RE: Discarding Needlessly Afterwards

Last Thursday a classmate of mine wrote an article discussing the poor job of courts in using DNA as evidence prior to sentencing. (“Many times, DNA and other records only become available upon appeal.”) They brought to surface the current release of the wrongly-sentenced inmate, Michael Morton and continued on to defend the use and storage of DNA for future court cases to prevent similar instances from occurring. What I also discovered is that DNA is destroyed and thrown out after cases that end in conviction.  However, the justice system is obviously flawed so, as my classmate suggested, evidence should be kept for as long as possibly needed. I liked this article, especially the solutions my classmate provided regarding DNA storage for future use and would agree that our already unjust justice system should make any and all additional efforts to be... more just.

School vs State: Less Money, More Problems

     It’s mid October and based on the Austin American Statesman, schools are being seriously shorted the money they need to be adequately run. As a result, the 150 Texas school districts that are a part of the Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, are suing the state for the serious decrease in public school funding. Just over the summer, schools had lost out in over $4 billion in funding. Now, I do recall writing a post about that same amount of money earlier this semester. It was a little while after the summer that many teachers throughout Texas went unemployed due to the $4 billion loss known as state budget cuts. The teachers that were left then had more work to do, gaining larger class sizes and any additional work that other employees would’ve normally done had they not lost their jobs. Of course, all the extra work for the same pay they had before.

      The coalition states “that the school finance system is unfair, inefficient and unconstitutional” and “doesn't treat Texas schoolchildren or taxpayers fairly.” There are schools outside of Texas that I know to have performing arts academies, medical and technical programs, and etcetera while we struggle to even keep basic elective courses in our schools.  It doesn’t make sense for my mom to come out of pocket for more school supplies because the school can’t afford them. Also for her to keep paying taxes just so my sister can go to school and solely take core classes with thirty to forty of her peers. Public education is already not the best so why be so ready to make it worse? I could go on and on but nothing will change for the better until the legislature does and only time, and our students, will tell.