highland Park.”
One positive thing he would like to see, said Frost, is a greater emphasis on vocational education.
The ongoing battle over school vouchers seems to be over, he added. The current chairman of the House Education Committee says there’s no intention of introducing a voucher bill in the legislature next year.
Homer (D-Paris) says educational advocates constantly have to battle “the law of unintended consequences” on the floor of the House. “You get in a mindset that your job is to do no harm,” he said. “A lot of your work involves killing bad stuff.”
He said he agreed with Frost that there needs to be a greater emphasis on vocational education. “Not everybody is going to be college-bound.”
He said the greatest burden the legislature puts on local districts in unfunded mandates, and he’s proposed legislation that would require any program which includes unfunded mandates be brought back for re-approval every session of the legislature.