Friday, January 23, 2015

California vs. Texas

California-ized

Let me see if I have this right.  Our new governor, Greg Abbott, is complaining that Texas is becoming more like our sister state, California, and that is a bad thing.  Let’s take a look at some areas where it just might be a good thing to be like California.  Gross Domestic Product - $2 trillion for California to $1.3 trillion for Texas; average teacher salary - $69,000 for California (4th nationally) to $48,000 (37th nationally) for Texas; average ACT score –  22.2 for California (15th nationally) to 20.9 for Texas (29th nationally); citizens not covered by insurance – 19.0 % for California (7th nationally) to 24.3 % for Texas (1st nationally) – and that is not a category where you want to be at the top; poverty rate – 16.4 % for California (18th nationally) to 18.1 % for Texas (10th nationally) – again, the lower the ranking the better; and finally highway fatality rates – 0.87 for California (41st nationally) to 1.27 for Texas (18th nationally).

Maybe California has some issues and concerns that need to be addressed as every state and country does.  But let’s not dismiss, out of hand, that state and the way they approach their own issues.  We have our own problems right here in Texas – school funding problems, environmental issues, fracking and drilling fights, and now earthquakes to deal with.  We could learn a few things from our brothers on the west coast how to handle some of these issues in a more democratic fashion.


If we were to look for best practices regardless of where they originate from, then all of us would benefit and reap the rewards of doing things in the best form possible.  Maybe that’s the way to approach governing at any level, see what has worked for others and use those techniques in your own neck of the woods.