From Left of College Station: Texas Monthly executive editor Paul Burka recently wrote a piece about Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry’s war on higher education. As Burka sees it, and as I see it by the way, this is an ideological war driven by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based conservative think tank.
[Note: According to this ALEC watch report, the Texas Public Policy Foundation is affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which drafts model laws which are then introduced by Republicans in state legislatures—for example, laws eliminating collective bargaining with state employee unions. ALEC has been in operation since the seventies and claims its members introduce 1,000 pieces of legislation every year in all fifty states.]In order to fight this war, Perry has stacked the Board of Regents of Texas A&M and the University of Texas with allies and campaign contributors that will align themselves with Perry’s agenda for higher education in Texas. What is Perry’s agenda?