February 23, 2025 • 45 mins
Jennifer Lee, a passionate advocate for public education, joins us to share her inspiring journey from high school teacher to elementary education trailblazer. As a single parent and dedicated educator, Jennifer discusses her commitment to making a difference in public schools. She reveals her motivations for running again in the 2026 election, driven by her resolve to counteract legislation like HB 3, the controversial voucher bill threatening public education. Her personal story, paired with her professional experiences, underscores the urgent need to defend public educational institutions and ensure that they remain a viable choice for all families.
Our conversation navigates through the contentious political landscape of government funding for private education, spotlighting the influence wielded by the governor in shaping election results. We dissect the distinctions between the Senate and House versions of the HB3 bill, shedding light on significant concerns regarding accountability and transparency in private school funding. The episode tackles the skepticism surrounding private education's purported academic superiority, emphasizing the necessity for concrete accountability in educational outcomes and questioning the legitimacy of current assessment methodologies.
Addressing the private school voucher program's complex impacts, we explore the financial burdens it imposes on families and the lack of rural provisions that may primarily benefit urban and affluent communities. We delve into the historical roots of school vouchers as a tool for racial segregation and reflect on their current implications during Black History Month. Examining the experiences of states like Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, we consider the long-term feasibility of reversing these policies. This episode seeks to unravel the intricate dynamics of public education advocacy, inviting listeners to contemplate the broader implications for the future of education in America.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Louie Minor (00:04):
Welcome.
You're listening to the LouieMinor Show.
I'm your host, bell CountyCommissioner, louie Minor.
Today is February 23rd 2025.
We have a special guest that Idid a recording with, jennifer
Lee.
She was a candidate for HouseDistrict 55 last election cycle.
(00:27):
She is going to be running forelection, running again for that
seat.
So she's a former educator,strong advocate of public
education, and I wanted to talkto her about HB 3, that's the
new voucher scam bill that waswritten by chairman Buckley,
(00:54):
that it represents Killeen andSalado, and so enjoy the
conversation on this there.
There's no commissioner's courton coming up this Monday and
there's no commissioner's courtcoming up on the following
Monday, which should have been ameeting, but I know I'll be at
(01:16):
the National Association ofCounties Legislative Conference
in Washington DC.
I leave Friday for that.
I know the county judge will bethere and then I think one of
the other commissioners hasanother thing to go to.
So, anyways, there's not goingto be a commissioner's court
meeting that day and so the nextmeeting will be the third
(01:40):
Wednesday or third Monday of themonth in March.
So we will.
We still have a lot to talkabout.
Enjoy the conversation withJennifer Lee and we'll talk to
you next week.
Welcome, I have a special guestfor for you today.
Miss Jennifer Lee ran for housedistrict 55,.
(02:01):
Jennifer Lee ran for HouseDistrict 55 the last election
cycle.
She will be our hero again andrunning again in the 2026
election cycle.
So, jennifer, thank you foragreeing to being on the show
(02:24):
today.
We'll let everyone in on thelittle secret.
We actually recorded this oncebefore, but the recording was
not very good because we weretrying to be fancy and do it on
site, on location, but that's mybad.
So thank you for agreeing to dothis again, because it's
(02:45):
important.
It's important for ourcommunity, it's important for
our state and I think it'simportant for people to know
that there are other options outthere.
There's candidates out therethat really care about public
schools and want to bring theright information and the right
solutions for our, our state.
(03:06):
So thank you for agreeing to dothis again with me.
And and what I'm referencing ishb3, our uh house district
member in 54 representative bradbuckley.
Chairman buckley, he was thechairman of the Public Education
Committee last year, our lastlegislative session, where the
(03:33):
voucher scam failed, and nowhe's at it again.
So I wanted to bring you on,but first, since I did not have
you on the show.
I was not able to nail you downand get you on the show last
last election cycle.
If you can, I want the audienceto know About you.
(03:57):
Tell us a little bit about your, your history and then why you
decided to run and why you'regoing to run again in 2026.
Jennifer Lee (04:06):
All right.
So thank you so much.
I am a single parent to afantastic eight-year-old and I
have, you know, done what somany parents tend to do.
I have been his coach fornumerous sports and I've coached
so many children in ourcommunity.
I've been a teacher for 13years.
I taught 11 years at HarkerHeights High School, encouraging
(04:29):
students to go into education,encouraging and teaching those,
mentoring those future educators, because we need more folks
going into the field.
And then I decided I wanted achallenge and I switched to
elementary and taught fourth andfifth grade math intervention
and I absolutely got thechallenge that I wanted.
(04:50):
But it was so much fun justgetting a different aspect and,
you know, teaching in a Title Iduolingual campus and just kind
of seeing some of thedifferences there.
But yeah, basically that's itthe reason why I decided to run
for office.
It's something that I kneweventually I would want to do.
I thought I would do it when myson was much older and it would
(05:13):
be a little bit easier with himbeing older.
That's exactly what happened in.
I believe it was December of 23,when I had a conversation with
(05:33):
Dawn Richardson and she kind ofchallenged me and asked why not
just run now?
Why keep on saying that, oh,someday I'll do that, someday
I'll do that?
And something we all need toremember is that someday isn't
promised and for some peoplesomeday doesn't happen.
And so she challenged me andthen she kind of left it alone.
But then I heard from Louishimself and that conversation
(05:57):
definitely made me think.
It challenged me in a slightlydifferent way, and I was
reminded that you know, again,we can keep putting things off,
but sometimes the need just kindof finds you.
And so after that conversation Igot a few more phone calls and
I really started thinking.
I finally decided you know what?
(06:18):
I know we're super close to thedeadline and this was not in my
plans initially, but the needis there.
Somebody has to stand up forpublic education.
We can't just lay down, andpeople deserve to have a choice
on the ballot, a choice they canfeel good about.
I've been one of those peoplewho, if there wasn't a candidate
I liked on the ballot, I wouldundervote and just kind of
(06:39):
continue down the ballot andmove on and just kind of
continue down the ballot andmove on, because if I don't feel
good about somebody I'm notgoing to vote for them.
(07:03):
But in this instance, with thelegislation that was coming down
the pipeline, and knowing wherewe were headed and knowing that
there was going to be a massivebattle for kind of the soul of
public education, I said youknow what People deserve?
An option.
People deserve to be able tovote for somebody that they know
, who has a proven track recordof caring about our public
schools, who's been involvedwith our public schools, not
just as a teacher but as anadvocate.
I've been to the Capitol, I'vetestified at hearings, I've
spoken at school board meetings.
I have been fighting forstudents and teachers for years.
(07:23):
They deserve to have somebodythat they can feel good about
voting for on the ballot.
It can't just be this oneperson and then they have no
other options.
That's not how democracy works,and so that's why I decided to
run and it was an incrediblywild ride and I learned so much.
Incredibly wild ride and Ilearned so much.
(07:48):
But and I saw how many peoplereally rose up and they care so
much about the safety andwellbeing of our students
sitting in classrooms.
They care about those publicschools.
They want to save those Fridaynight lights.
They want public schools.
We want to support publiceducation as a whole.
That's what I found out.
I know there's a lot ofinformation saying oh no,
everyone wants school choice.
(08:09):
No, everyone wants publicschools to be the choice.
They want public schools to bewell-funded, well-maintained and
well-led.
That's what people actuallywant when you actually get out
and talk to a wide variety ofpeople.
And so that's why I'm going torun again, because we still
deserve a choice that we canfeel good about.
People are starting to see andhave some kind of buyer's
(08:31):
remorse, I think, after thispast election cycle, when they
realized, oh, that's what wevoted for, oh, that's not what
we meant, and so people deservea choice, and they deserve a
choice in 26.
Now that we're seeing what,what we have, it's time to say
you know what our kids deservebetter.
Louie Minor (08:52):
Right, and and I, you know, I, I think that, if
you, you know, just last lastyear, last budget year, there
there was already schoolstalking about cutting budgets,
cutting staff, and you know,that's to me, that was just a
precursor of and now the talk isabout cutting librarians on the
(09:13):
cusp of.
Jennifer Lee (09:14):
You know, for years we've been talking about
book banning and, you know, thefar right side keeps saying no
one's banning books, no one'sbanning books, as books keep
disappearing off of shelves.
No one's banning books.
But yet entire book cases are,you know, swiped clean in
classrooms and in libraries.
