6 OctOber 19 - 25, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents account program is simply another name for something that families that can already af- ford to pay for private schools would be most likely able to take advantage of. Senate Bill 8, which would allow for families to have an education “savings account” of $8,000 per student, passed in the Senate but failed to make it through the House during the regular session earlier this year. Though it’s called a savings account, the $8,000 would actually come from state funds pro- vided to eligible students. It’s a straight-up subsidy, in other words, or a voucher. The $8,000 amount makes it easy for op- ponents of voucher programs to shoot holes through the governor’s notion of providing a choice. According to the Education Data ini- tiative, the average cost of private school tu- ition in Texas is a little over $10,000 per year. For families living paycheck to pay- check, by and large, even that $8,000 head start isn’t enough for them to “choose” to send a child to private school over the near- est public school. Critics point out that $8,000 will merely serve to provide a discount to the families al- ready equipped to pay for private school tu- ition. In addition, private schools need not accept just anyone who might be able to af- ford tuition, including students with special needs, nor are they subject to many of the same laws or regulatory standards that pub- lic schools are. All these reasons and others are why Dallas state Sen. Royce West re- ferred to any voucher-like plan as “welfare for private schools” during a Monday press conference in Austin. In February, State Board of Education member Aicha Daivis, who represents parts of Tarrant and Dallas Counties, took excep- tion to the “school choice” branding voucher proponents have employed. “It’s just a name to make it sound like it’s not as bad as it is,” she said. “There’s no way the voucher system that’s being talked about will give true choice to all parents. There’s not going to be enough money for any and all parents to take a voucher and go to private school. It won’t work like that.” Since the governor released his agenda for the special session last week, there’s been no shortage of heat thrown his way. On Monday, the Texas Tribune reported that should Abbott be unhappy with how the special session goes, he might “go after” Re- publicans who did not back his plan in their upcoming primaries. It’s something Paxton has already vowed to do against the Republi- cans who voted to impeach him last month. State Rep. Victoria Neave Criado is op- posed to Abbott’s voucher plan. “Keeping Texas at the forefront of the global economy requires additional investment in our neigh- borhood schools, teachers, and kids — not voucher scams that defund our public schools,” the representative from Mesquite wrote in an email to the Observer. “Latino students comprise the majority of kids in Texas public schools; and this attack by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor on our schools and teachers is an attack on all of us.” Along with his voucher-like program, Abbott announced the special session would tackle further border security measures and seek to end all COVID-related restrictions. The Texas Democratic Party didn’t care much for the items the governor wants the legislature to work on. “Not a single priority proposed by Greg Abbott helps ease the day-to-day lives of working Texas families,” Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. “While Texas Republicans work to defund public schools and turn our south- ern border into a war-zone, Democrats in the Texas House will propose data-driven legislation that champions communities and addresses the shortfalls of our education and immigration system head-on — not di- vert funds from struggling schools and other state agencies to fund swanky private schools that are run by shady billionaires.” On Monday, Oct. 9, Senate Democrats held a press conference with Sen. Carol Al- varado of Harris County, repeatedly refer- ring to Abbott’s plan as a “voucher scheme.” State Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Democrat from Dallas, provided closing remarks at the press conference, where he echoed his col- leagues’ sentiment. “This isn’t about parental choice or school choice or even about facts,” Johnson said, before explaining that he endorses a plan to increase the basic allotment per stu- dent, give teachers paid parental leave and base school funding on enrollment and at- tendance. “We’re spending all our time talk- ing about these voucher scams and not the things that actually help.” ▼ PUBLIC SAFETY NOT SAFE TO SAY SORRY, MAYOR: NEW RANKING SHOWS DALLAS MOST DEFINITELY NOT SAFEST CITY IN U.S. BY SIMONE CARTER E ric Johnson is a mayor on a mission: to turn Dallas into the safest major city in the U.S. Well, looks like he has his work cut out for him. That’s because Big D held down the bot- tom in a new ranking of the safest American cities by the personal finance company Wal- letHub. Of 182 cities, we limped in at No. 165. Published last