Thomas Ratlif

P.O. Box 232 State Board of Education tel: (93! "#"$##9

%t. Pleasant& T' "()(* +ice$,hairman ---.thomasratlif.com
Secure The Border
No, Im not talking about the border between Texas and Mexico, thats not an issue before the
SBOE Im talking about the border between Texas and the !S "e#artment of Education
$s we a##roach the %&'( )egislati*e Session, there is a lot of talk about more reforms to the
testing regime in our #ublic schools Im all for it The %&'+ )egislature #assed ,B ( to fix
man- of these issues for high school students The- also #assed a bill to fix this issue for +
rd
./
th
graders, but it was *etoed, in #art, due to concerns about our com#liance with a 0ederal #rogram
1es, -ou read that right Texas cannot make changes to O!2 testing #rogram because of a
0E"E2$) #rogram The federal go*ernment gi*es us less than '&3 of our budget for our #ublic
schools for a #rogram called 4No 5hild )eft Behind6 7N5)B8 that was im#lemented in %&&'
!nder that #rogram, if Texas wants the mone-, we ha*e to #la- b- the N5)B rules This is the
tail wagging the dog and its time for the dog to turn around and bite9
To be clear, not all 0ederal education #rograms are bad 0rom s#ecial education to free and
reduced lunch for our economicall- disad*antaged kids, the 0eds ha*e done a few things well
:hate*er we do, we cant ;eo#ardi<e the funding of those #rograms So, if the 0eds tr- to tie
them all together and hold our students hostage for their bubble sheets, our $ttorne- =eneral
needs to get in*ol*ed and make sure each of those #rograms stand alone so Texas has more
control o*er Texas #ublic education If necessar-, we also need to call on our !S Senators and
2e#resentati*es in 5ongress to hel# Texas stand u# for our kids
In honor of this >ul- ?
th
holida-, I am encouraging e*er- member of the %&'( Texas )egislature
and e*er-one in Texas to su##ort our withdrawal from N5)B and regain Texas 4Inde#endence6
o*er Texas #ublic schools ,ow@ :ith the Texas econom- booming and the 2ain- "a- 0und
bursting at the seams, the Texas )egislature can re;ect the 0ederal N5)B mone- and re#lace it
with mone- from Texas tax#a-ersA the same tax#a-ers whose children being sub;ected to too
man- standardi<ed tests
Before -ou worr- about the legislature sim#l- re;ecting the federal mone- and not re#lacing it
with state mone-, remember that our school finance s-stem has alread- been found
unconstitutional due, in #art, to the amount of mone- being s#ent on our schools Sim#l-
reducing the funding of our schools will onl- make that #roblem worse
>oin me and encourage the %&'( Texas )egislature to secure the borderBto the North9
Not #rinted or mailed at state ex#ense