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Have you ever wondered what your school district is doing with your tax dollars? Have you tried but only felt overwhelmed about the amount of information that you had to sift through?

A new group has formed in Texas, called Texas SchoolWatch, that will hold the public school districts accountable to taxpayers. If you've watched the news over the past few years, you have heard more and more stories regarding the secrets that school districts keep from the taxpayers--the same districts that put football stadiums before education, waste taxpayer dollars in ways too numerous to count, keep students in unsafe conditions, allow criminals to have access to our children, pay lobbyists out of your tax dollars, and who care more about themselves than they do our kids.

It's Eviction Day. This is the day we take back our school districts.

In the last several years, when Patrick's school failed him between 2004-2006, when a school official tried to use extortion to get me to change my course of action, I became an advocate, not professionally, but privately. When Greg Groogan of Fox 26 Houston brought a story to air about Clear Creek ISD spending over $100,000 of your tax dollars to fight a parent, the story that won him a Casey Award, I was listening. I never realized the extent to which school districts were spending our money irresponsibly. My naviety that schools had the best interests of our children at heart disappeared. I started paying more attention. Looking into my own school district's check register (which is available on-line), I was very troubled with some of the payees.

My biggest pet peeves have been the extent to which school districts are with law firms like parasites are to hosts. In some instances, I've wondered if the law firm rather than the school district was the one running the district. When I see more money being spent on fast food than books, I get angry. When I hear congressional testimony by a school district's law firm stating that they have never denied a parent the opportunity to attend one of their "workshops" when I know for a fact that they have, I get angry. And like Wonderful-World, another Fox 26 Houston blogger, has so candidly pointed out many times, I get angry when I see people complaining about things they don't like, but don't make an effort to try to change things. Here is a wonderful opportunity to make a difference.

School Watch has been active in other areas of the country. The group in New York broke the scandal about the lawyers receiving pensions on Long Island (lawyers that weren't school district employees). A group in Ohio informed the public just what the Parma School District in Ohio had been up to, spending over $1 million to fight one family up through the Supreme Court and even when a judgment was found in favor of the parents in a lower court on a different issue, basically snubbed their noses up and refused to follow the court order. If any state in the union needed this group more, it is Texas.

According to the web site,

http://texasschoolwatch101.virtualnsn.com/modules/w
fchannel/

School Watch fights for:

The entire community, not just special interests

Transparency and fiscal responsibility in schools.

Educational and property tax reform

Fair contract negotiations in collective bargaining situations

Adequate funding for state-manded services

Alternatives to property taxation in funding of schools

Students to receive free appropriate educations

Safe schools and healthy educational environments

Uncovering school waste and mismanagement, corruption and fraud.

The site just broke ground and is ready for membership. If you want to make a difference not just for your own children, but for all our children in Texas, this group is for you. If TEA won't police themselves or allow independent oversight (as was recently posted in a blog by Chassan), then it is up to each citizen to make sure our collective voices are heard and that we provide that oversight.

This taxpayer is fed up and isn't taking any more. I've already signed up. Join me!

PBMom's Blog

Texas School Watch

PBMom

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