In the video below you can see Texas Republican State Sen. Don Huffines getting himself into a bit of a huff during an argument he was having with a group of students he met during their visit to the Capitol. Like most Republicans—and some Democrats (I’m looking at you, Cory Booker)—Huffines supports school voucher programs. School voucher programs have been proven to do little more than help privatize American education. This, in turn, leads to even fewer educational opportunities for the growing majority of citizens who cannot afford high-level private education.
When the students, who are from the Richardson Independent School District (RISD), started challening Huffines things got a little heated.
Hours earlier, video surfaced showing Huffines sparring with the student, who was apparently visiting the Capitol with a group from Richardson ISD. In the video, the student argued against a proposed stipend to send students to private schools, saying it was not enough money for low-income families to be able to enroll their children.
"Do you want me to give them $15,000? Is that what you want? So they can all go to Hockaday, so they can all go to St. Mark's?" Huffines asked, referring to two expensive private schools in Dallas. "You want to give them a full tuition? That is the most selfish thing I've ever heard."
You can watch the exchange below and you can see why Sen. Huffines is being such an asshole. He doesn’t have any real argument except the bare essentials: rich people get to have high quality, expensive education and poorer people don’t — and that’s “fair.” It’s pretty extraordinary to watch how obviously flawed the idea of vouchers actually is.
