#TXLEGE: Some VERY GOOD NEWS (and some concerns) from Taylor

"Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6

Due to a late breaking personal issue, we were not able to attend Larry Taylor's Trib appearance this morning, but we did watch it online:



The top-line takeaway is that Taylor unequivocally endorsed cutting property taxes as part of an school finance package.  Period.  End of story.  Specifically, Taylor promised Texans "significant property tax savings."

We thank Chairman Taylor for making this promise, but we expect him to follow through.

Taylor also had some very good things to say about the difference between paying teachers and shoveling money into bureaucracy.  We should (within reason) support the former but oppose the latter.  Taylor also explained the relationship between the Senate's base-pay proposal and the soon to be forthcoming merit pay plan.  It's along the lines of what we suspected last month.

Unfortunately...there was also pre-K.  Specifically, Taylor said he wants to "fully fund" "full day" pre-K.  In fairness to Taylor, he hid behind euphemisms like "high quality" and promised to restrict the program to "low income" students.  Nothing good can come from this proposal.

Bottom Line: All things considered, it was probably about a 70% positive performance.  If you're getting a merit pay system AND a big property tax cut, across the board teacher pay raises are a good trade.  But yikes on pre-K....