Americans agree that a child's future should not depend on his
or her heritage, parents' income or neighborhood. Our sense of
justice insists that be the land of opportunity where all
citizens are considered equal, that wherever a student comes
from or lives he or she should have the opportunity to succeed.
All children must have access to quality education. But how we
carry this out has led to an ongoing debate. There are still
people who have difficulty accepting that access should be
relatively equal for all children. Currently, Texas has a two-
tiered, unjust public school system that provides poor or
mediocre education for most children and excellent education for
a select few. Until the recent backwards steps, many schools
were beginning to reap the benefits from the state’s earlier
commitment to equalize education funding for all of its
children. Student achievement improved, taxpayers were more
equally sharing the cost of paying for public schools, and
businesses were seeing the results of better-prepa