Abbott Freezes Data Centers: Ex-GOP Chair Explains Why

Governor Abbott just ordered Texas regulators to freeze new data center hookups to the power grid until they pass an audit, and former Republican Party of Texas chair James Dickey joins Garrett Fulce to explain exactly why, plus what it means for the fight over massive new 765-kilovolt transmission lines cutting across the state. Dickey, who now runs JD Key Consulting and publishes Hyperscale News, breaks down the difference between a real policy fight over eminent domain and water use versus manufactured outrage, plus what he's seeing on the 2026 campaign trail. Then Garrett goes solo to break down the TEA's new A-F school ratings, why Austin ISD is on track for a state takeover, and why that's a political headache for a certain gubernatorial candidate.

This week: Abbott's PUC and ERCOT audit of data centers, the messy fight over 765kV transmission lines connecting the Permian Basin to the rest of the state, what a former state party chair is seeing on the campaign trail heading into November, and predictions for what actually passes in the 90th Legislature. Then, the state's newest school ratings are out, and Austin ISD's repeated failing grades are about to become both a policy problem and a campaign problem.

Topics discussed:
- Governor Abbott's directive requiring PUC and ERCOT audits before new data centers connect to the grid
- How Senate Bill 6's new "batch" process is supposed to fix ERCOT's endless interconnection evaluations
- Why data centers' water-use survey compliance came in under 20%
- The fight over 765-kilovolt transmission lines linking the Permian Basin to the Texas Triangle
- Eminent domain, property rights, and who's really driving the need for new transmission
- Balancing renewable and dispatchable power on the Texas grid
- James Dickey's read on 2026 campaign unity and messaging discipline
- Predictions for the 90th Legislature: property tax cuts, school choice, water infrastructure
- The TEA's new A-F school ratings and a likely Austin ISD state takeover
- Why Austin ISD's failing grades are a political problem for Gina Hinojosa
- Houston ISD's state takeover results, merit pay, and early-intervention teaching

Guest: James Dickey is the founder and principal of JD Key Consulting, publisher of Hyperscale News, and former chair of the Republican Party of Texas (2017–2020). Find him on X and LinkedIn.

Chapters:
0:00 Cold Open
0:29 Meet James Dickey
1:35 Abbott's Grid Audit Explained
10:36 765kV Transmission Line Fight
22:24 GOP Campaign Trail Insights
29:33 2027 Session Priorities Preview
33:58 TEA Ratings & Austin ISD Crisis
44:45 Houston ISD Takeover Lessons

Sources:
- The Texas Tribune — By Paul Cobler — August 3, 2026 — New Texas data center projects frozen until state audits them — https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/03/texas-data-center-project-audit-greg-abbott/
- Texas Policy Research — August 4, 2026 — Texas Releases First Education Freedom Accounts Report — https://www.texaspolicyresearch.com/texas-releases-first-education-freedom-accounts-report/
- The Texas Tribune — July 31, 2026 — Texas must rethink massive transmission lines, lawmakers say — https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/31/texas-transmission-lines-dan-patrick/
- Texas Scorecard — Patrick, Schwertner Call on PUC To Reject Controversial 765-kV Transmission Applications — https://texasscorecard.com/state/patrick-schwertner-call-on-puc-to-reject-controversial-765-kv-transmission-applications/
- The Texas Tribune — By Andrea Ball — August 14, 2026 — Failing AISD campuses reach Texas threshold for state intervention — https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/14/austin-isd-ratings-texas-school-takeover-trigger/
- KERA News — August 14, 2026 — Texas schools see modest improvement in 2026 A-F ratings. Here's how they fared — https://www.keranews.org/texas-news/2026-08-14/texas-education-public-school-rating-tea-2026
- Houston Public Media — August 13, 2026 — 4 HISD schools receive F ratings, Mike Miles says, a year after there were no failing campuses — https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2026/08/13/559474/hisd-accountability-ratings-houston-schools-wheatley-high-school/
- K-12 Dive — Houston ISD stays at B rating in 2025-26 — https://www.k12dive.com/news/houston-isd-stays-at-b-rating-in-2025-26/827960/
- MyRGV.com — October 24, 2025 — Democrat cites Valley roots in bid to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — https://myrgv.com/local-news/2025/10/24/democrat-cites-valley-roots-in-bid-to-challenge-republican-gov-greg-abbott/

