Education Abilene TSTA / NEA

10/04/2026

10/04/2026

YOU CAN'T LECTURE US ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS FROM A BUILDING THAT ISN'T ONE.

Abbott was back in Amarillo yesterday, his second stop here in a couple weeks on his rural tour, still talking about his plans for Texas schools.

State Rep. Caroline Fairly stood up right there with him and talked about public education. The event was held at Opportunity School. I looked it up. It's a nonprofit early childhood program doing good work for low income families in Amarillo, and I mean that, their mission is a good one.

But it is not a public school. It doesn't answer to an elected school board. It doesn't educate the thousands of kids riding the bus to our actual Panhandle ISDs every morning.

If you want to stand up and talk about fixing public schools, we've got no shortage of real ones. Highland Park. River Road. Dumas. Bushland. Panhandle ISD. Any one of them would have worked.

Picking a private facility to talk about public education isn't an accident, it's a choice. And that choice tells you exactly how Abbott and Fairly see public schools, as a backdrop for a press event, not as a place worth standing in.

We clearly see public education differently.

The system Abbott's been building treats our kids like inventory for the workforce pipeline. I see it as the heart of our communities. Out here in rural Texas especially, the school is where we raise our kids, educate them, and get them ready to be part of the towns we call home.

Public education is not a single issue. PUBLIC EDUCATION IS EVERYTHING.

It touches our economy, our jobs, our property taxes, and whether our small towns have anything left to pass down to the next generation. The men who wrote the Texas Constitution knew that. They made it the Legislature's duty to maintain a real system of public free schools. That's not optional. It's written into the founding document of this state.

If we're not paying attention to public education, I don't know what we think we're paying attention to.

This is bigger than vouchers. It's about our kids, our communities, and whether rural Texas still gets a say in its own future.

Where do you stand? Drop it in the comments, I want to hear both sides.

10/04/2026

10/04/2026

10/03/2026

05/10/2026

Happy mother's Day!

05/10/2026

"It has been teacher appreciation week.

I’ve thought of all the teachers who made me a better person. I’ve watched my friends and colleagues be that type person to students.

But not the Federal Department of Education. Like a bully they mocked the job we do. Trivializing Educators into comical cartoon teachers. ED didn’t pick inspiring educators. They picked those who are jokes.

I just don’t get it. I don’t get how in the last 30 years being a teacher has become a career that isn’t to be respected. I know my teachers went above and beyond. I know my fellow educators still do the same. Let’s respect education again." -Elaine Tilley