On the latest episode of The Dallas Express Podcast, Sarah Zubiate Bennett interviewed Genevieve Collins, the Texas director for Americans for Prosperity.
Collins was asked about education reform in Texas and why she chose to be involved.
“My great-grandfather was a teacher at the turn of the 20th century and invested a lot of his time and money in ensuring that kids have a better future,” Collins said.
“We believe across our whole family that every child has gifts and deserves to contribute meaningfully to society but also deserves the opportunity to have a world-class education,” she added.
Collins said this topic is personal for her. Her father was also involved in education policy in the 1980s.
Bennett asked Collins about how school district bureaucracies factor into whether students get a quality education or not. Collin argued that such systems are designed to protect themselves and have a lot of influence in many parts of Texas, especially in the rural House districts.
“We have a massive education bureaucracy across 1200 school districts,” she said, noting that such weight can be brought to bear against reform efforts like school choice.
Collins said she got 1,200 people to show up in Austin and provide testimony to legislators about how education savings accounts — which use taxpayer money to defray the costs of private school or homeschooling — could uplift and empower low-income families.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a number of Texas school districts have been losing students to education alternatives, likely in part due to flagging student achievement outcomes. For instance, only 41% of Dallas ISD students scored at grade level on their 2021-2022 STAAR exams, and almost 20% of its graduating seniors that school year did not earn a diploma in four years.
Bennett asked Collins if parents even know their kids are attending failing schools.
Collins said she did not think a lot of them do, but she also criticized state legislators who purportedly do not think many parents are capable of making the right decisions for their children when it comes to education.
She said that parents should be empowered, arguing that parental involvement equates to better outcomes for children.
Throughout her interview, Collins emphasized how students must be prepared for life after graduation and allowed to excel, adding that a school choice education savings account would be beneficial to Texas students since it would give more options to low-income families that would otherwise be stuck in poor-performing school districts.
For the full interview and more episodes of The Dallas Express Podcast, click here.