Save Texas Public Schools
There can be no American Dream without strong public schools. That’s why public education is enshrined in the Texas Constitution:
“A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
The Texas Constitution – 1876
As Governor, Gina will end the STAAR test and tests like it, pause the rigged A-F accountability system, and call on the Legislature to deliver a bill that creates real accountability.
Every year, Texas classrooms go quiet as students take flawed, high-stakes tests like STAAR that fail to reliably measure student achievement while hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars flow to out-of-state testing corporations. Then they use these inaccurate tests to assign arbitrary A-F designations to schools and shut them down. That’s not accountability. That’s a rigged system that serves corporate interests, not kids.
The STAAR test has become so arbitrary and unreliable that parents, teachers, and school leaders no longer trust it. Worse, Greg Abbott’s Texas Education Agency has turned it into a weapon, using it to justify vouchers, outsourcing public education to profiteers, and taking control of schools and school districts.
As Governor, Gina will return school districts that have been taken over back to their communities, because she knows parents and local communities, the people with skin in the game, should be making decisions about their students’ education.
When schools struggle, it is never the right answer to take power away from the parents and communities who know them best. Greg Abbott’s Texas Education Agency has used the STAAR test as a cover to seize control of school districts and hand them over to state bureaucrats and private vendors.
Gina rejects spending big money on school vouchers and expensive vendors. As Governor, Gina will end the voucher scam and ensure Texans’ taxpayer dollars go where they belong: into the neighborhood schools families depend on.
Greg Abbott’s voucher scam was never about helping kids — it’s a payout for the privileged. After accepting more than $12 million in donations from out-of-state billionaire Jeff Yass, Abbott funneled $1 billion into the voucher program, redirecting money from 5.5 million public school kids to instead serve his rich donors. Today, 70% of voucher applications are from families who already have their kids in private school, and private schools retain the power to keep everyone else out.
On day one as Governor, Gina will fire Mike Morath and appoint an educator to lead the Texas Education Agency (TEA), because the agency that oversees our children’s education should be led by someone who has taught them.
Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath has spent years doing Greg Abbott’s bidding at the expense of Texas kids. While districts have been forced to close schools, Morath nearly doubled the size of the TEA bureaucracy – spending money that should be going directly into classrooms.
As Governor, Gina will audit and terminate corrupt vendor contracts and use that money to pay teachers to be among the highest paid in the nation.
Taxpayer dollars meant for Texas classrooms have been diverted into corrupt vendor contracts, including vouchers, that profit from our public schools without accountability. Under Greg Abbott, these deals have gone unchecked, enriching his donors while students and teachers are forced to make do with less. The result is that Texas’ most experienced teachers are leaving the classroom in the thousands because they’re underpaid, overworked, and forced to teach to the STAAR test.
In Texas, Greg Abbott has pulled more dollars from the classroom to needless vendor contracts to his donors and has grown state agency bureaucracy, almost doubling the Texas Education Agency staffing. The result: Over 150 schools are closing, and another 150 school districts have moved to four-day weeks. Under Greg Abbott’s watch, thousands of great, experienced teachers have left the classroom and are being replaced by uncertified first-time teachers.
It’s time for a back-to-basics approach with a great teacher in the classroom.
Gina Hinojosa came to this fight as a mom when they tried to close her son’s school. From Austin ISD to the state legislature, she’s spent her career fighting for our public schools.
Gina is a consistent advocate for teacher pay raises, smaller class sizes, and less high-stakes standardized testing for our kids. Gina was a negotiator of the historic 2019 school finance bill, putting more money into Texas classrooms. Last year, she successfully reduced the number of STAAR tests our kids take and passed legislation to ban charter schools from discriminating against kids because of their disciplinary record. As a member of the House Public Education Committee, Gina worked with rural Republicans to defeat Greg Abbott’s voucher scam four separate times.
Before that, as President of her school board, Gina balanced the budget to keep schools open, reduced the tax rate, and every state high school in the district met state accountability standards. In the House Public Ed, Gina worked with rural Republicans to defeat Greg Abbott’s voucher scam four separate times.