That was Rick Perry in 2006. But as we know, his views are
prone to change, and it doesn't necessarily take five years to happen. So, as the
Texas Observer catalogs, Perry's support for education has not so much evolved as devolved:
Facing a $23 billion shortfall for over the next two years, the governor was adamant that the state budget get balanced through cuts. He pressured the Legislature against tapping Texas' Rainy Day fund—around $9 billion the state saved up—to help soften the blows to services. When the House Appropriations chair offered his first draft of the budget, school districts were shocked at the proposed $10 billion cut. 100,000 public school employees could face layoffs warned one education expert.
Perry wasn't concerned. He sent representatives from his office to encourage the House's austere budget. He shrugged off the worries about mass firings and school closure. "The lieutenant governor, the speaker, their colleagues aren't going to hire or fire one teacher, as best I can tell," Perry told reporters. "That is a local decision that will be made at the local districts." A local decision based on the state's decision to underfund schools.
School districts across the state opened this week $4 billion underfunded. (The extra funding came thanks to a push from concerned senators.) The cuts are still unprecedented. It's the first time since 1949, when Texas implemented its modern school finance system, that the state has decreased funding for education.
Outcomes of cuts like these can include not just mass layoffs and other cuts that leave kids without the materials they need to get a solid education, but local tax increases as towns try to fill the gaps—but to Perry, I'm sure, the answer would be that while local taxes were raised as an outcome of his state cuts, he didn't do it himself and therefore bears no responsibility.
In short, between the huge cuts and the turnaround in his support, he's pretty much the perfect poster boy for his party.