And then you see this entirefoolishness that comes out
(09:38):
saying that, oh, the bookbanning thing that Joe Biden
said that was all a hoax, it wasa big old hoax, even though we
know that's not true.
And we've heard numerouscandidates, including the person
who was elected to 55.
We've heard them all say youknow, well, these books just
shouldn't be available.
Well, if it's not available,that means that you're banning
it, you're keeping it from otherpeople.
Louie Minor (10:13):
You're making decisions for parents.
If we want parent empowerment,parents should be able to make
the decisions themselves.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou, where you grew up.
Jennifer Lee (10:18):
where did all this passion and advocacy, where did
all this come from?
So I grew up in the deep pineywoods in Northeast Texas and
graduated from Kilgore HighSchool, and you know, my father
worked in the oil field forabout 40 years or so.
And you know, something thatfew people realize about me is
that one my parents were marriedfor 49 years and they did stay
(10:40):
together until my father passedaway in 2017.
He had diabetes, had severalcomplications, eventually went
blind.
He also suffered from dementiaand Alzheimer's and numerous
complications associated withlack of access to really great
health care.
And so watching my mom be hissole caretaker for a very long
(11:02):
time, after both of them hadactually been the caretaker for
my grandfather, who had asimilar fate, and just seeing
that struggle, that ongoingbattle, and seeing how important
it is to have access to reallygood health care, no matter
where you are, even if you'reway out in the country or if
you're in a big city, that's oneof those things that sticks
(11:24):
with you.
And it's so incrediblyfrustrating when I see people
vote for folks who vote againsttheir best interest.
You will adamantly defendsomebody who is literally
destroying everything that isimportant to you and somebody
who tells you to your face thatthey don't care about you, but
(11:46):
you still vote for them becauseof whatever values you think
they have.
But you know, watching myparents struggle through the
healthcare system definitelymade me feel like we need
somebody who's going to fightfor the little people who don't
always have time or the abilityto fight for themselves, but
also seeing the importance ofhaving an access to really great
(12:08):
education and having it be anequitable education, meaning
just because I live in thecountry, just it doesn't.
It shouldn't matter where Ilive and what my zip code is.
A really great education shouldbe available to every child and
it should not come at afinancial you know, downfall for
parents, but that's because wehave to invest in those public
(12:31):
schools, those neighborhoodschools.
Louie Minor (12:34):
Totally, totally agree with that.
So you know, back when youfirst ran, initially you were
running against the incumbent ofuh, hugh shine, who had uh been
there for quite some, someyears.
And you know I I think that was, if I remember our
(12:57):
conversations correctly that wasa little bit of your hesitation
.
But uh, to running against it.
You know an incumbent like thatand and at some point in time
it might've been at the verybeginning, when we, when we
first spoke, I think, I told youlike, hey, a lot of things
could happen between now and theelection.
You never know what's going tohappen.
(13:19):
And something happened in thatrace that we didn't expect.
You know, vouchers failed.
They tried to push it in thelast legislative session and
then the governor turned aroundand went after all the
Republicans that voted againstthe voucher bill.
And that's how we got HillaryHicklin, who was on the November
(13:43):
ballot with you, because thegovernor weighed in on this race
and a handful of other racesthroughout the state and was
able to knock off a lot of theRepublicans, a lot of the
incumbents.
Interesting though you know, hewasn't attacking those
(14:05):
incumbents for not supportingtheir voucher bill.
He was in attacking Republicansfor not being tough on the
border.
you know that mysteriously, allof a sudden, yeah, and these are
all the same republicans thatvoted for everything he wanted
for the border.
So, uh, you know it wasdefinitely a lot of lies in that
(14:26):
primary.
But then when you, when you hada run against now an open seat,
how did that play into yourthought process, because
obviously this person waspro-voucher going to vote for it
?
Jennifer Lee (14:45):
That is her sole purpose.
Louie Minor (14:46):
Yeah, that's.
Her mission is to go down thereand rubber stamp whatever the
governor wants, and to me itjust seems like even now, that
she's just a parrot or a puppet,you know whichever P word you
want to use for for the governor.
Jennifer Lee (15:05):
So I totally agree with that.
I saw you know when you knowafter the primary, when I saw
who I was going to run against,I wasn't necessarily surprised,
only because you know.
When the governor sinks over$400,000 into a race, you would
(15:25):
expect that to make a difference.
When he's using his powers tocircumvent what might actually
be the will of the people in thedistrict, you kind of have to
expect sort of the unexpected.
And so the after the primary itjust made me more determined
because I saw where I saw whatwas going to happen.
(15:48):
I saw how determined they wereto push this thing through again
, possibly against the will ofthe actual people.
To me that's not how governmentis supposed to run.
The governor should not beacting in a way that completely
negates the voice of the people.
And we're seeing that nowbecause you've heard too many
(16:12):
Republicans before.
You know when the Senate washearing.
You know SB2, the firstrendition of the education
savings account, or a voucherscam, however you want to phrase
it, because apparently use ofthe word voucher is triggering
to them.
But you know they started outsaying we already have the votes
(16:32):
.
And the same thing has happenednow that HB3 has been rolled
out.
You know, burroughs has beenquoted and saying we already
have the votes and so they'reapproaching this in a way of
that.
It's kind of like the parentwho, when you're walking up to
the store and you tell your kid,you know, don't ask for
anything, don't touch anything,don't climb on anything, just
(16:53):
basically tell them just mindyour business, because you're
not going to get what you want,and that's the exact same vibe
that we get from this.
We already have the votesstatement that we keep hearing
before these hearings, and soit's deeply concerning that now
it's no longer about hey, thepeople are concerned, the people
(17:14):
don't want this, because you'reseeing people on both sides of
the aisle come out of thewoodworks to say that, hey, we
don't want this, this is a scam.
We don't want public educationto suffer.
We don't want whatever it is.
What snake oil you're offering?
We don't want, whatever it is,what snake oil you're offering?
And yet there's a smugnessamong those far right
(17:36):
Republicans we already have thevotes and that kind of undertow
of.
We really don't have to listento you, but we're just being
nice.
Louie Minor (17:44):
Right, so what I wanted to talk to you about is
HB3.
It was put out on Thursday Ithink that was February 20th by
Chairman Buckley.
Buckley is actually going to dotwo town halls in Bell County
(18:04):
next week.
One's going to be at a privateschool in Killeen on Monday and
then the other one is going tobe at Salado ISD their school
district admin building onFriday, so there's going to be
opportunities for us to go andask him questions.
(18:28):
But he's the author of this newbill and I wanted to go over it
with you.
I'm sure by now we've all had achance to read it and go
through it.
And to me, what is the biggesttakeaway from this $1 billion
(18:48):
program?
That last legislative sessionthere was only 500 million, but
you know, just in the year and ahalf it's ballooned to $1
billion.
What is the biggest thing thatsticks out to you on this
current rendition?
Jennifer Lee (19:07):
So I want to point out the difference between the
Senate bill and the House bill,because in the Senate bill it
was very much so unbridled.
We do not care about any kindof accountability, we do not
care about any kind oftransparency.
It was these people are goingto be able to do whatever they
want with this money.
But the House bill did put in alittle bit of a kind of some
(19:31):
training will, so to speak.
The House bill does say thatthere has to be accountability
as far as what students arelearning, but it's only to
parents.
Of course.
There will be no public ratingsfor the private schools as
there are for public schools.
And one thing that really kindof stood out to me was when we
(19:53):
talk about how the students aregoing to be tested, because
something that I don't thinkanybody has actually been
hearing is when people aresaying you know, we want parents
to be able to choose the bestpossible school for their child.
No one's bragging about theacademics of the private schools
.
When they're saying that Allyou hear is about the negative
(20:16):
of public schools and how whatpublic schools aren't doing and
how poorly.
You know, our kids can't read,they can't do math, they can't
do this, but no one's actuallysaying well in the private
schools.
Here's what the data says.
Here's where the academicprogress is.
Here's how they data sayshere's where the academic
progress is.
Here's how they're doing.
I didn't hear any of thatduring the campaign.
I haven't heard about privateschool students outperforming,
(20:39):
so it's not like they're sayingthis is a significantly better
option because they're doing sowell academically.
And I'm wondering is thatbecause they haven't been held
accountable and there's notreally any testing information
available, because there's alsono transparency.
But when it?
