AbbottElementary.com

Folks,

I started my career in education politics, and nothing has prepared me for what we are seeing in Texas right now. A self-made crisis, fomented from the Governor’s bully pulpit, impacting school districts across the state as we close out the academic year, all because Abbott didn’t get to siphon public tax dollars for private school vouchers.

The Governor and his allies held public school funding hostage during the regular and special sessions, aiming to pass private school vouchers or nothing at all. This giveaway of public dollars was stopped by a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans.

The result has become clear as students embark on summer break. Inflation, plus no change to the education funding formula since 2019, means a lot less for Texas schools. Districts are closing neighborhood schools, laying off support staff and educators, and likely planning for larger class sizes in the new school year.

All of this is happening as Texas sits on a healthy $19 billion surplus, which is why legislative Democrats are pleading with the Governor to call a Special Session for public school funding. The Governor won’t budge.

Abbott would rather cosplay as a G.I. Joe on the Rio Grande for Newsmax die-hards then put in the bare minimum to support Texas’ school kids. He’s had a lot of time to break the institutions that hold communities together, and he seems disinterested in doing anything but suffocating public education. He’s said as much after the Republican Primary Runoff last week, claiming to now have a pro-private school voucher majority in the House.

That got me thinking.

Poetically (and legally) AbbottElementary.com was available as I was writing this column, so I purchased it. I understand that there is an award-winning TV show of a similar name, very popular among educators and lots of others, too. You know what else is popular? Public schools.

Check back on AbbottElementary.com and see what we end up doing, or let us know if you have any ideas. Speaking of which, if you want to talk about the 2026 Texas gubernatorial election, or want to seed fund a PAC, feel free to reach out at Michael@CN4Partners.com and we can schedule some time to catch up!