Did you hear?
Texas is #1.
Besides, Texas recently fell out the rankings due to embarrassing losses at home to UCLA followed by a loss to Overrated U Oklahoma.
Well… clearly Texas is not #1 in football, but we are the leaders in other things…
Here are statistics from the slide show Texas on the Brink.
Some of the glaring highlights:
ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMEN AND THEIR HEALTH ISSUES
Texas owns the third highest teen birthrate in the U.S.
So… how’s that abstinence only education workin’ out for ya, huh?
Percentage of women that have not had a dental visit in the past year, women over 40 who have received mammograms, and rate of women over 18 who have had Pap Smears all rank 45th or worst.
Not only that, but Texas is dead last in percent of non-elderly women with health insurance. Family planning ranks 45th. NOTE: Family Planning is not about abortions, but condoms, The Pill, The Ring, and other methods to delay a period of raising children.
I thought Texans naturally cared for women. After all, Texas men are generally the most chivalrous in the country. What does it say when we fail to take care of women who happen to be our daughters, sisters, aunts, and our nieces, and nephews.
Most importantly… they are our mothers.
Speaking of the children…
THE CHILDREN
From that same article, Texas owns a child poverty rate of 23%, placing Texas at 43rd. Translation, 1 out of 4 children in Texas live in poverty. In order to survive, families apply for programs such as Women, Infant, and Children (WIC). The average monthly benefit for WIC in Texas is $35.53 compared with a national average of $43.55. Almost a full EIGHT DOLLAR difference.
Maybe to someone with a steady well paying job, $8 is nothing, but to those who rely on such programs $8 can make the difference between eating dinner or going hungry for the night.
Over the last ten years, the number of children with special health or medical needs has jumped by 42%. Of course, they don’t need medical coverage. It’s their fault for getting sick in the first place. At least that is the mentality by our Congressional delegation from Texas.
Let’s see… how many members of the U.S. House from Texas voted against the Health Care Bill (H.R. 3590)?
21…
And how many of them belong to the Republican Party?
20
And how did our Senators vote on the bill it reached the Senate?
Both voted against the health care bill.
Anyone noticing a pattern here? Care for me to remind people what the GOP Health Care plan is again…
All of these factors and many others equate to our children’s well-being ranking in the bottom third, according to the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
TEXAS EDUCATION
And the most embarrassing… our education standards.
Texas ranks 46th in SAT scores, 41st in High School Graduation Rate, and the most glaring stat: LAST in percent of population 25 and Older WITH a High School Diploma.
Funding between high-poverty and low-poverty school districts widened between 2000 and 2006. Makes you think twice about voting for the new sports complex for your school district when that money could go towards teaching materials.
I am not going to explain the subject statistics, but they are the most embarrassing. This is due to what was taking place with the State Board of Education in their efforts to push a radical right wing agenda in schools. They were considering ELIMINATING Thomas Jefferson from the history curriculum. Thomas Jefferson?! One of Our Founding Fathers… someone Governor Fox News Talking Shill Reporter Sarah Palin could not name as one of her favorites.
Now why does Texas rank so low in education standards…? Could someone explain to me? For goodness sakes, I could probably pass the TASKs, or TAAS, or whatever the state standardized test was these days.
I think I know why Texas has such abysmal educational numbers…
We have a State Board of Education that is downright embarrassing. I swear, it’s like after I graduated from high school (class of 2002) the state of Texas said, “Well, Michael Watts graduated, screw everyone else who is going through school…”
We have groups of “concerned parents” that throw a temper tantrum when the President of the United States wants to give a speech to school kids to ENCOURAGE them to do well.
You know… there was a President that gave a back-to-school speech back in 1991 and a young child at North Euless Elementary observed that speech. I think I have told this story before, but it bears repeating to prove a point.
President George H.W. Bush did a good job encouraging a young Mr. Hill.
Who needs to hear that encouragement the most? Children in our emerging Hispanic population where they drop out of school at a rate THREE times greater than that of white students. In 2005, just barely half of Hispanic students graduated in their high school graduating class compared to two out of three black students and three out of four white students graduating with a high school diploma.
Here is a concept…. How about we have 100% of ALL students graduate from high school?
CONCLUSION
The statistics addresses other issues such as how we care for our elderly, the state of our universities, the overall health of our citizens, and access to capital.
I think Governor Perry might be surprised about where Texas ranks in private loans to small businesses…
We live in one of the most prosperous states in the U.S. and we cannot care for our most vulnerable citizens. What does that REALLY say about our state?
Teddy Wilson, a Navy Veteran and blogger in College Station, and along with the first slide of the statistics has painted a bleak future for Texas if these trends continue.
In Texas today, the American dream is distant. Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation. Texas is dead last in the percentage of residents with their high school diploma and near last in SAT scores. Texas now has America’s dirtiest air. If we do not change course, for the first time in our history, the Texas generation of tomorrow will be less prosperous than the generation of today.
Without the courage to invest in the minds of our children, and steadfast support for great schools, we face a daunting prospect. Those who value tax cuts over children and budget cuts over college have put Texas at risk in her ability to compete and succeed.
Let us not forget that the business of Texas is Texans. To ‘Close the Gap’ in Texas, we must graduate more of our best and brightest with the skills to succeed in a world based on knowledge. If we invest in our greatest resource, Texas will be the state of the future. If we do not, family incomes will fall an average of $6,000 by 2040.
While the Texas legislature focusing on a $18 billion budget shortfall that was created due to the lawmakers not address the shortfall during the last legislative session, and Texas Republicans focus on wedge issues such as immigration it is unlikely that policy changes will be made to address these problems. These problems are also disproportionately affecting children of working class families and children of people of color. The people that will lose are the people with the least amount of voice: children. If changes are not made then we are ensuring that the next generation of Texans grows up at a significant economic disadvantage to the rest of the nation and the rest of the world.
I think I have driven the point home.
We have a choice in November.
So, the question I ask is this: Is this the Texas you want to leave future generations?
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