The new thing that I'm seeingnow is that, yes, they will have
to have a yearly and annualtest of some sort, but it will
(21:04):
be a norm reference test and thedifference between norm
reference and what the star testdoes is norm reference means
that they're being compared toother students within their age
range, in their grade, sothey're nationwide, kind of
where is the average thirdgrader, where is the average
fourth grader?
How are you doing when you'recomparing fourth graders?
(21:25):
That's norm reference andthat's what they're saying they
want from private schools.
That's norm reference andthat's what they're saying they
want from private schools.
The star test.
However, historically I mean,it doesn't take too much
Googling to find out.
The star test has always been athorn in the side of educators
because we understand that it'snot developmentally appropriate.
The grade level for which theaverage star test is written
(21:48):
does not actually reflect thegrade level that takes the star
test.
So a third grade star test,reading test, may really
secretly be at a fifth, evensixth grade level.
There are times, even aseducators, we're going through
looking at sample tests thathave been released or past tests
that have been released, andwe're looking and saying even we
(22:08):
are struggling to understandthis.
There was an infamous interviewdone by an author who had
written something, one of thestories, one of the reading
passages for the star test, andthey went back and read the
questions about their story, thestory they wrote.
They went back and read thosequestions and they said even I
(22:31):
would struggle to get thosewrong or get those right.
Louie Minor (22:34):
Right.
Jennifer Lee (22:34):
Even I can't fully understand what this is asking
about.
The story I wrote, and sothat's how we know the STAR test
is really setting our studentsup to look like failures.
It's setting our public schoolsup to look like they're failing
, setting our public schools upto look like they're failing,
(22:55):
not to mention the fact that thetarget keeps moving Every year.
There's always a big ordealwhen it comes to results coming
out and you know, oh, thisschool, you know, did horribly,
but the target moved.
When you give us a target towork towards, something to keep
in mind, saying, hey, you know,just make sure that you're
covering the following thingsand then later on you change
(23:19):
that target, or you decide youlook at the results and then say
, you know retroactively, youknow what?
Let's move it a little bitfurther.
So where somebody might havebeen making 100 out of 100, now
it's 100 out of 150 because youmoved the bar.
And that's what's beenhappening regularly to public
schools in an attempt to makethem look like they're not doing
(23:41):
what they're supposed to bedoing.
Louie Minor (23:44):
So one thing that from the last legislative
session they were going to do$10,000 allotment per child
going to these private schoolsand in this new HB three it
doesn't really put a dollaramount I don't see a specified
(24:04):
dollar amount in it but it didsay that they're going to kind
of tie it to public schoolfunding.
So it are they going to match?
It's to me it was still alittle unclear.
Do you know, are they going tomatch whatever allotment is for
public education into thisvoucher program or is it still
(24:25):
going to be the ten thousanddollars?
Jennifer Lee (24:28):
the senate bill said ten thousand dollars plus
$1,500 if a student had specialneeds, and then $2,000 for
homeschooling parents and anextra $500 for a student with
special needs, and one thing tonote is that that automatically
(24:59):
starts out.
Even if it was $10,000, thatautomatically starts out with
more funding for a privateeducation than a public
education Because as it standsand has been since 2019, I
believe the basic allotment orthe basic level of funding for a
student in public schools it'snot in special education, they
aren't bilingual, they aren'tcareer and technical.
A career and technical studentnothing extra, just kind of
regular program student is $6160, $6,160.
(25:25):
That is their basic allotmentand has not changed since 2019.
Right now the conversation ismoving that up to somewhere over
7,000, which it should havebeen going up with inflation all
this time, and so now there's alittle bit of catch-up that's
happening, but because we waitedso long with so much inflation,
(25:45):
it's not really catching us up.
It's not really doing as muchas they thought, but that's
still not the 10,000 number.
The fact that we started outimmediately saying you get more
money to go to a private schoolis very, very unacceptable,
because we've never seen a fullyfunded public school in Texas.
Louie Minor (26:06):
Correct.
And just to remind thelisteners, what is Texas ranked
in public education?
It's like close to the bottomright 40-something.
Jennifer Lee (26:20):
Well, it might be.
It's a little bit higher thanthat.
I'll give us some credit.
We're, I think, 30th.
Louie Minor (26:25):
Okay.
Jennifer Lee (26:27):
We're not great.
We are not great.
Louie Minor (26:29):
Yeah, so they want to pull this money out.
You know they said the money'sgoing to follow the kid.
How does that look?
What, what.
What does that mean to to theschool?
What does that mean to theparent?
What does it mean to thetaxpayer?
What does it mean that themoney is going to follow the kid
?
Jennifer Lee (26:51):
in theory, what's supposed to happen is that
there's a account that is goingto exist.
That's why they're trying tocall it an education savings
account as opposed to a voucher,because too many people were
equating voucher to coupon, eventhough that's actually how it's
going to function.
There's supposed to be anaccount education savings
(27:12):
account where, once you'veapplied and been accepted to the
program, you will have moneythat you are going to be able to
spend on approved educationalexpenses.
And the approved part makesthis look like a vendor bill,
meaning they've already madesome deals and had some
conversations with some vendorseducational service vendors who
(27:37):
they've already kind of madethat agreement that you're going
to be getting this money,you're going to be benefiting
financially.
So of course, the lobbying fromthose vendors has been pretty
serious.
They're looking to get money.
Their business is looking toget money.
They're finally going to beable to tap into money that
could have been used for publiceducation and normally may not
have been available to them,because now there's an
(28:00):
opportunity.
They see the opportunity to getmoney from homeschoolers.
They see the opportunity to getgovernment money from private
schools, and so we're looking atthose approved vendor lists and
saying, okay, that's where thismoney can be spent only in
those places.
(28:20):
The one part that was kind ofconfusing about HB3 was, it said
, the semester after yourapplication is approved.
So my question slash possibleunderstanding is if I applied in
the summer, let's say, forexample, or I applied in August,
(28:41):
does that mean that in order toactually have a choice meaning
I want my child to go to thisprivate school do I have to wait
a semester in order for them toenroll, or do I need to?
Is it kind of a go ahead andenroll in this private school,
foot the bill up front and thenlater you'll get some money to
(29:02):
possibly either reimburse or payfor a second semester?
Louie Minor (29:06):
Yeah.
Jennifer Lee (29:07):
In which case that destroys the whole idea of
you've given me school choicebecause I can't foot the bill
for $ 13,000 in the fall.
Louie Minor (29:16):
Yeah, there's.
There's a lot of questions thatneed to be asked.
It's obviously not the rightthing to do for for kids.
You know you got to take intoaccount transportation needs.
You know, to me that's a bigone.
The the qualifications to getinto the private school voucher
(29:44):
program.
Nowhere else in government is$160,000, $150,000 considered
low income for the purposes ofqualification for this program.
So to me that was a big redflag.
(30:04):
And in last legislative sessionwith their voucher program they
were trying to do a carve outfor rural school districts.
You know 254 counties in thestate of Texas.
Majority of those counties areprobably not going to have any
type of private school but theirfunding is going to be affected
(30:26):
because if they don't fullyfund or they only nominally
increase the student allotmentthey're still not making up for
that inflation.
So did the now forgive mebecause I didn't look at the
Senate bill at all Do they haveany rural carve-outs in the
(30:46):
Senate?
Jennifer Lee (30:46):
bill?
Absolutely not.
Louie Minor (30:49):
Okay.
So yeah, this is somethingthat's definitely geared for the
bigger cities, the urban areasof the state, and I would
imagine most of those are goingto be in the Texas triangle.
That will be benefiting thewealthy families that are going
to be benefiting from that.
I'm going to be curious howmany people are actually and is
(31:14):
that are going to take theirkids out of private or public
education, go to private, versushow many are going to be in
there already and just startaccessing those funds.
Jennifer Lee (31:25):
And my concern with that is one, if you think
about it in terms of privateschools have not been asked to
change anything.
They really haven't been askedto change anything about their
admission process.
There was one small caveat inthe Senate bill and I can't
remember if it was in the Housebill as well that they couldn't
raise their tuition for astudent who is in the program.
(31:49):
So once you become a voucherstudent at that private school,
your tuition can't be raised.
But they're still able toscreen.
They're still able to get anapplication, do an interview
with the family and screen whothey take.
They can very easily deny astudent or a family based on
(32:12):
literally anything they want to.
