Perry's business incentives should go to teachers

My goal is to drive more of every education dollar directly into the classroom with the teachers and students, where it belongs. I would rather spend 1 billion dollars today investing in our future, than losing 13.3 billion dollars annually paying for failed policies of the past.
      —Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Texas Comptroller

If businesses thrive, this pays salaries and provides jobs which help the economy.  However true this concept may be, it has often been used to justify pouring money into private businesses while taking billions away from public institutions.  And this is where fiscal responsibility turns into the failed, destructive and utterly senseless trickle down theory.

Carole Strayhorn, the state comptroller in 2004, knows how important education is to the economic survival of a state.  In an article called The Cost of Underpaying Teachers, state comptroller Carole Strayhorn lays out what devastating harms are involved in grossly underfunding our education system.

Our state economy cannot remain healthy without a well-educated work force, and we cannot create and maintain that work force without the help of dedicated and qualified teachers....

...Teacher salaries in Texas are low, and have contributed to significant and continuing shortages of high-quality, seasoned teachers. In their absence, student performance suffers and the likelihood of students dropping out increases. Student dropouts and poorly educated workers have a tremendous detrimental impact on the state’s economy and the cumulative effect on the economy over time could be catastrophic.

 And yet, while Governor Rick perry continues to tout that Texas is open for business, clearly he has lost sight of what keeps businesses running in the long term, a strong workforce.

Letter: Perry's business incentives should go to teachers | Lubbock Online | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Gov. Rick Perry wants to hand $50 million to the Texas Enterprise Fund as a reward for companies doing business in Texas. Given the state of Texas’ $15 billion budget shortfall, is this the right move? Is this money to be given to some of Perry’s political contributors?
I find this announcement significant since our state’s legislators want to cut the budget. This $50 million would pay the salaries of over 1,000 teachers who are facing layoffs. It has been proposed that as many as 100,000 out of 333,000 teachers employed in Texas be laid off. Think of the impact this many unemployed would have on the economy of Texas.

Fear not, Perry looks like he might make a run for the Presidency, so he'll be long gone when that "cumulative effect on the economy" hits the rest of us.