From Cape you news in Austin,
you're watching Texas this week
with actually good. Oh good.
Sunday morning takes as lawmakers are
passing a flurry of bills these days.
So in this morning, three things
to know in Texas politics.
Let's talk legislation.
Every session a battle ensues between
the state of Texas and City of Austin.
For some policy, the city passes
and this session is no exception.
The Austin Council passed.
Several policy is contrary to the
governors positions and this week the
Senate passed a bill aimed at one of them,
Senate Bill 23 band cities and counties,
from reducing the percentage of their
budgets that go to law enforcement
unless voters approve the move.
In other words,
they can't take money away from
police Department's unless voters
give it the green light.
If a city or County reduces the
police budget without voter approval,
they will not be allowed to increase taxes.
The bill is now in the House's hands.
The House passed a bill to allow eligible
Texans to carry handguns without a permit.
House Bill 1927 makes the license
to carry optional so that Texans 21
and older who are eligible to carry
a gun in the state can carry one
openly or concealed without a permit.
The bill now goes to the Senate.
Transgender children were the subject
of bills that saw movement this week.
The Senate passed SB 29,
which requires public school athletes
to compete in sports based on the ***
listed on their original birth certificate,
not the gender they identify with.
It does make an exception for trans boys
allowing them to participate in boys sports.
If a girl team is not available and the
House and Senate committees both took
up bills to essentially ban hormone
therapies and surgeries for trans children.
You are transitioning house
committees have just about three weeks
left to consider bills and send them
to the full House for consideration.
an A Central Texas based group is
hoping to build their backing can
make it out of committee Mimi styles.
Founder and president of measure.
Join me to talk about the bill.
Maybe for people who
are not familiar with measure, tell us about
the organization.
Definitely so measure where a research
and public education organization we
are led and bounded by black women.
We are just very interested in
people of color using using their
own data to tell their own story,
and so that's really the work that we do.
We're based in Austin,
but we are now reaching into
different parts of the country.
That work and
one of the key things that you said there
and what you do is you use the data.
Talk to us about just how big of a role
that plays into everything that you guys do.
Absolutely well, you know data
can be very interesting, right?
There's a lot of bias in data.
Data can tell stories in
any way that you use it,
and So what we believe at measure
is that data has not been used very
effectively in ways to produce the
change that we want to see in social
justice and the social justice ecosystem.
And So what we do at measure
is that we partner with black
and Brown LED organizations.
We provide them free.
Data and evaluation support.
In order to tell a story and that
story in many cases and the work
that we do is story of injustice,
whether it's education, justice,
health, justice, criminal justice,
or economic justice.
We go.
We partner with organizations in
order to make sure that what you
know that they're bringing backs
to the table and you like to use
these facts to try to make change
at a local and state level.
And in fact, you guys had a bill.
That was heard in committee this week.
Talk to us about what you like
to call the measure Ville.
Yeah, it's a game changer,
so HP 3485 is what we're calling the
measure billet sponsored by Representative
Goodwyn and it really offers this solve.
Not maybe not assault, but a solution.
One solution to breaking the
school to prison pipeline.
We've talked about the school to
prison pipeline about breaking that
school to prison pipeline and so
many different systems and ways.
But what we have not done yet is
we haven't really given the power
of data to parents.
So what HP 3045 is?
Asking all schools to do in Texas is to
provide the data of disproportionate
disciplinary action on all kids,
and so we're you know when
parents have the data.
What we've learned is that parents will
get active when we know we will go,
and so that's that's really what HP
3045 is when we talk about the school
to prison pipeline,
there are people who may not be
familiar with what we see happening.
Within our schools and how
it impacts our prison system.
So talk to us about what exactly is
the school to prison pipeline. And of
course I know you have
data to back it all up.
That's a really good question.
The school to prison pipeline are
really the policies that are set up,
the practices that are happening in
our schools that disproportionately
impact black and Brown children,
and pushing them out of
school and into this this.
This atmosphere of criminalization.
And So what we've seen,
according to a recent study,
is that black and Brown children are
more likely to be suspended or expelled
from Texas schools than white students.
For example,
you asked about the data, right?
So just recently,
in 2018 and 2019,
we found that black students were
nearly five times more likely than
white students to to be disciplined.
We saw that black students made up only,
you know, 13.48%.
Of the student population,
but it's just it gets.
It gets to be even worse too.
When you look at the disciplinary
rates with black girls,
we know that black female students make
up about 7.6% of the school population.
But they made up about 20% of the
reported disciplinary action.
And that's according to the OCR data,
and so you know.
And this is not something that
central to Texas.
It's national.
It's this is the way we
have set up this system.
To treat our our students and so
we add measure are really about.
How do we operationalize data in a way
that it gives power to the parents,
so that they know what's
happening in their schools,
so that they can then show up with data,
and armed with information that could
possibly make change in their schools?
There may
be people who say, OK, well,
these students are disciplined more,
they're suspended more,
but how does that correlate to prison?
Explain that for us.
Well, I mean.
So when you have more likelihood
of being disciplined in school,
sometimes that means that you're
being referred to the justice system.
And so it's this very quick pathway to
you know to the juvenile justice system.
And many times we see that these the
same kids that are being disciplined
in school or are kids that may have
had touches with Child Protective
Services or may have had, you know,
some other things in their home
happened to them towards they.
Need support, so we're asking for, you know,
we don't need additional disciplinary
action when a kid just needs help.
Where are the counselors you know?
Where are the people that are
going to be that village to that
student that needs that support?
And another thing is that we're
also finding that many of these
children are kids that have some
type of that are able differently,
and so we are not addressing root issues.
It seems as if the answer for.
Any teachers or for many school
administrators is more so treat an issue
with discipline rather than understanding.
You know this bill to me seems
like it would not only be able to help
the parents to want to take action,
but also the teachers and the administrators.
If a teacher perhaps has a bias that
they do not recognize that they are
sending certain students to the office
more than other students of a certain,
you know gender anreis.
This could open their eyes
to right. You know I, I think you are
absolutely right and we have teachers,
several teachers that are
backing this bill as well.
They are also very interested
in what they can do to break
the school to prison pipeline.
One organization that comes to
mind is educators in solidarity.
They have become.
They have came around this bill in
a way that I did not expect at all.
Writing letters, making phone calls.
It is truly.
A an opportunity for the village.
The American Village,
the Texas village to come
together and say give us the data,
give us the information,
give us the power to make change in.
Some might argue,
well the data is out there, right?
They might say, go ahead onto TAS
website and you can download the data.
The problem is,
open data is not always open,
accessible to everyone.
The measure bill.
Again,
is that game changer it's saying give us
the data in a way that we understand it.
How can we have the data in a in
a snapshot to know exactly what's
happening at our schools so that
we can be more informed and make
those make those decisions about
what's happening with our kids?
You can read more about the bill on
caveview.com. That's Texas this week.