Texas Parent-Trigger Law Needs Improving

One of the newer iterations of parental empowerment policies sweeping the country are “parent-trigger” laws. Parent-trigger laws allow parents of students at a failing public school, by majority vote, to repurpose that campus’ administration with the aim of strengthening its academic quality. The idea is that rather than forcing parents to find alternatives to their local public school, they have an opportunity to make a positive change on that campus to better it for all students who attend it. Here in Texas, we actually have such a law. That’s in and of itself is somewhat remarkable, given how few options there currently are for parents in the Texas education system to take an active role in their child’s education. Unfortunately, the law is weak. Parents must wait up to six years to “pull the trigger,” which seriously limits the effectiveness of the law. How realistic is it to assume that a parent would be inclined to stay galvanized to make changes at a failing high school once their child has passed through it? The wait is simply too long. Tomorrow, the Texas House Public Education Committee will take up HB 2976, a bill that shortens the time after which parents can pull the trigger to two years. This would bring Texas more in step with the 6 other states that have such laws in place. It would also make this a tool that parents could use to meaningfully impact a school while their child was still attending it. We don’t give parents a lot of options to parents. That’s an unfortunate reality and one that needs changing, but a reality nonetheless. Strengthening the Texas parent-trigger law is one step our lawmakers could take that would quickly and significantly empower Texas parents to make positive changes at their local school. 

Press Release April 29, 2013

Greenhouse Gas Challenge May Be Headed to Supreme Court

The Houston Chronicle reports on the latest in Texas’ wide-ranging battle against new EPA regulations:  A Texas-led coalition of energy-producing states has asked the Supreme Court to hear a case involving the Obama administration's efforts to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. The petition, which was filed last week, comes 10 months after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the legal underpinnings of the Environmental Protection Agency's first-ever rules limiting emissions of greenhouse gases. In the 33-page petition, the states said the justices should hear their appeal because the new federal rules are hurting their economies. The EPA "is a runaway federal agency that must be reined in," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said. The federal agency concluded in 2009 that greenhouse gases pose a public health threat and require potentially costly limits from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources. Such rules could have a profound impact on Texas, which emits more carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases than any other state. The state sued to block the rules, but has yet to win. The petition takes aim at the EPA's "tailoring rule," which raised the threshold for regulation so that only the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions would be subject to it. Texas argues that the agency rewrote the Clean Air Act to come up with the rule. The stakes involved in this litigation could hardly be higher. Carbon dioxide emissions are a feature of virtually every part of the economy, not to mention ordinary everyday life, and EPA’s decision to regulate such emissions effectively grants it a breadth of regulatory authority that is unprecedented.     

Press Release April 24, 2013
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