Today we’d like to introduce you to Troy Reynolds.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In 2011, I was a rookie elementary principal. I happened to gain the position at the time when the huge budget cuts put into place by the Texas legislature hit. As a result, I had to lay off almost 15% of my teaching staff. I was emotionally unprepared for it, and it broke me. I was completely prepared to move out any teacher who was bad for kids, but these were good teachers who my students needed. I walked around angry for a couple of years, and as I studied our legislature, I became angrier.
It became increasingly obvious that there was a group within our legislature who did not have students’ best interests in mind. Instead, they were interested in privatization so that they and donors like Empower Texans and their shill groups like Texas Public Policy Foundation, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Texas Right to Life, and others could pocket billions in taxpayer money. I created Texans for Public Education (T4PE) as a group on Facebook essentially to communicate with other educators, and as a place to commiserate with one another. Instead, as the legislature committed hostile act after hostile act, people began seeking out an avenue to fight back, and our membership began to grow.
We now have roughly 29,000 members who have committed to “block vote” with us in the group. We have established a mission to put into state office elected officials who demonstrate that they care about and wish to fix the problems in the public school system instead of running away from them and trying to take advantage of our children and teachers. We had success in our first true effort in the 2018 election, where our “block vote” candidates won at a rate of 75% in the house, 80% in the State Board of Education, and 40% in the Senate.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not. Once our opponents discovered what we were doing, we were attacked from several different directions. Empower Texans labels me a “liberal extremist” even though I have voted Republican my entire life. Open Records Requests were sent to pretty much every school district in the state using my name and the name of our organization as key search terms in a fishing expedition to make an example out of anyone who dared speak our name.
Ken Paxton actually wrote an attorney general’s opinion which grossly misrepresents what the law says in an attempt to strike fear into teachers and suppress their votes for his donors. However, because we are true grassroots and accept no money at all, our opponents have been unable to use many of the dirty tricks which they have in their repertoire since campaign finance law, open records act, and the Texas Ethics Commission don’t apply to us.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Texans for Public Education – what should we know?
Our mission is to place into state office elected officials who support public education.
We do so in a non-partisan manner by rating each candidate as friendly, neutral, or unfriendly based on research of voting records, media releases, campaign contributions, organizational memberships, and anything else we can find, then voting en masse on the ratings. Every member has a voice if they so wish in the process. We then all vote the same way at the polls. We use a bloc of votes to block those who wish to harm public schools, so the #blockvote that we use is a bit of a play on words.
Both parties are now attempting to co-opt the hashtag, so it’s apparently become pretty powerful. I’m proudest because we truly are non-partisan. We have managed to do what others think can’t be done. We are a united group of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, and many other political walks. We are united in purpose by education, which is the only issue we look at on the state level.
We can do that because we limit ourselves to state government and we educate people as to the powers of government. We don’t get involved in federal issues like gun control and abortion because those are decided on the federal level of government. State government is truly about mundane things like schools, prisons, roads, utilities, infrastructure, and taxes to run them. Anything else focused upon by a state candidate is simply a shiny object to distract people from a lack of platform. We try to educate people to interview for the job description, and it works.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
We have a group of moderators who act as admins for us. They help with everything from moderating the group to researching the candidates to putting together rallies and forums. They also participate in establishing the foundational ratings presented to the whole group so that the membership can then decide as to which ratings they wish to challenge. They are the heart and soul of the group.
While some are known by the membership, others have preferred to stay anonymous, so I can’t list them here, but I cannot speak enough to how important they are or to what degree they have become family to me. They are scattered all over the state, so meeting with them in person is like a family reunion, and I look forward to it each time.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.texansforpubliceducation.com
- Phone: 281-306-3827
- Email: admin@texansforpubliceducation.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/texansforpubliceducation/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TexansforPublicEd/
- Twitter: @Texans4E
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