District FLOPS in Austin ISD Bond Debate

Austin ISD Board President Kendall Pace

"The rich rules over the poor,
And the borrower is servant to the lender."
Proverbs 22:7

Tuesday night, we attended KXAN's debate over the Austin ISD bond/tax hike.  Participants were Roger Falk of the Travis County Taxpayers Union and Bertha Delgado of Save East Austin Schools in opposition and Drew Scheberle of the Austin Chamber and Kendall Pace from Austin ISD in support.  You can view for yourself how badly this went for the District:



Highlights:

• Chamber guy spouts cliches about "talent availability."
• "21st century learning spaces."

• Roger Falk: Use finite resources wisely.
• Status quo is taxing people out of their homes.

• Chamber guy scaremongers re: bond failing.
• Calls Austin ISD's facilities plan "very thoughtful."

• Austin ISD is the largest land owner in central Texas.

• Roger: It doesn't take $1 BILLION to solve overcrowding.
• Austin ISD spends over $100k per month per school on maintenance.
• Austin ISD spends more per student than any urban ISD in the state.
• "Bloated, Contractor Bond."

• Pace: Something, something "belt tightening."
• Note: LOL, see here, here, and here.

• Roger: Robin Hood's impact is exaggerated.
• The only difference between the bond and Robin Hood is that you're giving the money to Wall St (via the interest payment) instead of giving it to the State of Texas.

• Pace makes a pretty racist statement re: El Paso.

• Pace acts super flustered and defensive.

• Chamber guy deflects when asked about bond being primarily for contractors.

• "Buildings don't teach children, people do."

• Chamber guy makes snotty, condescending, comment.

• Roger: "Right size the borrowing in this bond."

• Chamber guy deflects question about debt's impact on local economy by complaining about Robin Hood.
• Something something, tax hike not a big deal compared to "talent."

• Pace: Something, something "equality of outcomes."

• More cliches from Chamber guy.

• Austin ISD's superintendent just got a raise to over $300k!!!

• Roger: You could buy every student in Austin ISD an iPAD for $24 million, district is asking for $1 BILLION!!!