Child Protective Services

     The post Will our Child Protective Services get better? by my colleague Selena Herrera is well-explained, and stated her strong point of view. She starts off with general information and tied it down to how money should be used for children in need. As we all have known that Legislature is willing to fund more money for CPS to help abused and neglected children to receive adequate cares. However, this money is also used for hiring more staffs due to the shortage of staffs. Selena expressed her opinion that this funding can only be used for children care only, and not for increasing staff salaries or hiring more staffs. Her thesis is strong and well developed with her supporting; some readers may be convinced with her thought. However, I am not quite strong to agree with her on this issue; I understand that children cares are more important, but the staffs’ families are also important to them. Their families would expect them to go to work and earn money, but it turns out to be an unexpected income. How can children approach their needs with the shortage of staffs? I believe that this funding is just the start to reform the program. It starts to hire more staffs and train them to work as best as they can, and start to approach children in needs. All of this funding will focus not only for hiring staffs but also for caring facilities. So this is still a promising start to help abused children and children in need.

     In sum, this post is an interesting commentary expressing local issue that we may need to know. Overall, this still a good post with my colleague opinion and supporting on the issue. 

Legislative Priorities

  As the 85^th Legislature session is approaching, many legislators had planned for many hopeful bills in making them into laws in 2017. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick also published his personal list of top ten legislative priorities. Couples of the issues on the list are considered to be prioritized, and some are solution seeking problems. This list is categorized into two groups by some journalists as pressing concerns and issues have been seen before.

     For the press concerns, those issues are mainly about inappropriate teacher-student relationship, property tax reform, budget proposal and spending cap; on the other hand, some other issues that have seen before are hailstorm lawsuit reform, sanctuary cities, school choice, photo voter ID, women’s privacy act, and fetal tissue or partial birth abortion. Many demands ask for more focuses on Texas child protective services and state budget spending.

    My opinion is on both sides for these two categories; I support not only children protective services, state budget spending but also school choice and women’s privacy act. Texas continues to increase in the numbers of teachers engaging in abusive and inappropriate relationship with students, and the cause of this issue is the weakness of methods of reporting and tracking teachers with history of misconduct. This is not only Texas’ issue but also nationwide issue; therefore, legislation is needed to strengthen the reporting and training requirements or even appropriate penalties.  Texas also pays one of highest property taxes in the nation, and Patrick had created a new senate committee to hope to find a statewide solution in order to assist business growth and decrease tax rates. Everyone is looking for this change as well. Furthermore, women’s privacy also needs to be prioritized because women and girls should have their privacy and safety in public restroom. Although there is not any reported case that transgender sneaking to public restroom and attacking women, it is still a yes or no question on this issue. Of course, there are many more different issues, but these ten priorities are considered to be prioritized according to Dan Patrick.

     In sum, there are lots of issues to look forward when the legislation session begin on January next year. Whatever issues that need immediate attention should be prioritized, especially children and women rights. 

PLASTIC BAGS BAN 

The post “Plastic Shopping Bags Should be banned in Texas” by my classmate Raj is really straightforward and well addressed the problem. All reasonable opinions were included in this post, and developed with proved evidences. As people know the post effect of plastic bag, this is one of the causes for environment pollution, human life and wildlife devastation. My classmate did a great job to address all the issues above. Plastic bag decomposition is not only Texas issue but also a worldwide issue. I also agree that Texas should ban the plastic bag because these little shopping bags can cause so many bad effects on earth. It is sad to see how wildlife animals have to struggle for what human beings do, so human being need to do something to protect not only wildlife animals but also the surrounding environment. My classmate is also stay strong with his thesis statement throughout the post. I may strongly agree with him if he can put in his thoughts how Legislature can make this law to be effective in Texas. There are too many facts about the bad effects of plastic bags, and these may distract readers’ interests, but overall he can still convince readers to agree on this topic. His reasons are persuasive enough for readers, so if he can address how lawmakers can make this law into action, this would be a great post.  