There's been no call to makeprivate schools be transparent
financially to the public,because once you start taking
public dollars, I'm under thebelief that you should have
public accountability, meaning Ideserve to know how is you know
Trinity, holy Trinity CatholicSchool doing compared to the
(32:35):
nearest elementary school,public elementary school?
I should be able to see theratings of those schools as
compared to the public school.
But you also can't have thatcomparison because they're not
going to be taking the same test.
Louie Minor (32:50):
So that prevents a direct comparison, is it safe to
say that most of these privateschools are religious private
schools?
Okay, and can you remind theaudience of the history of
private schools and vouchers andkind of how all this started?
Jennifer Lee (33:09):
I would love to.
So you know we are in BlackHistory Month and vouchers have
actually been a topic among manyblack history circles.
You know we're talking aboutteaching our children their
history.
And shortly after Brown versusBoard of Education, when the
decision was handed down by theSupreme Court that schools had
(33:31):
to start integrating,desegregation became the law of
the land.
Everybody has to integrate.
There were a lot of non-Blackand brown people who were
opposed to being forced to havetheir child in the same
classroom with a Black or brownstudent or potentially even a
(33:53):
Black or brown teacher.
And so the voucher programbecame a means of.
And all of a sudden, privateschools popped up where there
weren't really any before.
Suddenly, we had privateschools popping up all over the
state as a place for whitestudents to go.
White families could take theirstudents there to get them away
(34:15):
from black and brown studentsand get them away from
integration.
So vouchers acted similar tothe way they are now in a means
of.
Here we're going to give youmoney, a coupon, and you're
going to be able to take yourchild out of that school and
send them to a school where wecan screen who comes in and,
(34:35):
because it's private.
We have complete say over whogets to be in those classrooms
and who gets to be the teacher,and so that's how vouchers got
that started, rooted in racism.
Louie Minor (34:48):
No doubt, no doubt.
You know, in all the testimonyand everything that I hear the
pro-voucher side say, I justhear them say that all these
other states have it.
Why don't we have it?
I don't really hear them talkabout success stories in these
other states have it.
Why, why don't we have it?
I, I don't really hear themtalk about success stories in
these other states.
Like you know, what state havethey pointed to that?
(35:12):
Hey, this state is getting itright.
So let's you know, let Texas,we want to be like this state.
I haven't heard that.
Jennifer Lee (35:21):
I haven't heard that either.
I know we were trying to copyArizona, but then Arizona, well,
that whole budget for vouchersexploded to the point where they
can barely afford water, theycan barely afford roads, they
can't afford much of anythingelse other than trying to patch
the hemorrhaging voucher budgetthat they have going on.
(35:42):
I will point out what I foundvery interesting, as I waited 10
hours to testify to the Senateis that they brought in two
people from out of state one wasfrom Florida and one was from
North Carolina to talk, totestify.
You know, they were studentswho received vouchers in those
(36:03):
states and they, you know, gavevery touching stories and
speeches about how, if theyhadn't had a voucher, they would
have had to go to that failingpublic school.
And to me it was odd that theyhad people come in from other
states to talk about howvouchers were great, other
(36:24):
states to talk about howvouchers were great.
And the one from Florida well,actually, both Florida and North
Carolina, I believe, rankedbelow Texas in their K-12 public
education system.
And so for me it says you didn'tfund those schools there and
give people a real choice.
But you don't the people that.
If you look at the invitedtestimonies for the Senate and
(36:44):
for the House because there is alist of the invited testimony
for the House bill they're allpro-voucher, pro-public or
private school entities.
They're all people who wouldbenefit financially from
vouchers being put into place.
You don't have TSTA, you don'thave AFT, you don't have any of
(37:12):
the public school teacherorganizations as an invited
testimony.
Louie Minor (37:14):
There was a big push from school districts last
legislative session to goagainst the voucher program.
It seemed like they're kind ofsilent now.
Jennifer Lee (37:27):
Why is that?
You think?
Oh, when you start labelingthings as electioneering and
there's a specific house billthat are not, yeah, a specific
piece of legislation that hasbeen crafted by none other than
55's Hillary Hicklin thatspecifically wants to sanction
and go against any schooldistrict that attempts to lobby,
(37:49):
people start to get real quiet.
When you start threatening jobsand continuing to threaten
funding that hasn't even come,people start to get quiet.
So think about how the positionthat public schools are being
put in, that they can no longeradvocate for the needs of 5.5
million Texas children who go topublic schools.
(38:12):
Roughly 90% of kiddos in Texasgo to a public school.
Think about what that meansthat those schools can no longer
advocate for the vast majorityof the kiddos in the state.
What kind of people want tosilence folks who are fighting
for most of the children in thestate?
(38:33):
You can't say you'repro-children but you want to
silence anyone who stands up forthem.
Louie Minor (38:43):
Yeah, no, it's definitely a slippery slope that
we're going down and, you know,if we let this genie out of the
bottle, can we ever put it backin.
Jennifer Lee (38:56):
I don't think we can, only because you know
something that's happened beforeis I'm concerned that this
would become an unfunded mandate, because right now, abbott and
his cronies are moving heavenand earth to have this money
readily available for thevoucher scheme, and that's, you
(39:18):
know, driven in large part by,you know, the West Texas
billionaires and some otherprivate interests throughout the
nation, because this is a pushfrom not only, you know, at the
state level, but also up top,because Trump is also very much
so pro privatizing education.
And so, you know, I don't thinkwe're going to be able to walk
(39:40):
this back easily.
So say, for example, we flipthe house, you know, in 26.
That's a lot of having to gothrough and retract and figure
out.
How do we?
We've started families down thispath and now we're trying to
take money away from people, andthat's incredibly difficult to
do, especially when you look at,you know, if private schools
(40:04):
have really become, because thelegislation saying that there
can be no lobbying is onlyagainst public schools.
So private schools will be freeto lobby as much as they want
to have more money, publicschools.
We would have to go ahead andrepeal any legislation that
basically places a gag order forthem.
I don't think that we can undothe damage that will be done to
(40:29):
public schools in onelegislative session.
Louie Minor (40:32):
Right.
Well, I think if vouchers getout of the genie bottle, an easy
fix without repealingeverything.
It's just to add so manyrequirements and reporting and
strings and testing that youknow they wouldn't want that
(40:53):
oversight.
Jennifer Lee (40:55):
So I think we should have a lot of oversight,
and where kids are involved andpublic dollars are involved and
education is involved, I willsay I'm very proud of the fact
that I've always been a hugesupporter of homeschooling
because I do believe parents canbe excellent teachers for their
(41:15):
own children.
And homeschoolers by and largehave been opposed to having the
voucher because they don't wantthat privacy of you know.
They pull their child out ofpublic education.
They pull their child out of aprivate school for a reason they
don't want government insight.
They don't want the governmentin their home telling them what
they can teach their child intheir home.
(41:36):
So I appreciate the homeschoolco-ops and everybody who stood
up and said no, we don't wantthis.
This is ridiculous.
Louie Minor (41:47):
Well, let's start wrapping it up.
It's already been almost 40minutes, over 40 minutes now.
Is there anything else that youfeel compelled to say about HB3
?
Jennifer Lee (42:01):
I think more people have got to start really
calling their representative,even if you know that they're
not.
They are, they've been boughtand paid for and will vote for
the vouchers every single time,no matter how much it's going to
hurt their community and Texaschildren.
You still have to make yourvoice heard.
You still have to speak up,because they're counting on us
(42:23):
eventually getting tired.
They're counting on useventually just being quiet and
saying there's no point throwingup our hands and sitting down.
And we can't do that.
We can't give up on publiceducation.
We can't give up on all of ourkiddos here in Texas who deserve
to have a well-funded publicschool to go to.
That should be the choice thatwe all have.
(42:45):
So we cannot give up and wealso have to make sure we get
out and vote.
Louie Minor (42:53):
I agree, and if someone wants to find out more
about Jennifer Lee for HD55,where can they go to get more
information on you?
Jennifer Lee (43:07):
HD55.
Where can they go to get moreinformation on you?
They can go to my campaignFacebook page, which is Jennifer
Lee for HD55.
They can also visit myInstagram Jennifer in the number
four, texas.
They can go to my website,jennifer in the number four,
texascom website Jennifer, thenumber for texascom.
Those are all fantastic ways toreach out, connect, I know.
