This recognition by MALDEF is a humbling reminder that we have made generations of progress, but our fight for equality and justice continues. As can be seen from just two public hearings this week, now more than ever, we must work even harder to ensure that the opportunities our great state and nation offer are accessible to all people regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.
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Dear friend:
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) honored me with the Valerie Kantor Award for Extraordinary Achievement at its annual gala in San Antonio Friday night.
Founded in 1968, MALDEF is the nation’s leading Latino legal civil rights organization. Often described as the “law firm of the Latino community,” MALDEF promotes social change through advocacy, communications, community education, and litigation in the areas of education, employment, immigrant rights, and political access.
It was MALDEF in Edgewood v. Kirby that forced the state to begin addressing generations of inequity and inefficiency in our school finance system.
We’re still grappling with a solution to the problems identified by Edgewood, and further specified in the trial court findings in Morath v The Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, which ended with the Texas Supreme Court abdicating their role in protecting students from an inadequate and inequitable school finance system. We need to fix our funding weights and end “hold harmless,” among other items in the funding formulas, to efficiently allocate resources – meaning to put them where they’re needed.
While the Texas House will study and recommend reforms for the school finance system, the Texas Senate thus far has not. Instead, the Senate Education Committee tomorrow will be looking at vouchers, which take money from public schools, the opposite of what we need.
Meanwhile, today, the State Board of Education will discuss a Mexican-American Studies “textbook” that is so factually inaccurate as to be embarrassing to the whole state. It is disappointing that a textbook of such poor quality is near adoption at the SBOE. This submission must be rejected, and the process reviewed so this doesn’t happen again.
This recognition by MALDEF is a humbling reminder that we have made generations of progress, but our fight for equality and justice continues. As can be seen from just two public hearings this week, now more than ever, we must work even harder to ensure that the opportunities our great state and nation offer are accessible to all people regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.
It is a privilege representing the people of District 29 in the Texas State Senate, and an honor to fight these battles with you.
Sincerely,