week, WalletHub’s “Safest Cities in America (2023)” list scored metros across more than 40 key metrics within three broader dimensions: home and com- munity safety, natural-disaster risk and fi- nancial safety. Threats aside from flat-out crime include traffic deaths, the share of the uninsured population and the unemployment rate. Ex- perts analyzed data gathered from a wide range of entities, such as the Bureau of La- bor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, the Gun Violence Archive and more. Johnson has made it exceedingly clear that he’s a law-and-order mayor. He even referenced his safety ambitions in the Sept. 22 Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing his decision to bolt to the Republican Party. After news broke of Johnson’s political switch, Dallas City Council member Adam Bazaldua told the Observer that the “GOP is the leading party in disingenuous messag- ing, and this started in 2020 with a false nar- rative to the public that his colleagues on the council were trying to defund the police, when in all reality, he also is quick to tout be- ing the safest large city in the country, and that was done under the watch of a Demo- crat majority council.” Whether the mayor’s messaging is disin- genuous or not, it has clearly been effective. A recent Gallup poll indicates that nearly three-quarters of Americans view Dallas as safe, putting the city first among 16 cities in a ranking of perceived safety. Boston came in a close second. Johnson promoted the Gallup poll during a Fox News appearance in August, also writing in a post on his Medium account that month: “Dallas is a great city because it is a safe city.” Oh? Unfortunately for Johnson, it turns out that the idea of a super-duper-secure Dallas might be a tad bit off-base. Other Texas cities ranked higher than Dallas for overall safety: Houston (No. 151), Austin (No. 139) and El Paso (No. 125). WalletHub’s home and community safety category considered measures such as mass shootings, murders, assaults and forcible rapes, in addition to drug poisoning deaths and traffic fatalities. Certain (cough, Demo- crat-led) major metros fared better than Dal- las in this realm, such as New York City (No. 145) and San Francisco (No. 157). We lagged behind, coming in 168th place. WalletHub senior analyst Jill Gonzalez put it this way when speaking with the Ob- server: “That would mean that there’s still a lot of room for improvement in terms of ev- erything from assaults per capita, thefts per capita, to maybe needing more active fire- fighters, EMTs, paramedics per capita.” Crime aside, the Dallas area has also seen a spike in its natural-disaster risk over the past few years, particularly when it comes to flooding, Gonzalez said. She noted that Texas’ faulty power grid puts us at a higher risk, too. And Dallas is home to the fifth-highest uninsured population in the country, a ma- jor ding against its financial safety ranking, according to WalletHub. Dallas’ overall safety levels haven’t seemed to improve that much over the past dozen or so months. Last year, we were No. 166 of 180 on WalletHub’s safest-cities list, the Oak Cliff Advocate reported at the time. Some social media users have cast doubt on Johnson’s recent Big D safety claims. Yonah Freemark, senior research associ- ate at the Urban Institute, shared the afore- mentioned WSJ article in a Sept. 22 post on X (formerly Twitter). “Dallas mayor, heralding his success in convincing Americans that Dallas is the saf- est major US city (Dallas’s murder rate is ac- tually [greater than] 3x New York City’s...), becomes a Republican,” Freemark wrote. The Observer reached out to Johnson’s office for comment on the WalletHub rank- ing but didn’t receive a response before pub- lication time. He has, however, continued to give his friends at Fox News some of his time. In an interview that aired recently, John- son explained to FOX & Friends why he thinks that cities need more Republican mayors. “We can’t afford to let the cities look like they look right now,” he said. “From San Francisco to Chicago to Philadelphia to D.C., the news is filled every day with all this out- of-control, lawless behavior … it’s a culture of lawlessness.” Given that both Chicago and San Fran ranked higher than Dallas on WalletHub’s list, perhaps the mayor would do well to in- vest in a mirror. ▼ FRAUD STUCK IN DALLAS A CHIME USER LOST THOUSANDS AFTER SOMEONE STOLE HIS PHONE AND WALLET. HE HOPES HIS STORY MIGHT SERVE AS A CAUTIONARY TALE. BY SIMONE CARTER M iami resident Philip R. decided late last month to visit the much- buzzed-about Komodo restaurant and lounge in Deep Ellum. The next thing he knew, he said, someone had stolen his phone and money-clip wallet. Within a matter of hours, Philip’s savings were drained from his account on Chime, a financial tech app. Philip, who asked that his last name be withheld to protect his identity, had come to Dallas for a consulting job. He DonkeyHotey Gov. Greg Abbott followed through on his threat to call a special session for a school voucher-like program. Unfair Park from p4 >> p8
