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February 14, 2008

Comments

M. Blake Hargrove

Dear Senator Averitt,

Thank you for your dedicated service to your district and state during the past years. In these difficult times, I especially appreciate the devotion to duty that you and your colleague citizen legislators represent.

As a constituent and educator, I wanted to strongly urge you to reject "proportionality" at your Education Committee meeting this Monday. I am currently serving as Vice President of the Faculty Council at McLennan Community College and am an Instructor in the Management Department of the College. I have voted for you since moving to your district and expect your support on this issue. To me, this is the most important vote you will cast this session.

As I am sure you are aware, community colleges are an absolutely vital part of our higher education system. Through them, hundreds of thousands of Texans are provided the crucial technical and college courses which are so necessary to our state’s economic development. No other set of educational institutions so efficiently provide Texas’ population the skills imperative for our continuing competitive advantage in this global economy. As compared to our university partners, we educate a difficult student population at a fraction of the cost. Simply stated, we are the best return on higher education dollars spent by the legislature. There is no debate on this matter among even those legislators and officials who support proportionality.

Additionally, there are principles of justice involved in this issue. First, when the legislature first chartered community colleges it made a covenant– the communities would fund the physical plants and non-instructional costs, the state would fund the instructional costs. The legislature has been backsliding on this promise ever since. To require proportional funding of health insurance is to break this covenant once and for all. It would mean shifting a huge part of the state’s responsibility onto the communities. McLennan Community College District has recently issued more than seventy-five million dollars in bonds to improve its physical plants to better serve the more than nine thousand students enrolled in our college. What message does it send to the residents of our community to further burden them with costs which are a black-letter part of the state’s responsibility? At MCC, this will hurt us badly. It will shift tens of millions of dollars per decade from the state to the community.

The second justice issue involves our student population. We serve the neediest students in the higher education system. We serve the poor, the single mothers, and the minority population which our university partners are simply not able or willing to accommodate. Through our developmental courses, we help students who have not succeeded in developing academic skills in high school to raise themselves to a level sufficient to gain full access to higher education. We do this mission willingly because it is in our state’s and communities’ interest to have more productive citizens and less public assistance recipients, more taxpayers and less prisoners, more middle class working mothers and less underclass welfare moms. What messages do you send to these students if you vote for proportionality? You send some clear ones: “I don’t care as much about you as I do about real university students. It’s not the state’s responsibility to help you help yourself.” What messages do you send those instructors and administrators who serve these students? You send some clear ones: “I don’t care as much about you as I do about real university professionals. The state is going to cut its support for your health care despite the fact that you are the most productive and efficient educators in the higher education system.”

Senator Averitt, I am sure these are not the unjust and unwise messages you wish to send. There are more than two hundred full time faculty members at McLennan Community College that expect your support in this matter. Please, please vote “NO!” on proportionality. It’s not good for Texas.

Sincerely,

M. Blake Hargrove
Faculty Council Vice President
Instructor, Business Management
McLennan Community College

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