As an educator, I find Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s bogus $10,000 raise claim offensive

Carl Garner

There seems to be no end to what the lieutenant governor will say in his attempt to convince Texans that he is pro-public education.

Among the daily barrage of television ads to which Texans have been subjected recently, one lie stands out for its particular audacity.

In his most recent ad, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-Texas) doubles down on an already debunked claim that he proposed giving teachers a $10,000 raise during the last legislative session.

As an educator, I am startled by this claim for a number of reasons.

At no point during the regular session did Lt. Gov. Patrick show any concern for increasing educator pay. Only after the close of the regular session, when it became clear that his anti-education agenda might finally push educators into action at the polls, did Patrick entertain talk of a raise. The Senate briefly considered a far more modest $1,000 raise but refused to fund it – suggesting cash-strapped districts simply “find the money” to make it happen.

Had that proposal passed, many districts would have had to fire good educators to be able to fund the raises of their former colleagues. Once educators realized Lt. Gov. Patrick and his Senate weren’t serious about truly helping us, we walked away frustrated, if unsurprised.

As far as Lt. Gov. Patrick’s respect for teachers goes, it was nowhere more evident than in his push last session to effectively kick them out of the Capitol through legislation hindering their ability to voluntarily participate in professional associations that advocate for higher standards and more student resources.

Politicians lie. I get it.

But I confess this lie cuts me in a way that is deeply personal.

As an educator, I know what it’s like to spend $400 out of my own pocket every year on classroom supplies for my students. I know the suffocating feeling of watching my healthcare costs go up as my salary stays the same. I know what it’s like to work 12-hour days only to flip on the radio and hear people like Dan Patrick accuse us of failing our kids.

Under Lt. Gov. Patrick, the Texas Senate has steadily decreased the state’s share of public school funding to just 36 percent, forcing local school districts to make up the difference by hiking up local property taxes. Now we’re to believe this same lieutenant governor secretly proposed a $10,000 raise for 350,000 teachers – which would cost more than $4 billion a year – and somehow we missed it?

In fact, the lieutenant governor was so loath to invest another dime in public education last session that he killed a bill that would have contributed as much as 1.9 billion additional dollars to our state’s 5.4 million schoolchildren. Why? He wanted a taxpayer-funded voucher for his private school friends.

Who exactly is failing our kids, Mr. Patrick?

The $10,000 raise claim is so ludicrous that the non-biased fact-checkers at PolitiFact Texas found it false back in February, but Mr. Patrick keeps repeating it. In doing so, he cheapens the genuine personal struggles I and other educators face as a result of his politics.

Perhaps if he’d gone to school in Texas, he’d have been taught that it’s wrong to lie. Perhaps he’d help Texas teachers instead of attack us. Despite his attempts to rewrite history, educators know who Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is.

Perhaps that’s his problem.

Carl Garner, Jr., is ATPE’s Past State President. He is a teacher in Mesquite ISD.