BarryLaverty Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 A woman who once believed in the nonsense dogma about public school libraries speaks out about the connections between the lies and the goal. Meanwhile, 'conservatives' on here lap it up and spew it forth. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/15/texas-tim-dunn-wilks-brothers-vouchers-courtney-gore/ FORMER FAR-RIGHT HARD-LINER SAYS PRO-VOUCHER BILLIONAIRES ARE USING SCHOOL BOARD RACES TO SOW DISTRUST IN PUBLIC EDUCATION THE LARGESSE FROM BILLIONAIRES TIM DUNN AND BROTHERS FARRIS AND DAN WILKS HAS MADE ITS WAY INTO LOCAL POLITICS. COURTNEY GORE, A REPUBLICAN SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER IN GRANBURY, SAYS IT’S PART OF THEIR STRATEGY TO BUILD SUPPORT FOR VOUCHERS. BY JEREMY SCHWARTZ, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA MAY 15, 20245 AM CENTRAL Courtney Gore, vice president of the Granbury Independent School District Board of Trustees, listens to public comments during a February meeting. When Courtney Gore ran for a seat on her local school board in 2021, she warned about a movement to indoctrinate children with “leftist” ideology. After 2 1/2 years on the board, Gore said she believes a much different scheme is unfolding: an effort by wealthy conservative donors to undermine public education in Texas and install a voucher system in which public money flows to private and religious schools. Gore points to West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who have contributed to various political action committees that have poured millions into legislative candidates who have promoted vouchers. The men also fund or serve on the boards of a host of public policy and advocacy organizations that have led the fight for vouchers in Texas. In recent years, the largesse from Dunn and the Wilks brothers has reached local communities across Texas, including Granbury, near Fort Worth, where fights over library books, curriculum and vouchers have dominated the community conversation. Gore said that she believes school board candidates are being recruited, at times without their full knowledge, in an effort “to cause as much disruption and chaos as possible” and weaken community faith in local school districts. In 2021, two local men — former state representative Mike Lang and political consultant Nate Criswell — asked Gore to run for school board. At the time, the three were co-hosts of a web-based talk show that targeted local officials they believed were insufficiently conservative and were straying from GOP platform positions. They took frequent aim at the Granbury school district, which they alleged was allowing explicit sexual content into school libraries and teaching divisive ideas about race. RELATED STORY A GOP Texas school board member campaigned against schools indoctrinating kids. Then she read the curriculum. MAY 15, 2024 Gore broke from the group shortly after taking office in January 2022, when she concluded that the materials she had warned about on the campaign trail were not present in Granbury schools. She claims the men and other leaders of the far-right faction in Hood County, home to Granbury, dismissed her findings. They continued to pummel the district over books and curriculum, supported school board candidates who sought to remove a growing number of titles from library shelves, and worked to derail three bond elections that would have funded new and renovated buildings for the overcrowded district. That’s when Gore said she began to piece together connections that hadn’t been previously apparent to her. Lang, a Republican who represented Hood County in the state Legislature for four years, received more than $600,000 in campaign contributions — more than half his total — from direct donations from or PACs funded by the Wilks brothers and Dunn. On the campaign trail, Lang supported providing public money for private schools and, in 2017, voted against a House measure that prohibited funding for school vouchers. He did not respond to requests for comment. In addition, in January 2022, Criswell’s political consulting company received $3,000 from Defend Texas Liberty, one of the PACs funded by the Wilks family and Dunn. The PAC donated another $3,000 to Criswell this year when he unsuccessfully ran for Hood County commissioner. Criswell declined to answer specific questions but said he has closed his consulting firm, Criswell Strategies, and has “stepped away from the local political scene, aside from occasionally sharing posts on social media.” According to her campaign finance reports, Gore did not receive any money from the men. But another school board candidate, her then-ally Melanie Graft, received a $100 in-kind contribution from Defend Texas Liberty for advertising expenses. Graft did not respond to written questions or requests for comment. “I was knee-deep in it,” Gore said about the local connections to the billionaires. “I guess I was just too naive. I should have known better.” Neither Dunn nor a representative of the Wilks family responded to questions. Dunn recently penned an opinion piece in the Midland Reporter-Telegram arguing that he was not the leader of the statewide push for vouchers and has never made public statements on the topic. Nearly two decades ago, however, Dunn argued in favor of a voucher-like program, saying that the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank on whose board he has served for more than 20 years, supported such an idea “as long-time advocates of eliminating the government monopoly in public education.” In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is among the state’s fiercest advocates for directing public education funds to private schools, credited the organization’s longtime advocacy with bringing the state to the “threshold” of a voucher-like program. Dunn is also the founder of Midland Classical Academy, a private school that offers its approximately 600 K-12 students a “Classical Education from a Biblical Worldview,” according to its website. The school believes in interpreting the Bible in its literal sense, which it takes to mean that marriage can only be between a man and a woman and that there are only two genders. Zachary Maxwell, Lang’s