NEW: Hinojosa Calls Out Texas Public Schools in Crisis After 12 Years of Greg Abbott

Hinojosa: “The spending at the state level is out of control when it comes to bureaucracy in the Texas Education Agency. We need to call it what it is: waste.”

Austin, TX – Today at the interim hearing of the state House Committee on Public Education, Democratic candidate for Governor Gina Hinojosa called out Greg Abbott and the Texas Education Agency for burning through taxpayer dollars that should be going directly to classrooms.

“The money that is being spent at the Texas Education Agency is bureaucracy,” said Hinojosa. It is not money that is going to the classroom. We know that our schools are cash-strapped. We know that schools are shutting down all over the state. We know that teachers are leaving in record numbers because they’re not being paid their worth, and that money would be better spent in the classroom.” And as families face uncertainty with the spread of AI in classrooms, Hinojosa added, “We should not be spending taxpayer dollars to use AI as a substitute for teachers in the classroom.”

Hinojosa painted a stark picture of what the Greg Abbott Corruption Tax has produced: more than 100 schools shutting down, over 150 school districts on four-day weeks, and Texas students falling further behind their peers nationwide – all while the state wastes money on the STAAR test that constantly changes its own measurements.

Still, Greg Abbott puts Texas schools last, funnelling $1 billion into a voucher scam that drains taxpayer dollars from neighborhood public schools into unaccountable private operators. While Abbott’s corruption continues to hurt Texas families, students, and teachers, Hinojosa is committed to ending Abbott’s corrupt vendor contracts, increasing teacher pay, and reducing class sizes.

###