Testimony Before the House Public Education Committee
March 6, 2025
Leonora Boulton, Against HB2
Hello, my name is Nory Boulton, I am a former private school teacher, a 6th generation Texan, a graduate of K-12 public education here in Texas, and the mother of three amazing public-school children. I am against this bill because it doesn’t come close to suitably supporting our schools. I recently learned that the year I gave birth to my son, and then proceeded to live under a rock for over a decade, Texas cut funding to public education by $5.4 billion. For the past 13 years our schools have not had the funding they need. That is why they are failing, and I’m not sure why our Republican friends can’t admit that. Before you feed our schools to the voucher chipper system, perhaps you should fund them. This should be the only item on your plate, fully funding our schools. The Texas Constitution states that: it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools. You aren’t doing that. Representative Buckley told the Texas PTA that Texas has the 8th largest economy in the world, moments before he told us that $200 per student was expensive. Our schools need to be funded as they were before the Great Recession, and to catch up after a decade of austerity. I believe that number is an additional $1340 per student. You cannot talk about our wealth in the same breath as you deny a robust investment in growing Texans.
These are pictures of my great-great aunt, whom I’m named after, Leonora Hummel, and her sister Helena. Their father Charles Frederick Augustus Hummel was a merchant in San Antonio, whose father emigrated from Germany in 1847. My family came to Texas for new opportunities, which included public education. In 1907 both of my aunts were teaching German in the public school system in San Antonio. The women in my family have been invested in public education in Texas since it began, and I don’t plan on ending that tradition anytime soon. We carry that strength in our names, for my daughter too is a Lenore.
I’d like to explain to you what happens to even the highest rated schools in Texas, like the one my children attend. Our school is a “good” school in SW Austin. Our principal has fought for us to have two Certified Academic Language Therapists on-staff, but we don’t have the budget for an early interventionist. Representative Buckley explained to the Texas PTA that we need to have private tutor vouchers in order to support students who aren’t learning how to read in their school. I stood in line at the microphone to explain to him what an early interventionist was, but he left the room before I could. An early interventionist is a professional who works with students who are identified as needing more help with developmental skills, specifically reading. When we are able to pay her salary, students at our school who are struggling are able to leave the classroom and work with her one-on-one to address their specific needs. Republicans want families to get vouchers to pay for private tutors outside of school hours to provide this same service. I guess they don’t want to pay a living wage to professionals who are dedicated to our public schools and our children? I know today isn’t about vouchers, but your argument for vouchers is tied to the fact that you are intentionally underfunding schools to the point where they fail. I feel the need to point that out.
Since Texas does not adequately fund our public schools, every Spring our school holds an APEX fun run. I can safely say that our families hate it, and our students love it. This is to pay for our Early Interventionist, the patron-saint of our school, whose career annually hangs in the balance, dependent on how much money we’re able to raise after giving a cut to APEX. This past year we didn’t raise enough, so she lost her job. Rather than leave our community she graciously stepped up and returned to the classroom when another teacher suddenly left. Like our entire school community, we’ll just have to wait and see if we are able to raise enough funds to have her on staff serving our most vulnerable students once more.
I’m sure you don’t appreciate threats, but I don’t appreciate spending my days at the capitol begging my lawmakers to support 92% of Texas children. You have power now, but the tide is turning here in Texas and across the nation. I have another picture, this is me and my mom, another Lenore. When she worked as the photographer for the House, she was a Republican in the minority. The pendulum swings back and forth and it’s been going your way for a long while now. I’m not a political strategist, but I think you should stay on the side of Texas moms. I’m just a Texas mom who started talking on Instagram. I checked this morning, since February 4th 1.9 million people have viewed my content. I am being very honest about your plan for Texas education. I get about 500 followers a day, and I always post my location so that the algorithm is targeted to Texans. That means that by the end of your term, I might have close to 500,000 followers, considering the likelihood of exponential growth. I’m not a billionaire. This is my only ammo; I don’t get to buy politicians. But I can buy attention. And unlike the Republicans in America, I grab attention by lobbing the truth. I’m a teacher. I’m a former lecturer. I know how to speak so that people are engaged and learn. And I will teach them what you do this session, and what their response should be.