former chief of staff who later worked for Empower Texans, a pro-voucher public policy organization whose associated PAC was largely funded by Dunn and the Wilks brothers, would not speak about his time there, citing a nondisclosure agreement he signed when he left the organization. Maxwell, however, said he has become disenchanted by Dunn and the Wilks family’s efforts to exert control over the state’s politics. He said Hood County hard-liners, some of whom have close ties to PACs funded by Dunn and the Wilks brothers, were trying to use Gore and Graft to drive a wedge between rural residents and their school district in an effort to build support for vouchers. The women’s presence on the school board enhanced the legitimacy of the group’s claims about pornography in libraries and Marxist indoctrination, Maxwell said. “It’s all about destroying the trust with the citizens to the point where they would tolerate something like doing away with public schools,” he said in an interview. Over the past two years, Abbott has teamed up with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, embarking on a tour of Texas towns to promote vouchers. Following the narrow defeat of voucher legislation in November in the Texas House of Representatives, the Republican governor campaigned to unseat lawmakers in his party who opposed such legislation. He successfully ousted five of them. One of the Republicans who lost in the primary was Glenn Rogers, whose rural district sits just north of Hood County and whom Abbott endorsed in 2020. This time around, Abbott gave $200,000 in campaign support to Rogers’ pro-voucher opponent. Dunn and the WiIlks brothers donated another $100,000. Rogers, who represented Hood County until 2021, when lawmakers changed the boundaries of his district, said he believes privatizing public education is at the core of Dunn and the Wilks brothers’ political efforts in Hood County and across the state. “Whether it’s at the school board level or it’s what’s happening in the Texas Legislature right now, that’s their end goal,” he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RELATED STORY A GOP Texas school board member campaigned against schools indoctrinating kids. Then she read the curriculum. MAY 15, 2024
RETIREDFAN1 Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 More propaganda...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olduy Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 35 minutes ago, RETIREDFAN1 said: More propaganda...... Yep! The teachers union is so afraid of any competition 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmokedOut Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 I’d be weary if my children went to a metroplex school, Austin, or Houston district. I’ve posted on another thread that the entire faculty where my wife works is opposed to vouchers and are all staunch conservatives. It’s a rural district of course. I don’t know. Maybe if I lived in Austin I’d be for them. I guess it depends on where you live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmokedOut Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 Just now, Olduy said: Yep! The teachers union is so afraid of any competition We don’t have a union in Texas for teachers. Do we? I could be wrong. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doomer Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 "Billionaires And Abbott Setting Out To Destroy Public Schools." Destroying public schools and limiting indoctrination is really two different animals IMHO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAWG91 Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 36 minutes ago, SmokedOut said: We don’t have a union in Texas for teachers. Do we? I could be wrong. Pretty sure there is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAWG91 Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 Ps, SPAM ALERT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmokedOut Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 6 minutes ago, DAWG91 said: Pretty sure there is. Must not be a mandatory thing. The wife has never mentioned it. She despises unions. Mainly for all the shenanigans they pulled up north during covid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RETIREDFAN1 Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 52 minutes ago, Olduy said: Yep! The teachers union is so afraid of any competition We don't have a teacher's union in Texas....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyZuco Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 It's not about teacher's unions, it about a governor who is taking a page from the "biden" administration and giving people money they DO NOT DESERVE.....he just wants to give money to people for a voucher program that WILL NOT WORK, it does NOT work in other states and NEVER works for those that need it the most. ALL students in TEXAS have school choice, they problem with most of you is that you DO NOT like the way CHOICES are set up......But Every student in TEXAS has school choice already. And in ALL metro plex areas, including Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, those students have many choices of where they want to go to school, just within those districts. Every big district has Magnet schools for specific areas of study......Arts, Culinary, Pre-Law, Cosmetology, Technology......Plano use to do it best, as those students attended their "magnet" school the early part of the day, and then returned to their home school for UIL activities, which discouraged "athletic" recruiting of students, who could NOT really get into those programs. Abbott, may be strong on the border, but he is nothing but a patsy when it comes to trying to give his DONORS money back. Plus, his "voucher" program DOES NOTHING to help Texans with their property taxes, which continue to rise to their 10% each year. And to top it off, wouldn't you think that a "voucher" program would be for those that are "economically disadvantaged", not for donors? I mean shouldn't there be a "maximum" amount of money a person can make to get a voucher. I wish that most of you would do your research on vouchers.......it has NOTHING to do with help those who are at a disadvantage, it only keeps the "elite" away from the "public" arena. Or Vice Versa. As a teacher, I understand that public schools need some help, depending upon where you are located....but 90% of us were educated in public schools, and while some had bad experiences, remember that YOU are 1/2 of the bad experience. And unless my property taxes are "done away with", then I will NEVER support any voucher program and will continue to fight against it and those "religious marxists" that continue to want to take OUR TAX DOLLARS and give OUR MONEY to people who do NOT deserve it. None of it is for the PUBLIC GOOD!!