On the Facebook page it has alittle bit more contact
(43:29):
information as well, like anemail and, I believe, even a
phone number and, yes, the phone, that number actually goes to
me.
So you know, reach out.
Please follow me on socialmedia because I'm trying to keep
everybody up to date.
Visit the website and you canabsolutely donate, because
there's still a donate button onthe website and also on the
Facebook page.
Louie Minor (43:49):
All right, I like that Ask.
I like that Ask.
So, uh, Jennifer, thank you forfor being here.
I I love that you're aneducator because it definitely
showed through your, you know,want to give us the information
you want to educate us on what'sgoing on.
So thank you for that and wewill talk to you.
See you next week.
(44:11):
Thank you again.
Thank you, We'll be right back,yeah.
Welcome.
You're listening to the LouieMinor Show.
I'm your host, bell CountyCommissioner, louie Minor.
Today is February 23rd 2025.
We have a special guest that Idid a recording with, jennifer
Lee.
She was a candidate for HouseDistrict 55 last election cycle.
(00:27):
She is going to be running forelection, running again for that
seat.
So she's a former educator,strong advocate of public
education, and I wanted to talkto her about HB 3, that's the
new voucher scam bill that waswritten by chairman Buckley,
(00:54):
that it represents Killeen andSalado, and so enjoy the
conversation on this there.
There's no commissioner's courton coming up this Monday and
there's no commissioner's courtcoming up on the following
Monday, which should have been ameeting, but I know I'll be at
(01:16):
the National Association ofCounties Legislative Conference
in Washington DC.
I leave Friday for that.
I know the county judge will bethere and then I think one of
the other commissioners hasanother thing to go to.
So, anyways, there's not goingto be a commissioner's court
meeting that day and so the nextmeeting will be the third
(01:40):
Wednesday or third Monday of themonth in March.
So we will.
We still have a lot to talkabout.
Enjoy the conversation withJennifer Lee and we'll talk to
you next week.
Welcome, I have a special guestfor for you today.
Miss Jennifer Lee ran for housedistrict 55,.
(02:01):
Jennifer Lee ran for HouseDistrict 55 the last election
cycle.
She will be our hero again andrunning again in the 2026
election cycle.
So, jennifer, thank you foragreeing to being on the show
(02:24):
today.
We'll let everyone in on thelittle secret.
We actually recorded this oncebefore, but the recording was
not very good because we weretrying to be fancy and do it on
site, on location, but that's mybad.
So thank you for agreeing to dothis again, because it's
(02:45):
important.
It's important for ourcommunity, it's important for
our state and I think it'simportant for people to know
that there are other options outthere.
There's candidates out therethat really care about public
schools and want to bring theright information and the right
solutions for our, our state.
(03:06):
So thank you for agreeing to dothis again with me.
And and what I'm referencing ishb3, our uh house district
member in 54 representative bradbuckley.
Chairman buckley, he was thechairman of the Public Education
Committee last year, our lastlegislative session, where the
(03:33):
voucher scam failed, and nowhe's at it again.
So I wanted to bring you on,but first, since I did not have
you on the show.
I was not able to nail you downand get you on the show last
last election cycle.
If you can, I want the audienceto know About you.
(03:57):
Tell us a little bit about your, your history and then why you
decided to run and why you'regoing to run again in 2026.
Jennifer Lee (04:06):
All right.
So thank you so much.
I am a single parent to afantastic eight-year-old and I
have, you know, done what somany parents tend to do.
I have been his coach fornumerous sports and I've coached
so many children in ourcommunity.
I've been a teacher for 13years.
I taught 11 years at HarkerHeights High School, encouraging
(04:29):
students to go into education,encouraging and teaching those,
mentoring those future educators, because we need more folks
going into the field.
And then I decided I wanted achallenge and I switched to
elementary and taught fourth andfifth grade math intervention
and I absolutely got thechallenge that I wanted.
(04:50):
But it was so much fun justgetting a different aspect and,
you know, teaching in a Title Iduolingual campus and just kind
of seeing some of thedifferences there.
But yeah, basically that's itthe reason why I decided to run
for office.
It's something that I kneweventually I would want to do.
I thought I would do it when myson was much older and it would
(05:13):
be a little bit easier with himbeing older.
That's exactly what happened in.
I believe it was December of 23,when I had a conversation with
(05:33):
Dawn Richardson and she kind ofchallenged me and asked why not
just run now?
Why keep on saying that, oh,someday I'll do that, someday
I'll do that?
And something we all need toremember is that someday isn't
promised and for some peoplesomeday doesn't happen.
And so she challenged me andthen she kind of left it alone.
But then I heard from Louishimself and that conversation
(05:57):
definitely made me think.
It challenged me in a slightlydifferent way, and I was
reminded that you know, again,we can keep putting things off,
but sometimes the need just kindof finds you.
And so after that conversation Igot a few more phone calls and
I really started thinking.
I finally decided you know what?
(06:18):
I know we're super close to thedeadline and this was not in my
plans initially, but the needis there.
Somebody has to stand up forpublic education.
We can't just lay down, andpeople deserve to have a choice
on the ballot, a choice they canfeel good about.
I've been one of those peoplewho, if there wasn't a candidate
I liked on the ballot, I wouldundervote and just kind of
(06:39):
continue down the ballot andmove on and just kind of
continue down the ballot andmove on, because if I don't feel
good about somebody I'm notgoing to vote for them.
(07:03):
But in this instance, with thelegislation that was coming down
the pipeline, and knowing wherewe were headed and knowing that
there was going to be a massivebattle for kind of the soul of
public education, I said youknow what People deserve?
An option.
People deserve to be able tovote for somebody that they know
, who has a proven track recordof caring about our public
schools, who's been involvedwith our public schools, not
just as a teacher but as anadvocate.
I've been to the Capitol, I'vetestified at hearings, I've
spoken at school board meetings.
I have been fighting forstudents and teachers for years.
(07:23):
They deserve to have somebodythat they can feel good about
voting for on the ballot.
It can't just be this oneperson and then they have no
other options.
That's not how democracy works,and so that's why I decided to
run and it was an incrediblywild ride and I learned so much.
Incredibly wild ride and Ilearned so much.
(07:48):
But and I saw how many peoplereally rose up and they care so
much about the safety andwellbeing of our students
sitting in classrooms.
They care about those publicschools.
They want to save those Fridaynight lights.
They want public schools.
We want to support publiceducation as a whole.
That's what I found out.
I know there's a lot ofinformation saying oh no,
everyone wants school choice.
(08:09):
No, everyone wants publicschools to be the choice.
They want public schools to bewell-funded, well-maintained and
well-led.
That's what people actuallywant when you actually get out
and talk to a wide variety ofpeople.
And so that's why I'm going torun again, because we still
deserve a choice that we canfeel good about.
People are starting to see andhave some kind of buyer's
(08:31):
remorse, I think, after thispast election cycle, when they
realized, oh, that's what wevoted for, oh, that's not what
we meant, and so people deservea choice, and they deserve a
choice in 26.
Now that we're seeing what,what we have, it's time to say
you know what our kids deservebetter.
Louie Minor (08:52):
Right, and and I, you know, I, I think that, if
you, you know, just last lastyear, last budget year, there
there was already schoolstalking about cutting budgets,
cutting staff, and you know,that's to me, that was just a
precursor of and now the talk isabout cutting librarians on the
(09:13):
cusp of.
Jennifer Lee (09:14):
You know, for years we've been talking about
book banning and, you know, thefar right side keeps saying no
one's banning books, no one'sbanning books, as books keep
disappearing off of shelves.
No one's banning books.
But yet entire book cases are,you know, swiped clean in
classrooms and in libraries.
And then you see this entirefoolishness that comes out
(09:38):
saying that, oh, the bookbanning thing that Joe Biden
said that was all a hoax, it wasa big old hoax, even though we
know that's not true.
And we've heard numerouscandidates, including the person
who was elected to 55.
We've heard them all say youknow, well, these books just
shouldn't be available.
Well, if it's not available,that means that you're banning
it, you're keeping it from otherpeople.
Louie Minor (10:13):
You're making decisions for parents.
If we want parent empowerment,parents should be able to make
the decisions themselves.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou, where you grew up.
Jennifer Lee (10:18):
where did all this passion and advocacy, where did
all this come from?