Leonora Boulton
Testimony Against HB 3
House Public Education Committee
March 11, 2025
Let’s slice through the rhetoric and call this what it really is; one more way for billionaires to make money and destroy the lives of regular Americans. All of your talking points are outright lies that I don’t have time to refute here. We have school choice now; people are free to transfer to schools. They are also free to talk with their school if they have an issue, and the school is pretty likely to listen to them because they’re so desperate for enrollment and funding after a seventy-one-year smear campaign by the Republicans. Because, let’s be honest, vouchers were an idea in response to school integration. A ticket away from black students. A way to ensure that white people didn’t have to share any of their resources with the people they had been taught to hate. I’ve watched Senator West politely bring up this point. I won’t be so polite. Vouchers were a way to avoid integration in the 1950’s, and they are a way to further segregate our schools today. They are absolutely rooted in racism and white supremacy. I’m not worried about my family, we can afford for me to stay home and homeschool when our schools disintegrate. I’m also not worried about Christian Nationalists who are terrified of their children being taught truth, it’s about time they return to reality. I’m worried about the rural poor and the black children who will be victims of a new form of structural racism. Your president has banned that word, as if we live in a country without free-speech. Forbidding things doesn’t eliminate them.
After he suggested to southerners that they create a voucher program, Milton Friedman went on to found Ed Choice. Milton Friedman is an economist. I’m not sure why anyone thinks an economist is the person to listen to when it comes to education, but I guess if he’s singing the tune you want to hear, you’ll listen. In the bits of the Senate Education Committee hearing and the floor debate I watched, Senator Creighton referenced this non-profit and their research several times. It’s funny, when I want to make a case for or against something, I don’t use biased sources. That was literally what I taught my 8th grade students. I’m happy to lead a seminar if any of you need a refresher on an 8th grade persuasive essay. Milton Friedman is also a Libertarian. Libertarians fundamentally do not believe in public education. Here’s where that funny piece about listening to an economist about education comes in. They think schools are better with the free-market. Here in America, we worship at the feet of the free-market, but we haven’t actually been living with one for over one hundred years, in my opinion as a non-economist, former educator. Public schools are not businesses, this is a fallacy. I’m not sure what type because I’m not an attorney, but I know rotten logic when I see it. Our schools exist for the public good and they serve every child in our community. They are not profitable, and their nature as a space for everyone necessarily means their “scores” are low. It is time that our schools were evaluated by educators and not politicians, no offense.
The goal of Milton Friedman, the man Texas Republicans quote to justify this program, and of Jeff Yass, one of the billionaires financing this push, is the obliteration of public schools in favor of privatized ones. (I’m ignoring the Bigoted-West-Texas-Christian-Nationalist-Beverly-Hillbillies for the sake of timeliness.) According to Dr. Joshua Cowen they get back $100 in public money for every $1 they spend on a campaign for a politician who will push for vouchers. That means Jeff Yass invested $12 million, and will get back $1.2 billion. I’m married to a trader. They love a challenge, and gambles thrill them, they’re obsessive. Yass has moved past the markets and his next frontier is our children. If you begin this program, we all know it’ll grow, Texas Senators made that clear with the amendments they rejected. It’ll destroy public education and our economy, as it has in Arizona. I understand our governor has accepted millions of dollars and promised to get this done, but that sounds like a him problem. I believe this program is unconstitutional. I know y’all think you live in a red state, but that’s a result of the gerrymandering of the Republicans. We are purple. And if you allow this program to begin, and the people who currently believe your lies see what it means in practice, this state will turn royal blue, as it was in my childhood. I’m so excited for that day. Thank you!