CHILDRESS — Touring a segment of House District 88, including stops in Childress, Memphis, Wellington and Wheeler, Wednesday, Aug. 31, Rep. Ken King (R) solicited feedback on issues of vital importance before beginning his sixth legislative session.
“Before beginning another legislative session, it’s important that I receive input and ideas from the constituents of District 88 to help me effectively represent and advocate for our community,” King said.
Also having served on the Public Education Committee for 10 years, King explained his top priority in the upcoming 88th Regular Legislative Session is funding and improving public education.
“Public education is the most important duty we have,” King said. “It represents the two greatest resources: our kids and our money. Most of the budget goes to public education, and that’s what most of our constituents care about.”
King also addressed school safety concerns, an issue which has been at the forefront of the legislative session since the recent school shooting in Uvalde, which took the lives of 19 students and two teachers last May.
“There’s way too many people that didn’t do their jobs,” King said. “It should have never happened.”
“We don’t want to harden schools with razor wire, armed guards and more guns on campus,” King added. “We need to recognize the large mental health problem and open up ways to combat it.”
King also noted education issues created by the pandemic, including students not reading on a grade level by third grade, the corresponding high school dropout and prison rate and the teacher shortage.
“The teacher shortage is real,” King said. “It’s not because of money – no one got into this profession for money – it’s because of classroom discipline.”
School vouchers, government- funded tokens which are redeemable for tuition fees at a school other than a public school that a student could attend for free, are another issue King plans to tackle.
“No. 1, we fund schools based on population, so rural schools get the least funding,” King said. “If vouchers take money out of the system, our schools get hit first. No. 2, the two places these private schools do not go is rural Texas and inner cities, so a voucher system doesn’t benefit our kids.”
King also addressed the 2021 Texas power crisis in which storms triggered the worst energy infrastructure failure in Texas state history, leading to shortages of water, food and heat.
“There’s tons of ways we can spend money to improve the power grid,” King said, stating that last session worked to correct issues,including the lack of communication and preparation, which ultimately caused the grid failure that effected more than 4.5 million homes and businesses and killed at least 246Texas residents.
King also touched on public bills he hopes to pass, including those to charge additional registration fees on electric cars and those to improve rural broadband.
“The number of priorities are endless,” King said. “When you’ve got 181 representatives serving 254 counties and 1,200 school districts, endless areas to spend extra funds exist, but my priority is to make sure our area west of I-35 gets proverbial pie dollars – I think we have a bright, bright future.”