So I grew up in the deep pineywoods in Northeast Texas and
graduated from Kilgore HighSchool, and you know, my father
worked in the oil field forabout 40 years or so.
And you know, something thatfew people realize about me is
that one my parents were marriedfor 49 years and they did stay
(10:40):
together until my father passedaway in 2017.
He had diabetes, had severalcomplications, eventually went
blind.
He also suffered from dementiaand Alzheimer's and numerous
complications associated withlack of access to really great
health care.
And so watching my mom be hissole caretaker for a very long
(11:02):
time, after both of them hadactually been the caretaker for
my grandfather, who had asimilar fate, and just seeing
that struggle, that ongoingbattle, and seeing how important
it is to have access to reallygood health care, no matter
where you are, even if you'reway out in the country or if
you're in a big city, that's oneof those things that sticks
(11:24):
with you.
And it's so incrediblyfrustrating when I see people
vote for folks who vote againsttheir best interest.
You will adamantly defendsomebody who is literally
destroying everything that isimportant to you and somebody
who tells you to your face thatthey don't care about you, but
(11:46):
you still vote for them becauseof whatever values you think
they have.
But you know, watching myparents struggle through the
healthcare system definitelymade me feel like we need
somebody who's going to fightfor the little people who don't
always have time or the abilityto fight for themselves, but
also seeing the importance ofhaving an access to really great
(12:08):
education and having it be anequitable education, meaning
just because I live in thecountry, just it doesn't.
It shouldn't matter where Ilive and what my zip code is.
A really great education shouldbe available to every child and
it should not come at afinancial you know, downfall for
parents, but that's because wehave to invest in those public
(12:31):
schools, those neighborhoodschools.
Louie Minor (12:34):
Totally, totally agree with that.
So you know, back when youfirst ran, initially you were
running against the incumbent ofuh, hugh shine, who had uh been
there for quite some, someyears.
And you know I I think that was, if I remember our
(12:57):
conversations correctly that wasa little bit of your hesitation
.
But uh, to running against it.
You know an incumbent like thatand and at some point in time
it might've been at the verybeginning, when we, when we
first spoke, I think, I told youlike, hey, a lot of things
could happen between now and theelection.
You never know what's going tohappen.
(13:19):
And something happened in thatrace that we didn't expect.
You know, vouchers failed.
They tried to push it in thelast legislative session and
then the governor turned aroundand went after all the
Republicans that voted againstthe voucher bill.
And that's how we got HillaryHicklin, who was on the November
(13:43):
ballot with you, because thegovernor weighed in on this race
and a handful of other racesthroughout the state and was
able to knock off a lot of theRepublicans, a lot of the
incumbents.
Interesting though you know, hewasn't attacking those
(14:05):
incumbents for not supportingtheir voucher bill.
He was in attacking Republicansfor not being tough on the
border.
you know that mysteriously, allof a sudden, yeah, and these are
all the same republicans thatvoted for everything he wanted
for the border.
So, uh, you know it wasdefinitely a lot of lies in that
(14:26):
primary.
But then when you, when you hada run against now an open seat,
how did that play into yourthought process, because
obviously this person waspro-voucher going to vote for it
?
Jennifer Lee (14:45):
That is her sole purpose.
Louie Minor (14:46):
Yeah, that's.
Her mission is to go down thereand rubber stamp whatever the
governor wants, and to me itjust seems like even now, that
she's just a parrot or a puppet,you know whichever P word you
want to use for for the governor.
Jennifer Lee (15:05):
So I totally agree with that.
I saw you know when you knowafter the primary, when I saw
who I was going to run against,I wasn't necessarily surprised,
only because you know.
When the governor sinks over$400,000 into a race, you would
(15:25):
expect that to make a difference.
When he's using his powers tocircumvent what might actually
be the will of the people in thedistrict, you kind of have to
expect sort of the unexpected.
And so the after the primary itjust made me more determined
because I saw where I saw whatwas going to happen.
(15:48):
I saw how determined they wereto push this thing through again
, possibly against the will ofthe actual people.
To me that's not how governmentis supposed to run.
The governor should not beacting in a way that completely
negates the voice of the people.
And we're seeing that nowbecause you've heard too many
(16:12):
Republicans before.
You know when the Senate washearing.
You know SB2, the firstrendition of the education
savings account, or a voucherscam, however you want to phrase
it, because apparently use ofthe word voucher is triggering
to them.
But you know they started outsaying we already have the votes
(16:32):
.
And the same thing has happenednow that HB3 has been rolled
out.
You know, burroughs has beenquoted and saying we already
have the votes and so they'reapproaching this in a way of
that.
It's kind of like the parentwho, when you're walking up to
the store and you tell your kid,you know, don't ask for
anything, don't touch anything,don't climb on anything, just
(16:53):
basically tell them just mindyour business, because you're
not going to get what you want,and that's the exact same vibe
that we get from this.
We already have the votesstatement that we keep hearing
before these hearings, and soit's deeply concerning that now
it's no longer about hey, thepeople are concerned, the people
(17:14):
don't want this, because you'reseeing people on both sides of
the aisle come out of thewoodworks to say that, hey, we
don't want this, this is a scam.
We don't want public educationto suffer.
We don't want whatever it is.
What snake oil you're offering?
We don't want, whatever it is,what snake oil you're offering?
And yet there's a smugnessamong those far right
(17:36):
Republicans we already have thevotes and that kind of undertow
of.
We really don't have to listento you, but we're just being
nice.
Louie Minor (17:44):
Right, so what I wanted to talk to you about is
HB3.
It was put out on Thursday Ithink that was February 20th by
Chairman Buckley.
Buckley is actually going to dotwo town halls in Bell County
(18:04):
next week.
One's going to be at a privateschool in Killeen on Monday and
then the other one is going tobe at Salado ISD their school
district admin building onFriday, so there's going to be
opportunities for us to go andask him questions.
(18:28):
But he's the author of this newbill and I wanted to go over it
with you.
I'm sure by now we've all had achance to read it and go
through it.
And to me, what is the biggesttakeaway from this $1 billion
(18:48):
program?
That last legislative sessionthere was only 500 million, but
you know, just in the year and ahalf it's ballooned to $1
billion.
What is the biggest thing thatsticks out to you on this
current rendition?
Jennifer Lee (19:07):
So I want to point out the difference between the
Senate bill and the House bill,because in the Senate bill it
was very much so unbridled.
We do not care about any kindof accountability, we do not
care about any kind oftransparency.
It was these people are goingto be able to do whatever they
want with this money.
But the House bill did put in alittle bit of a kind of some
(19:31):
training will, so to speak.
The House bill does say thatthere has to be accountability
as far as what students arelearning, but it's only to
parents.
Of course.
There will be no public ratingsfor the private schools as
there are for public schools.
And one thing that really kindof stood out to me was when we
(19:53):
talk about how the students aregoing to be tested, because
something that I don't thinkanybody has actually been
hearing is when people aresaying you know, we want parents
to be able to choose the bestpossible school for their child.
No one's bragging about theacademics of the private schools
.
When they're saying that Allyou hear is about the negative
(20:16):
of public schools and how whatpublic schools aren't doing and
how poorly.
You know, our kids can't read,they can't do math, they can't
do this, but no one's actuallysaying well in the private
schools.
Here's what the data says.
Here's where the academicprogress is.
Here's how they data sayshere's where the academic
progress is.
Here's how they're doing.
I didn't hear any of thatduring the campaign.
I haven't heard about privateschool students outperforming,
(20:39):
so it's not like they're sayingthis is a significantly better
option because they're doing sowell academically.
And I'm wondering is thatbecause they haven't been held
accountable and there's notreally any testing information
available, because there's alsono transparency.
But when it?
The new thing that I'm seeingnow is that, yes, they will have
to have a yearly and annualtest of some sort, but it will
(21:04):
be a norm reference test and thedifference between norm
reference and what the star testdoes is norm reference means
that they're being compared toother students within their age
range, in their grade, sothey're nationwide, kind of
where is the average thirdgrader, where is the average
fourth grader?
How are you doing when you'recomparing fourth graders?
(21:25):
That's norm reference andthat's what they're saying they
want from private schools.
That's norm reference andthat's what they're saying they
want from private schools.
The star test.
However, historically I mean,it doesn't take too much
Googling to find out.
The star test has always been athorn in the side of educators
because we understand that it'snot developmentally appropriate.
