Texas Public Policy Foundation

A Convention of States is a provision in Article V of the Constitution that gives citizens an opportunity to stop a federal government that grows out of control by the day.

What have we learned 7 months after Hamas' attack on Israel?   For one, Hamas' anti-Semitic communications plan has succeeded at infiltrating American universities and radicalizing students.   And this is just the beginning.

The leadership at UT didn’t give an inch to those who believe supporting terrorism allows them to break the rules. A new poll shows that Texans widely support removing protestors' illegal encampments.

Texas passed the most comprehensive data privacy bill in the nation, giving Texans a Digital Bill of Rights.

Every generation needs leaders to carry forward liberty, and the Texas Scholars Program is equipping leaders for just that purpose. Apply today: https://lnkd.in/g6dX7ayb

The conservative approach to tech policy should prioritize consumer protection, human dignity, human agency, and ultimately looking for ways to ensure that Texas is leading the country in innovation and development. Our Better Tech for Tomorrow campaign led by David Dunmoyer and Zach Whiting is taking on issues like A.I., data privacy, protecting kids online, and autonomous vehicles.

Texas’ “most progressive” school district—Austin ISD—continues to be a shining example of all that’s wrong in public education. To start, it was recently revealed that AISD is likely facing a $60 million budget deficit for the upcoming 2024-25 school year. But rather than reduce spending to close the gap, district officials appeared content “to [only] reduce and cut expenditures by $30 million.” So rather than address the problem in full, the district’s plan is to cut some and use one-time monies to bridge the remaining gap, which invites its own set of problems over the long-term. But all of this dodging and downsizing may not even come to fruition because AISD is right now considering pestering voters with a big tax increase. On Monday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that: “Under the current consideration, the Austin district, which has a tax rate of 85.95 cents per $100 of property valuation, is proposing to ask voters to authorize a tax rate of 92.87 cents per $100 of property valuation…If voters approve the higher tax rate, the school district could collect an additional $44 million for its $956 million budget, district officials said.” Now, it might be one thing if the district’s tax-and-spend mentality was in service of a robust and growing student population, but it’s not. In fact, the district is very much in decline. As Community Impact explains: “…transfer data from the Texas Education Agency shows 22% of AISD families left the district in the 2022-23 school year.” Somehow, AISD managed to scare away more than 20% of its ‘customer’ base in a single year. And it did so even while the very community it serves was the 2nd “fastest-growing large metro area in the country” between 2022 and 2023. That is a remarkable and telling feat. Of course, the district is well-acquainted with student population loss. It’s been happening for quite some time, as many have observed. “Enrollment at the Austin district has steadily gone down over the last 10 years, even though the total number of children in Austin has seen increases in recent years.” All of which raises some interesting questions, like, for example, what’s going on here? How can the district justify its massive budget and even suggest a tax increase at a time of profound enrollment decline? And perhaps more importantly, why do parents and students continue to flee AISD year-after-year? To the last question at least, there may be a partial answer. Parents and students are fleeing because kids aren’t being educated; they’re being indoctrinated. Case-in-point: AISD students at McCallum high school were allowed to “walk-out during a pro-Palestinian protest” and were even provided with AISD police support. It’s no wonder why parents are pulling their kids from the district and going elsewhere. And it’s no wonder why the district is fighting so hard for every tax dollar—because it’s not about education. It’s about indoctrination. (Photo via Austin American-Statesman)

Protests at the University of Texas have attracted national attention and forced the school's administration to make some difficult decisions. We spoke to Garrit Blizzard from The Texas Horn to get a current UT student's perspective on a special episode of The Right Idea podcast.

Systemic racism in higher education has never been questioned by the Texas press, and coverage of Senate Bill 17, the DEI ban, has been predicated on an NPR-like “no questions asked” directive from the beginning.

Your property rights are being undermined. https://lnkd.in/dRxaVX8H