  

HOW SECURE IS ELECTRONIC VOTING IN TEXAS?

    There are couple of methods for people to vote such as paper ballot, mails, electronic voting. People may pick one of these options depending on the convenience or even security. As technology has been developing, electronic voting gradually becomes a more well-known method. Unfortunately, some Texas are concerned that electronic voting may lead to fraud at the polls. So, how secure electronic voting is in Texas. I think it depends on the reliability of the voting system.

    Electronic voting is chosen more by most voters these days. It is due to the approach of modern technologies. Some people, or for example Joan Cunningham, a new citizen in Texas, may think that voting machines can be more efficient and fast-processing, but what if things go wrong and data can get corrupted or changed or lost. People think the software which is set up for voting machine is reliable, but in fact it is programmed by human who are not considered to be reliable at all. So, it may have errors in programming also, and it is not exactly sure that voting machines may go smoothly at every election. Actually, these types of programming errors have been happened in the past elections and this have been checked by audits or recount. There is no paper backup which can record the votes, it is not pretty much ensure that the individual voter have their official votes recorded. On other perspective, Harris County switched to electronic voting in 2002, and there is not even a big error occurs during voting session. Electronic voting has been checked and double checked to make sure everything is working in this county.

   How about traditional paper ballots? As people have been known this voting technique, it is basically filled out the paper ballot and drops it in a box. It is pretty much it, and the votes will be counted at the end of Election Day. This method may be too old-fashioned for young people, and they prefer other voting methods. Clerk Stannart from Harris County expressed that paperless is far more secure because papers can have problems such as run out of ink, broken printer, and the punch cards can cause issue to cancel out someone’s vote or vote for someone else. Paper ballot also has its down sides.

   These errors from both electronic and paper method can cause low voter turnouts due to fraud incidence. People may decide not to vote because they know that the results are likely not to be accurate. Therefore, I think the secure of electronic and paper voting in Texas should depend on the reliable person running it. As it is, most counties should have trained poll workers to make sure they administer the system fairly.

School options for children with disabilities

               Since 2004, Texas Education Agency (TEA) has lowered the number of students granted special education status. From a recent report, it stated that the TEA set 8.5 percent of the student population as the maximum for special education population in Texas. Texas has a substantially smaller percentage of special education students than the national average, and has smallest percentage of all of the states. In the 2013-2014 school year, Texas came in at 8.6 percent, while the national average is 13 percent. The number is decreasing because of the successful efforts to rehabilitate students who had been diagnosed with learning disabilities, but some current and former school administrates claim that they have to drop the student population to the set goal immediately by using alternative program which is less expensive. Schools push students out of special education to meet state limit. Many parents have taken their children with disabilities out of public schools in favor of private schools and home-schooling because they do not feel the needs of their child are being met by the school district. It is costly to send children to private schools and even lose the income of one parent to homeschooling. Therefore, Education Savings Account is one method that allows parents to have more options in choosing school for their children, especially low-income family.

            This is brief summary that was written by Dianna Muldrow on Texas Public Policy Foundation. As America, especially Texas, always focus on children education, the conditions of children with disabilities are needed to prioritize at all time. This commentary post is very attractive for readers at first by providing many detail numbers as evidence for the decrease of the student population with disabilities. Short brief summary on the topic was well written by the writer, and gradually shift to the main issue which voices up the options for parents of disable child to choose school’s options freely for their children. Muldrow does not let her thoughts and opinion expressing directly through this post. It is a good technique to not interfere readers’ thoughts. In sum, she concludes that as time goes on people do not know what will happen with special education students, but it is certain that many parents are not pleased with the educational support, and want to be able to choose school options freely for their children.

              Personally, I support the new policy and educational options which allow parents the freedom to find services that are rights for their children because parents are the only ones that know exactly what their children need, so parents deserve school options for their children. Schools do not offer a good quality education, why not the parents can deserve a right for school options.

