Education
Texas must have an educated workforce to meet the economic demands in a global economy. Without it, we cannot attract business and industry to Texas. Texas had over 10,000 drop outs in 2008. Each dropout cost $70,000 in lost revenue and taxes, which equals $700 million dollars in lost economic growth just in one year.
My Strategy
- Emphasis on preparing high school students to meet career/college readiness standards.
- High quality induction and mentoring programs for beginning K-12 teachers
- Better policies and practices to address the growing teacher shortage.
- 2+2+2 educator programs cross-walked from high school to community college to university to provide for better support and mentoring for aspiring young educators.
- Tuition waivers for education majors who commit to teach for a minimum of five years in districts with underserved populations or in a shortage academic area.
- Universal access to public pre-K and K programs.
- Emphasis on early literacy programs.
- Equitable school finance (we are 44th in nation in per pupil spending)
- Full formula funding for community colleges
- Allow more dual credit, concurrent enrollment, and industry standard certification programs cross-walked to community colleges—students get credit, community colleges get funding @ no taxpayer expense.
- Increased state funding and improved investment strategies that will make the Teacher Retirement System sound and increase benefits.
- More joint partnerships between education, business and industry
- Career mentoring programs that take high school students into the workplace
- Work based learning programs that allow students to apply learning in the classroom to actual practice in the workplace.
10. Increased efficiency and fine-tuning of drop-out recovery programs to decrease number of dropouts.
11. Continued and sustained efforts to develop Tier One status for Texas Tech University.
Economy
Lubbock has been rated as one of the best economies for business and for quality of life by many publications. For this to continue, we need continued diligence in researching new and emerging occupations across business and industry clusters. We cannot continue to rely on only one or two areas of income.
Emerging medical discoveries, inventions, research/development need to be kept at the forefront of our efforts.
My Strategy
- Actively support the effort to sustain free enterprise in Texas.
- Have a highly qualified, trained and educated workforce that will serve as an attraction to business and industry relocation to West Texas.
- Continue to work diligently with the Emerging Technology Fund to look for funding and research.
- Support/utilize university STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) centers to increase and retain scientific, medical and engineering talent in Texas.
- Network with business/industry leaders and foreign companies to attract new industry to our area.
- Continue to work with state and community leaders to maintain our quality of life factors which will make our area attractive to business and industry relocation.
Continue to support agriculture, agribusiness, and medical industries one of the mainstays of the Lubbock area economy
Energy
Our water crisis is extremely troubling. We cannot attract new business/industry or sustain our agricultural base without water. We can’t live without water. The Lake Allen Henry pipeline will be completed in 2012, but that water is not infinite. Water is a finite resource and we must work on reducing our usage.
My Strategy
- It takes a tremendous amount of water to produce electricity. Introducing supplemental sources of energy, such as wind and solar, would reduce our reliance on electricity alone, thereby saving water.
- No single source of energy is going to be the magic bullet for conservation. We must diversify our sources of energy.
- West Texas is a prime candidate for wind and solar energy. These options would be a move toward a greener West Texas AND bring new economic benefit to our area.
- Work with the USDA and TTU and agricultural extension stations to develop drought resistant crops that will thrive in West Texas.
- Positively encourage water conservation by residents and business and ENFORCE existing penalties for those who are water-wasters.
- Find a way to reward business and industry and residents who are water conservationists.
