Higher Education

Kenneth Ashworth wrote a commentary piece about how the state would be foolish to abolish higher education board.  Ashworth is the former commissioner of the board, and because of this his argument seems to have some legitimacy to it.  He argues that if this board is abolished, then all the state funded schools, (which are funded according to student population) will open more, lower quality classes, in order to get more funding.  This will lead not only to lower education levels, but Ashworth thinks that many institutions will ‘overlap’ and offer many of the same classes, milking the resources of the undergraduates, to offer better programs for graduate degrees. Ashworth states that tuition rates would increase, which would cause higher learning to become even more inaccessible to the Texas general public.  All this seems like is cutting funding from one place, and expecting it to come out of the pockets of the public.  I would hate to see education in Texas drop any more quality than it already has, especially at the cost of the students who are trying to better themselves through their education.

Rural Schools Doomed ??

There is an article on the Austin American Statesman called “Rural schools, communities suffer in the face of Texas' budget cuts” This story is about how budget shortfalls are really hitting the education side of Texas very hard.  Rural schools face tough times, and some of which may even close down all together due to budget cuts.  This is relevant to a little town named Miles, this small town has a total population of 800 people, and the whole school district only has 425 kids.  Under the proposals floating around the Capitol, the district could be out about 15 percent of its total budget, Robert Gibson is not only afraid of loosing his school district, but is worried about loosing the whole town in the process of closing the school.  It seems as the big cities keep growing, the small towns die off slowly.  Small town schools are the first to get money cut, but yet the small towns still grow little by little without much notice.  If you don’t stand out, or have something to offer, then the state seems to slowly but surely cut funding from you (ie schools, school districts.)  Basically closing one school and consolidating school districts doesn’t do much at all, other than over populating a former school, and possibly wiping the other off the map. "If the school wasn't here," Gibson said, "the community would blow away."