Commentary Article

            Over the past year, lead contamination in water had been addressed over and over. Lead exposure in children can cause decreasing bone and muscle growth, damage to the nervous system and kidneys functions. Lead can cause kidney failure and high blood pressure in adult, especially pregnant women. Many factors can cause lead exposure in drinking water such as lead leaching out of the lead pipes and into the water. Since lead led to many dangerous damages, Congress and many organizations had been stepping up to fix the issue to ensure healthy conditions. School is one of the main places where lead exposure needs to be checked up because this is where kids may spend their time the most. Some schools in Texas are taking action to get lead out of drinking water because some school districts have reported lead contamination in schools’ drinking water. Couples of options have given out such as replacing hundreds of drinking fountains which are over 30 years old, regularly testing lead level in school water and posting results online. These may cost lots of money; therefore Texans are campaigning to ask for funding from Congress and Texas Legislature. 

U.S Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson wrote about lead contamination in Texas schools’ drinking water last week. It is very straight forward and clear about what she wants to address.  She did a very good job when she briefly summarized the topic in general at the beginning. The dangerous damages of lead in drinking water were pointed out in understanding words. This technique really drags readers into the topic, then gradually points out and focus on the effect in Texas. She provided many detailed record numbers as evidences, then tried to explain and voice her opinions based on the evidences. Her reason to prevent lead exposure in school is because school is a place that kids spend most of their time. According to a recent report, 28 out of 116 schools tested were found to have unsafe lead levels (about 25%), so many kids may be affected by lead in water. Since kids are our future hopes, so their health should be taken care of. 

Based on the writer opinion, it seems like she totally aims to support for the funding to take lead out of drinking water in Texas. Personally, I also agree with her opinion which Texas’ government should take actions on this issue to ensure kids’ healthy and safe conditions. The faster the issues are fixed, the better the reductions of the effect of lead contamination. Some schools are taking a good start to regularly test their water for lead. This is not only Texas issue but also the national problem too.

Source:http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/opinion/commentary-lead-contamination-in-texas-schools-dri/nshKn/

In-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Yes or No? 

           As the fact that America is the most developed country; it creates a trend of immigration to the States to seek for jobs, educations and better living standards. Up to now, immigration issues are still at the points that have been discussed over and over. Talking about how immigrants try to look for educational opportunities; school tuition is one thing that need to be addressed. Specifically, since 2001, Texas had offered in-state tuition opportunity for undocumented immigrants as long as the immigrants have been Texas residents for at least three years and graduated from high school or received GED, but this program will be reconsidered to be maintained or eliminated next year when lawmakers reconvene.

            An article from Texas Tribune reported that Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is trying to target on in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants again in order to get more benefits for citizens first. He spoke about the skyrocket of college tuition and indicates a variety of changes “including gutting a requirement that all four-year colleges set aside 20 percent of the tuition payments they receive to help needy students afford college”. The original analysis of Campbell’s bill provides that the cost to support this program had grown 68 percent since 2012, so this program may cause a rising cost for taxpayers as this rate continues. According to the analysis, in-state benefits for undocumented immigrants take more slots at four-year universities from U.S citizens. One more important thing is that this would encourage more people to come to the state illegally.

           On the other perspective of the program supporters, undocumented immigrants can take lots of advantages out of this program; less tuition cost makes people less in debt after graduation. The supporters defend that the immigration status has nothing to do with the admissions process, so it is pointless to say that this benefit give undocumented immigrants a higher rate to be accepted in four-years colleges and steal spots from U.S citizens. As both sides conflict, there is a need to reconsider these benefits to make both sides satisfied with the consequences.

           Personally, this article is worth reading because this is about educational issues both physically and financially; furthermore, education is an investment for our futures.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/09/09/dan-patrick-will-try-again-end-state-tuition-undoc/