The grade level for which theaverage star test is written
(21:48):
does not actually reflect thegrade level that takes the star
test.
So a third grade star test,reading test, may really
secretly be at a fifth, evensixth grade level.
There are times, even aseducators, we're going through
looking at sample tests thathave been released or past tests
that have been released, andwe're looking and saying even we
(22:08):
are struggling to understandthis.
There was an infamous interviewdone by an author who had
written something, one of thestories, one of the reading
passages for the star test, andthey went back and read the
questions about their story, thestory they wrote.
They went back and read thosequestions and they said even I
(22:31):
would struggle to get thosewrong or get those right.
Louie Minor (22:34):
Right.
Jennifer Lee (22:34):
Even I can't fully understand what this is asking
about.
The story I wrote, and sothat's how we know the STAR test
is really setting our studentsup to look like failures.
It's setting our public schoolsup to look like they're failing
, setting our public schools upto look like they're failing,
(22:55):
not to mention the fact that thetarget keeps moving Every year.
There's always a big ordealwhen it comes to results coming
out and you know, oh, thisschool, you know, did horribly,
but the target moved.
When you give us a target towork towards, something to keep
in mind, saying, hey, you know,just make sure that you're
covering the following thingsand then later on you change
(23:19):
that target, or you decide youlook at the results and then say
, you know retroactively, youknow what?
Let's move it a little bitfurther.
So where somebody might havebeen making 100 out of 100, now
it's 100 out of 150 because youmoved the bar.
And that's what's beenhappening regularly to public
schools in an attempt to makethem look like they're not doing
(23:41):
what they're supposed to bedoing.
Louie Minor (23:44):
So one thing that from the last legislative
session they were going to do$10,000 allotment per child
going to these private schoolsand in this new HB three it
doesn't really put a dollaramount I don't see a specified
(24:04):
dollar amount in it but it didsay that they're going to kind
of tie it to public schoolfunding.
So it are they going to match?
It's to me it was still alittle unclear.
Do you know, are they going tomatch whatever allotment is for
public education into thisvoucher program or is it still
(24:25):
going to be the ten thousanddollars?
Jennifer Lee (24:28):
the senate bill said ten thousand dollars plus
$1,500 if a student had specialneeds, and then $2,000 for
homeschooling parents and anextra $500 for a student with
special needs, and one thing tonote is that that automatically
(24:59):
starts out.
Even if it was $10,000, thatautomatically starts out with
more funding for a privateeducation than a public
education Because as it standsand has been since 2019, I
believe the basic allotment orthe basic level of funding for a
student in public schools it'snot in special education, they
aren't bilingual, they aren'tcareer and technical.
A career and technical studentnothing extra, just kind of
regular program student is $6160, $6,160.
(25:25):
That is their basic allotmentand has not changed since 2019.
Right now the conversation ismoving that up to somewhere over
7,000, which it should havebeen going up with inflation all
this time, and so now there's alittle bit of catch-up that's
happening, but because we waitedso long with so much inflation,
(25:45):
it's not really catching us up.
It's not really doing as muchas they thought, but that's
still not the 10,000 number.
The fact that we started outimmediately saying you get more
money to go to a private schoolis very, very unacceptable,
because we've never seen a fullyfunded public school in Texas.
Louie Minor (26:06):
Correct.
And just to remind thelisteners, what is Texas ranked
in public education?
It's like close to the bottomright 40-something.
Jennifer Lee (26:20):
Well, it might be.
It's a little bit higher thanthat.
I'll give us some credit.
We're, I think, 30th.
Louie Minor (26:25):
Okay.
Jennifer Lee (26:27):
We're not great.
We are not great.
Louie Minor (26:29):
Yeah, so they want to pull this money out.
You know they said the money'sgoing to follow the kid.
How does that look?
What, what.
What does that mean to to theschool?
What does that mean to theparent?
What does it mean to thetaxpayer?
What does it mean that themoney is going to follow the kid
?
Jennifer Lee (26:51):
in theory, what's supposed to happen is that
there's a account that is goingto exist.
That's why they're trying tocall it an education savings
account as opposed to a voucher,because too many people were
equating voucher to coupon, eventhough that's actually how it's
going to function.
There's supposed to be anaccount education savings
(27:12):
account where, once you'veapplied and been accepted to the
program, you will have moneythat you are going to be able to
spend on approved educationalexpenses.
And the approved part makesthis look like a vendor bill,
meaning they've already madesome deals and had some
conversations with some vendorseducational service vendors who
(27:37):
they've already kind of madethat agreement that you're going
to be getting this money,you're going to be benefiting
financially.
So of course, the lobbying fromthose vendors has been pretty
serious.
They're looking to get money.
Their business is looking toget money.
They're finally going to beable to tap into money that
could have been used for publiceducation and normally may not
have been available to them,because now there's an
(28:00):
opportunity.
They see the opportunity to getmoney from homeschoolers.
They see the opportunity to getgovernment money from private
schools, and so we're looking atthose approved vendor lists and
saying, okay, that's where thismoney can be spent only in
those places.
(28:20):
The one part that was kind ofconfusing about HB3 was, it said
, the semester after yourapplication is approved.
So my question slash possibleunderstanding is if I applied in
the summer, let's say, forexample, or I applied in August,
(28:41):
does that mean that in order toactually have a choice meaning
I want my child to go to thisprivate school do I have to wait
a semester in order for them toenroll, or do I need to?
Is it kind of a go ahead andenroll in this private school,
foot the bill up front and thenlater you'll get some money to
(29:02):
possibly either reimburse or payfor a second semester?
Louie Minor (29:06):
Yeah.
Jennifer Lee (29:07):
In which case that destroys the whole idea of
you've given me school choicebecause I can't foot the bill
for $ 13,000 in the fall.
Louie Minor (29:16):
Yeah, there's.
There's a lot of questions thatneed to be asked.
It's obviously not the rightthing to do for for kids.
You know you got to take intoaccount transportation needs.
You know, to me that's a bigone.
The the qualifications to getinto the private school voucher
(29:44):
program.
Nowhere else in government is$160,000, $150,000 considered
low income for the purposes ofqualification for this program.
So to me that was a big redflag.
(30:04):
And in last legislative sessionwith their voucher program they
were trying to do a carve outfor rural school districts.
You know 254 counties in thestate of Texas.
Majority of those counties areprobably not going to have any
type of private school but theirfunding is going to be affected
(30:26):
because if they don't fullyfund or they only nominally
increase the student allotmentthey're still not making up for
that inflation.
So did the now forgive mebecause I didn't look at the
Senate bill at all Do they haveany rural carve-outs in the
(30:46):
Senate?
Jennifer Lee (30:46):
bill?
Absolutely not.
Louie Minor (30:49):
Okay.
So yeah, this is somethingthat's definitely geared for the
bigger cities, the urban areasof the state, and I would
imagine most of those are goingto be in the Texas triangle.
That will be benefiting thewealthy families that are going
to be benefiting from that.
I'm going to be curious howmany people are actually and is
(31:14):
that are going to take theirkids out of private or public
education, go to private, versushow many are going to be in
there already and just startaccessing those funds.
Jennifer Lee (31:25):
And my concern with that is one, if you think
about it in terms of privateschools have not been asked to
change anything.
They really haven't been askedto change anything about their
admission process.
There was one small caveat inthe Senate bill and I can't
remember if it was in the Housebill as well that they couldn't
raise their tuition for astudent who is in the program.
(31:49):
So once you become a voucherstudent at that private school,
your tuition can't be raised.
But they're still able toscreen.
They're still able to get anapplication, do an interview
with the family and screen whothey take.
They can very easily deny astudent or a family based on
(32:12):
literally anything they want to.
There's been no call to makeprivate schools be transparent
financially to the public,because once you start taking
public dollars, I'm under thebelief that you should have
public accountability, meaning Ideserve to know how is you know
Trinity, holy Trinity CatholicSchool doing compared to the
(32:35):
nearest elementary school,public elementary school?
I should be able to see theratings of those schools as
compared to the public school.
But you also can't have thatcomparison because they're not
going to be taking the same test.
Louie Minor (32:50):
So that prevents a direct comparison, is it safe to
say that most of these privateschools are religious private
schools?
Okay, and can you remind theaudience of the history of
private schools and vouchers andkind of how all this started?
Jennifer Lee (33:09):
I would love to.
So you know we are in BlackHistory Month and vouchers have
actually been a topic among manyblack history circles.