Find us at seeingredpodcast.substack.com for full episodes. Follow us on all socials at @theseeingredpod and online at our website Seeing Red Podcast. x.com/gwfulce 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to Seeing Red. I'm your host, Garrett Folse. We got a great episode lined up for you. We got the former RPT chair, James Dicky, to talk about data centers, what's going on with the RPT, and how Republicans are attacking this very challenging election cycle. Plus, going to talk about the TEA ratings, all that, and so much more on this week's episode of Seeing Red. This week we have an incredible guest with us to talk more about data centers, AI, transmission lines, all the fights that are going on with infrastructure in Texas. That's right. We have the founder and principal of JDK Consulting. We have, he's also the publisher of Hyperscale News, and former RPT chair of the Republican Party of Texas chair, James Dickey. James, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I'm doing great. It's so good for you to have me on the show. Really appreciate it and look forward to talking about these really important issues.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Well, thanks for joining with me. Now, just so the folks know, we're recording this a little bit in advance of when this episode comes out. So if we refer to something happening like last week or something, it's probably a couple weeks ago. But in that vein, Governor Abbott's been making a lot of news on the data center front. And one of the things he's done recently in our world is he's implemented an audit that needs to be put take place by PUC and ERCOT before certain data centers can start being built. Can you explain a little bit about what this order entails?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah, so the legislature in the last session, uh, over a year and a half ago, implemented Senate Bill 6. And Senate Bill Six, I think is one of those fantastic examples of how our legislature, much more often than not, get things gets things right and gets them uh right before even the public has made it a thing. So in Senate Bill Six, in nearly two years ago, over a year and a half ago, they passed a law that said any new large load coming onto ERCOT's grid has to put up a very significant fee and be part of a new batch evaluation process. So the problem was anytime someone knew wanted to connect to the grid, they would apply, and that would be great. And then ERCOT would do a big evaluation, and we needed to be sure the fee for the evaluation was enough. The taxpayers weren't paying for the cost of that evaluation. And then the problem was we'd do the evaluation and be about 90% done with the evaluation, and then somebody else would raise their hand and go, Oh, I want to attach to the grid. And I'm like three miles away. And then the ERCOT inspectors, regulators, and staff would go, oh crap. Well, that kind of invalidates all the evaluation we've just done. So now we have to start over. So what you had was supposed to be an 18-month process. And in reality, in some cases, started to become a never-ending process because every time that got close to being done, someone new would want to attach to the grid. So SV6 said, forget all that, all that constant race condition that makes it so that you can never finish. We're going to do this in batches. Well, that batch process, the PUC and ERCOT started working on the rules to set up the batch process. They they've been working on those rules, and they were set in early August to announce, okay, here's everybody who made it into batch zero. And just before that announcement was to go out, no doubt was some knowledge of how many folks in that batch were in fact data centers. And having just learned in a public hearing uh just weeks ago that they also required by law survey of how data centers were using water and how much water they were using, the compliance with that was less than 20% compliant. That's the water portion with the with replying to the water survey. And that's just entirely unacceptable. There, there is no reason that any business operating in Texas would not just comply with the law, especially when complying with the law is just reporting what you've already done. And yet 80% of the data centers did not. Well, with those two things combined, the governor said, whoa, stop. We've got non-compliant folks who undoubtedly some of whom might also be involved in this batch process. Before you take the batch process any further, you need to be sure to evaluate it. And you need to be sure to get compliance with the audits. And you need to be sure that you're actually making the decision based on a full set of information.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

And that seems like all common sense stuff. You know, like the headlines from the folks who are trying to morph or to otherwise obscure, you know, spin this seems to make it trying to make it look like Governor Abbott's going against kind of his roots and being like anti-business. But it really seems like he's just being the kind of responsible governor he's always been when it comes to issues like this. Like there's the law, he's the executive, he has to make sure that the agencies are enforcing the laws as intended by the legislature. And so there's there that we we it is not it it's not it's a good thing to have the knowledge of what these centers are bringing in, what what what their power requirements are, what how much power they're using, water consumption, you know, all those things, so that we can better plan for future development and future other businesses coming in in the future. I mean, that does all that makes sense just to have the information.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

