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On Monday, Wendy Davis continued to expose Greg Abbott as a pre-K snake oil salesman. She also built on the contrast between her inclusive pre-K program and Greg Abbott’s policy of restricting access to children who fit Charles Murray’s model of children most likely to succeed.

In response to an editorial that defended Abbott’s seriously flawed plan, Wendy Davis reminded Texas about Greg Abbot’s lies about his intent to standardized test four year olds, but also the purpose behind those tests. In short, Abbott intends to peg the quality of pre-K children will get based on their performance on standardized tests.

Davis explain the merits of her policy and the problems with Abbott’s intent to gear state resources to a four-year-old’s performance on a standardized test.

“Greg Abbott’s so-called education plan does something that Texas currently does not do: impose a top down mandate tying additional state resources for pre-K classrooms with how well four year olds do on standardized test assessments. Under Abbott’s plan, school districts with pre-K students who don’t meet the mark have their resources slashed. To say that this currently takes place in Texas today is just plain wrong. Texas cannot afford Greg Abbott’s plan that picks and chooses which four year old kids get access to a quality education based on their standardized test results. That’s why parents and teachers are supporting Wendy Davis’ education plan that ensures all Texas children have access to full day pre-K that increases quality by focusing on reducing class sizes and improving the student-staff ratio.”

Republicans rely heavily on marketing ploys to make policies appear more appealing than they really are. Their worst fear is someone who digs beyond the ploy to look at the intended policy. The only thing they fear more than that is someone who has the ability to cut through the sales pitch to understand the policy and its consequences.

Wendy Davis continues to prove capable in her ability to do just that.

More importantly, she offers a superior policy that recognizes the value and importance of a pre-K program that prepares all of Texas’ children for a future instead of limiting it to a select few.

One need only look at Abbott’s views on which students are most likely to do well in standardized testing and see his citation of Charles Murray to understand why Abbott prefers to initially run away from his policy and only when caught use cryptic messaging to disguise it. It is a policy that subjects four year olds to standardized testing, and using the results of those tests to determine if the child’s future is a worthwhile investment of state resources.

This is the passage where Abbott cites Charles Murray.

Family background has the most decisive effect on student achievement, contributing to a large performance gap between children from economically disadvantaged families and those from middle-class homes.

When you consider that Murray is known for using pseudo-science to “prove” that white men are intellectualy superior to racial minorities and women, it isn’t difficult to read between the lines of Abbott’s policy intentions. He expects that white male four year olds will perform well in standardized tests, and other children will not. So when he says he intends to provide a bonus of $1500 to children who perform well on standardized tests that Abbott initially denied was part of his policy, it isn’t difficult to figure out who he expects to be providing with that money and which children he intends to leave behind.

Image: CBS