You know we're talking aboutteaching our children their
history.
And shortly after Brown versusBoard of Education, when the
decision was handed down by theSupreme Court that schools had
(33:31):
to start integrating,desegregation became the law of
the land.
Everybody has to integrate.
There were a lot of non-Blackand brown people who were
opposed to being forced to havetheir child in the same
classroom with a Black or brownstudent or potentially even a
(33:53):
Black or brown teacher.
And so the voucher programbecame a means of.
And all of a sudden, privateschools popped up where there
weren't really any before.
Suddenly, we had privateschools popping up all over the
state as a place for whitestudents to go.
White families could take theirstudents there to get them away
(34:15):
from black and brown studentsand get them away from
integration.
So vouchers acted similar tothe way they are now in a means
of.
Here we're going to give youmoney, a coupon, and you're
going to be able to take yourchild out of that school and
send them to a school where wecan screen who comes in and,
(34:35):
because it's private.
We have complete say over whogets to be in those classrooms
and who gets to be the teacher,and so that's how vouchers got
that started, rooted in racism.
Louie Minor (34:48):
No doubt, no doubt.
You know, in all the testimonyand everything that I hear the
pro-voucher side say, I justhear them say that all these
other states have it.
Why don't we have it?
I don't really hear them talkabout success stories in these
other states have it.
Why, why don't we have it?
I, I don't really hear themtalk about success stories in
these other states.
Like you know, what state havethey pointed to that?
(35:12):
Hey, this state is getting itright.
So let's you know, let Texas,we want to be like this state.
I haven't heard that.
Jennifer Lee (35:21):
I haven't heard that either.
I know we were trying to copyArizona, but then Arizona, well,
that whole budget for vouchersexploded to the point where they
can barely afford water, theycan barely afford roads, they
can't afford much of anythingelse other than trying to patch
the hemorrhaging voucher budgetthat they have going on.
(35:42):
I will point out what I foundvery interesting, as I waited 10
hours to testify to the Senateis that they brought in two
people from out of state one wasfrom Florida and one was from
North Carolina to talk, totestify.
You know, they were studentswho received vouchers in those
(36:03):
states and they, you know, gavevery touching stories and
speeches about how, if theyhadn't had a voucher, they would
have had to go to that failingpublic school.
And to me it was odd that theyhad people come in from other
states to talk about howvouchers were great, other
(36:24):
states to talk about howvouchers were great.
And the one from Florida well,actually, both Florida and North
Carolina, I believe, rankedbelow Texas in their K-12 public
education system.
And so for me it says you didn'tfund those schools there and
give people a real choice.
But you don't the people that.
If you look at the invitedtestimonies for the Senate and
(36:44):
for the House because there is alist of the invited testimony
for the House bill they're allpro-voucher, pro-public or
private school entities.
They're all people who wouldbenefit financially from
vouchers being put into place.
You don't have TSTA, you don'thave AFT, you don't have any of
(37:12):
the public school teacherorganizations as an invited
testimony.
Louie Minor (37:14):
There was a big push from school districts last
legislative session to goagainst the voucher program.
It seemed like they're kind ofsilent now.
Jennifer Lee (37:27):
Why is that?
You think?
Oh, when you start labelingthings as electioneering and
there's a specific house billthat are not, yeah, a specific
piece of legislation that hasbeen crafted by none other than
55's Hillary Hicklin thatspecifically wants to sanction
and go against any schooldistrict that attempts to lobby,
(37:49):
people start to get real quiet.
When you start threatening jobsand continuing to threaten
funding that hasn't even come,people start to get quiet.
So think about how the positionthat public schools are being
put in, that they can no longeradvocate for the needs of 5.5
million Texas children who go topublic schools.
(38:12):
Roughly 90% of kiddos in Texasgo to a public school.
Think about what that meansthat those schools can no longer
advocate for the vast majorityof the kiddos in the state.
What kind of people want tosilence folks who are fighting
for most of the children in thestate?
(38:33):
You can't say you'repro-children but you want to
silence anyone who stands up forthem.
Louie Minor (38:43):
Yeah, no, it's definitely a slippery slope that
we're going down and, you know,if we let this genie out of the
bottle, can we ever put it backin.
Jennifer Lee (38:56):
I don't think we can, only because you know
something that's happened beforeis I'm concerned that this
would become an unfunded mandate, because right now, abbott and
his cronies are moving heavenand earth to have this money
readily available for thevoucher scheme, and that's, you
(39:18):
know, driven in large part by,you know, the West Texas
billionaires and some otherprivate interests throughout the
nation, because this is a pushfrom not only, you know, at the
state level, but also up top,because Trump is also very much
so pro privatizing education.
And so, you know, I don't thinkwe're going to be able to walk
(39:40):
this back easily.
So say, for example, we flipthe house, you know, in 26.
That's a lot of having to gothrough and retract and figure
out.
How do we?
We've started families down thispath and now we're trying to
take money away from people, andthat's incredibly difficult to
do, especially when you look at,you know, if private schools
(40:04):
have really become, because thelegislation saying that there
can be no lobbying is onlyagainst public schools.
So private schools will be freeto lobby as much as they want
to have more money, publicschools.
We would have to go ahead andrepeal any legislation that
basically places a gag order forthem.
I don't think that we can undothe damage that will be done to
(40:29):
public schools in onelegislative session.
Louie Minor (40:32):
Right.
Well, I think if vouchers getout of the genie bottle, an easy
fix without repealingeverything.
It's just to add so manyrequirements and reporting and
strings and testing that youknow they wouldn't want that
(40:53):
oversight.
Jennifer Lee (40:55):
So I think we should have a lot of oversight,
and where kids are involved andpublic dollars are involved and
education is involved, I willsay I'm very proud of the fact
that I've always been a hugesupporter of homeschooling
because I do believe parents canbe excellent teachers for their
(41:15):
own children.
And homeschoolers by and largehave been opposed to having the
voucher because they don't wantthat privacy of you know.
They pull their child out ofpublic education.
They pull their child out of aprivate school for a reason they
don't want government insight.
They don't want the governmentin their home telling them what
they can teach their child intheir home.
(41:36):
So I appreciate the homeschoolco-ops and everybody who stood
up and said no, we don't wantthis.
This is ridiculous.
Louie Minor (41:47):
Well, let's start wrapping it up.
It's already been almost 40minutes, over 40 minutes now.
Is there anything else that youfeel compelled to say about HB3
?
Jennifer Lee (42:01):
I think more people have got to start really
calling their representative,even if you know that they're
not.
They are, they've been boughtand paid for and will vote for
the vouchers every single time,no matter how much it's going to
hurt their community and Texaschildren.
You still have to make yourvoice heard.
You still have to speak up,because they're counting on us
(42:23):
eventually getting tired.
They're counting on useventually just being quiet and
saying there's no point throwingup our hands and sitting down.
And we can't do that.
We can't give up on publiceducation.
We can't give up on all of ourkiddos here in Texas who deserve
to have a well-funded publicschool to go to.
That should be the choice thatwe all have.
(42:45):
So we cannot give up and wealso have to make sure we get
out and vote.
Louie Minor (42:53):
I agree, and if someone wants to find out more
about Jennifer Lee for HD55,where can they go to get more
information on you?
Jennifer Lee (43:07):
HD55.
Where can they go to get moreinformation on you?
They can go to my campaignFacebook page, which is Jennifer
Lee for HD55.
They can also visit myInstagram Jennifer in the number
four, texas.
They can go to my website,jennifer in the number four,
texascom website Jennifer, thenumber for texascom.
Those are all fantastic ways toreach out, connect, I know.
On the Facebook page it has alittle bit more contact
(43:29):
information as well, like anemail and, I believe, even a
phone number and, yes, the phone, that number actually goes to
me.
So you know, reach out.
Please follow me on socialmedia because I'm trying to keep
everybody up to date.
Visit the website and you canabsolutely donate, because
there's still a donate button onthe website and also on the
Facebook page.
Louie Minor (43:49):
All right, I like that Ask.
I like that Ask.
So, uh, Jennifer, thank you forfor being here.
I I love that you're aneducator because it definitely
showed through your, you know,want to give us the information
you want to educate us on what'sgoing on.
So thank you for that and wewill talk to you.
See you next week.
(44:11):
Thank you again.
Thank you, We'll be right back,yeah.
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