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KirtFalcon Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 17 hours ago, DannyZuco said: .... when it comes to trying to give his DONORS money back .... So these Big Money DONORS get more money back than they donate? .... it has nothing to do with improving educationl choices? they are in it for the money ???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RETIREDFAN1 Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 20 hours ago, DAWG91 said: Pretty sure there is. No there isn't...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RETIREDFAN1 Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 19 hours ago, SmokedOut said: Must not be a mandatory thing. The wife has never mentioned it. She despises unions. Mainly for all the shenanigans they pulled up north during covid. No teacher's union in Texas at all....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmokedOut Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 6 hours ago, RETIREDFAN1 said: No teacher's union in Texas at all....... I didn’t think so. Wasn’t completely sure though. Thanks for clarification. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gamewatcher63 Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 Anything that Abbott does that causes Barry anxiety is another reason I’m glad I voted for him…. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyZuco Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 10 hours ago, KirtFalcon said: So these Big Money DONORS get more money back than they donate? .... it has nothing to do with improving educationl choices? they are in it for the money ???? Why else would Abbott be pushing a program that only takes "surplus" dollars and gives anyone that "applies" up to $8K per kid? Are you one of those numbskulls that thinks that Texas students don't have choices? Common man, you've been a Rino way too long. Abbott is nothing more than Joe Biden, but on the other end of the spectrum, using religion and school choice to purchase votes. WHEN EVERYONE HAS SCHOOL CHOICE ALREADY!!!!!SMH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KirtFalcon Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 2 hours ago, DannyZuco said: Why else would Abbott be pushing a program that only takes "surplus" dollars and gives anyone that "applies" up to $8K per kid? Are you one of those numbskulls that thinks that Texas students don't have choices? Common man, you've been a Rino way too long. Abbott is nothing more than Joe Biden, but on the other end of the spectrum, using religion and school choice to purchase votes. WHEN EVERYONE HAS SCHOOL CHOICE ALREADY!!!!!SMH So which is it ... big money donors or "surplus" dollars? .... if there are surplus dollars? ... You don't think it has anything to do with Abbott wanting to improve educational choices in Texas? Do you honestly believe all students in Texas have an equal choice now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coach Rab Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 4 hours ago, gamewatcher63 said: Anything that Abbott does that causes Barry anxiety is another reason I’m glad I voted for him…. Abbott is a piece of crap. I’m disappointed that I voted for him until I remembered that BETO ran against him 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyZuco Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 14 hours ago, KirtFalcon said: So which is it ... big money donors or "surplus" dollars? .... if there are surplus dollars? ... You don't think it has anything to do with Abbott wanting to improve educational choices in Texas? Do you honestly believe all students in Texas have an equal choice now? Tell me which student DOES NOT have a choice.....Please, I'd love to know..... Abbott's donors are wanting to get their money back that they pay to send their angels to private schools, away from those "undesirables" that they don't want their kids around. There is suppose to be a surplus in Texas over the next 10 years. So Abbott, falling in line with his "donors" is trying to give TAXPAYER money to these people as a "school voucher"......Is it really that hard for you to understand.....I know you're old, but common man, NO ONE gives away money without something coming back to them. And yes, all students in Texas have a choice....just many of them are costly....which is NOT what you "conservative marxist" want to hear....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RETIREDFAN1 Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyZuco Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 7 hours ago, RETIREDFAN1 said: It's a sad show when everyone knows I am correct....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RETIREDFAN1 Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 9 minutes ago, DannyZuco said: It's a sad show when everyone knows I am correct....... Not what THAT emoji means....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyZuco Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Just now, RETIREDFAN1 said: Not what THAT emoji means....... It means that you are waiting to see a show, but the others really don't have a good message, so the show ends early....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RETIREDFAN1 Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 1 minute ago, DannyZuco said: It means that you are waiting to see a show, but the others really don't have a good message, so the show ends early....... You've evidently not "debated" with @KirtFalcon very much...... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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