•    Oppose Texas elected officials give away of our federal tax dollars to those states applying for “Race to the Top” funds. Governor Perry gave away our opportunity by refusing to apply, costing Texas schools and students hundreds of millions of lost opportunity dollars.

•    Protect students and all school personnel from acts of violence; support swift and fair enforcement of disciplinary standards including support for teachers exercising their right to remove disruptive students from the classroom.

•    Provide strong academic instruction in disciplinary and alternative education programs.

•    Prevent escalation of conflicts via peer mediation, "No Place for Hate", and other programs countering violence.

•    Enforce weapon-free, gang-free and drug-free policies at all school premises and functions.

•    Fight sexual predation with strong policies for reporting and investigation, with heightened awareness and prosecution of crimes against children, including internet pornography.

•    Fight fraud in school loans.

State Board of Education: Texas Attorney General Abbott failed to protest the partisan, political, anti-education methods and decisions of the State Board of Education.  (Historians recently penned an open letter to the Texas State Board of Education).

The Attorney General failed to require proper guidance for teaching.
•    In 2008 the Texas AG ruled on Bible teaching, as required by the State legislature, well aware of the Texas Education Code vague guidance, including the Section 28.011 provision that "... content decisions are left to local district discretion." This isn't an issue of how to incorporate treasured local legends; this is the teaching of the Bible.

•    The criteria in the Old and New Testament courses in section 74.36 of Title 19 of the Texas Administrative Code include references to analysis of "data collected," evaluation of "the validity of the source," direction to "interpret empirical data" and the requirement to "identify bias" in the material.

•    Responsible people know these directions, interpreted at a local level, will cause teachers, acting with the best of intentions and in good faith, to accidentally violate the legal requirement that any Bible teaching taught in public schools not support a particular faith. The U.S. Supreme Court has approved teaching the Bible when presented objectively, as a part of a secular program, not as doctrine or in a devotional manner.

•    The Attorney General exposes educators to expensive litigation, burdening our local districts, taxpayers, administrators and teachers.

The Attorney General ruled against teacher pay raise and one time retired teacher payment mandated by the Texas legislature.

•    The Texas Attorney General in 2006 took mandates by our Legislature for teacher pay raises and then forced local school districts and taxpayers to pay for those mandates, ruling that local districts must pay for the teacher pay raise.

•    The Texas attorney general refused to address constitutional issues. And, in assessing the law's "Fiscal Note" with a $40 plus million per year cost and "state contribution," the AG claimed, in tortured reasoning, that he didn't know the contribution source for the "state contribution." You don't have to be a lawyer to know the logical answer. The "state of Texas" is the source of the "state contribution."

•    In a similarly tortured opinion thwarting the intent of the legislature, after the legislature passed a law for a one-time payment to our retired teachers, Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled it unconstitutional.

The Texas Attorney General wrongly ruled school use-of-force policies are secret.
•    Production satisfies the public's right to know and promotes self examination, better record keeping and outside experts' ability to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the policies and practices.

•    The current Attorney General has opined against disclosure of school district use of force policies. We can discover the use of force policies or numbers only when voluntarily provided.

•    Austin voluntarily provides such information. Journalists reported in the last year that Austin ISD campus police "drew guns on juveniles 8 times in the last four years. They used pepper spray 26 times, tasers 4 times and police dogs once. They controlled juveniles with batons or other physical force 258 times. They made 8,000 arrests in the same time period. "The Texas Tribune also reported on Houston and El Paso use of force. Austin ISD Police Chief explained that maintenance of data was a “best practice” according to the Texas Police Chiefs Association Foundation. His department rewrote their manual, per recommendations, so that publication would result in no security threat. At least 15 school districts have voluntarily produced their manuals on use-of-force.

•    Attorney General Abbott protects such information from disclosure. The Houston Chronicle editorialized last winter that such secrecy is terrible. The public has a right to know what schools authorize tasers, pepper spray and other force against minors, what rules govern and what training is required.

•    The Attorney General should change his position on disclosure of school use of force policies; disclosure promotes self examination, better record keeping and outside experts' ability to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the policies and practices.