WISD $170K Bid for Summerbridge

The Waxahachie Independent School District has a bid properly before it requesting $170K for a product called Summerbridge. This is a product that is supposed to help children retain what they had learned in school between grades. My letter to the school board and superintendent detail my feelings on the matter. This is all part of a $2M honeypot for “products.” My feelings are deeply negative for several reasons.

First and foremost, the bureaucrats are always complaining that teachers cannot be paid a sufficient wage. This is poppycock; if we have money for useless products, we have money for teachers. Secondly, the administration’s wages are bloated. Again, and again, and again, no bureaucrat in the State of TX should make more than the Governor. One cannot convince me otherwise. The Governor’s salary is about $173K; WISD has loads of folks making more than that!

The most important and striking reason for my negativity is that the products always push to parents what we pay the school district to do. They give students take home, over the summer work rather than providing the supports necessary to provide adequate instruction for students. Most people either have no degree or a useless degree - most parents are unequipped to teach their children chemistry, physics, calculus, and music.

Currently, we have the RINO, Greg Abbott, asking us if we want out money back so we can leave the public education system. That is EXACTLY what his version of school choice is asking. My issue is I have no counterargument. When our public schools would rather tell parents “here is a backpack full of shit you cannot understand, teach it to your child over the summer”, Abbott’s plan to give us our money back seems like a ray of sunshine in comparison.

WISD needs to do better than this if it wants to prove that public education and those who work within the system have our children’s best interests at heart.