WTF of the Week: Rick Perry's Orwellian Doublespeak

Governor Perry, pictured here shooting the state in the foot.

Despite the almost $10 billion in cuts to public education proposed by the Texas state legislature, Governor Rick Perry has decided that local districts--not government officials--are responsible for impending teacher layoffs. From KVUE (bonus--video embedded in the article has footage of my school!):

During a news conference Wednesday, Perry said the layoffs hitting nearly every school district are not the state's fault.

"The state of Texas is not who employs the members of the school district.  As a matter of fact, the lieutenant governor, the speaker (of the Texas House and) their colleagues, are not going to hire or fire one teacher the best I can tell.  That is a local decision that will be made at the local districts," said the governor.

Yes, you read that correctly: Rick Perry has absolved himself and the state legislature of responsibility for the nearly 100,000 teachers statewide who will likely lose their jobs. It must be easy for Perry to keep claiming he's creating jobs when public employees don't count in the calculation.

But Perry doesn't stop at excusing himself from blame; in the same speech, he goes on to imply (through false choice) that school districts have caused the budget crisis by hiring on too many administrators. From The Statesman:

"Over the course of the last decade, we have seen a rather extraordinary amount of nonclassroom employees added to school rolls," he said. "Are the administrators and the school boards going to make a decision to reduce those or are they going to make a decision to reduce the number of teachers in the classroom?"

"I certainly know where I would point," Perry said. "I think the nonteaching corps would be the first place that I would look if there were going to be reductions that are made."

Even if Perry's claims were true (non-teacher positions have increased about 1% statewide over the last decade), his rhetoric would still border on demagogy. Perry's real strategy is to make the budget crisis seem inevitable--by pinning blame for layoffs on school districts, he circumvents any discussion about other options for closing the budget deficit. 

Meanwhile, students in my classes this morning created and began circulating a petition protesting proposed cuts to their elective classes and the shortening of their school day. Both of these changes will have significant, negative impacts on my students; however, so will the 62 other proposed cuts to the district budget (totaling nearly $12 million).