It it absolutely does. And in fact, there's a really good corollary for this. At the on August 1st, the Comptroller's Office released the results of the school choice initiative, SB2 from last session. And so the facts are out about how many families applied and how many kids are currently participating, and how many were approved. And so we know how many are already participating, how many are yet to still participate. We already know what the costs are, what the breakdowns are. We are informed about it. Now, in that case, the legislature literally mandated that the governor do uh the comptroller's office do that every year, that every August 1 there be a full report of where we stand for that school year, the the 2026-27 school year in this case, and and so on from now on. It is undoubted, it is absolutely inarguable that having the actual facts does make for a better decision, it makes for a better ruling. And your point about this being a a very uh a decision and a statement that's very much in line with Governor Abbott's normal MO is absolutely fitting. My comment I made to someone previously, or to a client previously, was that the, in my opinion, from what I've seen, from what I've observed, both working with him personally and working with and just seeing him operate from a distance, the key to understanding Governor Abbott is to understand that he comes at things with a judicial temperament. He was a judge before long before he was attorney general and long before he was governor. And uh everything I have seen shows that he still acts that way, that he wants to see the facts, he wants to hear the arguments from both sides, he does listen, uh, he absolutely wants to see compliance with the law. And he also, in in big cases like in school choice, he wants to advocate for better law. But but when it comes time to governing, he absolutely does it from a judicial temperament. And I'm I agree with you. This statement that he put out is very much in keeping with that.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

And I will say on just to add on to that, he like just if you look at how he does stuff, like some politicians will go out there and they just are creatures of the news cycle. They are just going to like react to whatever's in the news and whatever they think is going to get them the most likes on social media or whatever to get them to help fundraise or whatever. I'm thinking of members of Congress, certain senators, things like that. Governor Abbott, you know, is certainly aware of the news cycle and knows what's going on, but is more somebody who is pushing like an actual policy with a goal in mind. So I don't sometimes you know what it is, sometimes you don't necessarily, but in this case, he seems to be taking like the responsible steps of making sure Texas is in a position to build out a strong foundation just so that as Texas takes on more data centers or chip manufacturers or other people in that supply chain for the 21st century economy that Texas is going to be at the forefront of. Like that way in 30, 40, 50, 60, 100 years, the the the undergirding, the the scaffolding, the the structure of those systems in the future in Texas are strong and starts with batch zero. It starts at the ground floor, and he's making seems like he's just making sure that we're building it for for long-term growth and not just for a boom.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Absolutely. And as a result, I don't think there's anything in his directive to the PUC or ERCOT that was at all anti-business or anti-progress or anti-growth. What it is is very clear adherence to the law and transparency and the information necessary to make appropriate decisions all the way around.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Now, let's dive in a little bit more to these are and I I think you're you're good to talk them on this. And if you're not, let me know. But there was also a fight recently with more interim committee hearings, which is where the legislature only meets the past legislation for 140 days, but they meet throughout the whole year periodically to have committees and get reports on stuff. And a lot of the stuff that builds into the actual legislation in the next session happens is happening right now. There was a lot of discussion over these 765 kilovolt transmission lines that are connected to to connect the premium basin better to the the Texas Triangle, the main population core of the state. Where is that fight? How is that fight playing out right now? Is are they are the is is are you know as of recording, are those those vote are those lines still being built? Like what is was that just a a status update? Talk talk a little bit about that if you can.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah, so some of the concern at the at the committee hearing, this the Senate committee, business and commerce committee hearing, Chairman Schwertner expressed some concern that they felt like what they had authorized was a study, and instead what they have going is a massive project. One of the concerns and frustrations I have is because of timing, because the 765 projects are being worked on right now, and in fact, are you know, the uh announcements have been going out, letters have been going out, hearings have been being held, committee meeting, uh local community meetings have been being held. Because that's going on right now, and data centers are such a big thing, and data centers use power, that I have seen people absolutely say, I hate data centers because they use eminent domain. And my response has been give me one example of a data center using eminent domain, and their example was a 765 KV line. Now, what they were not aware of is that this 765 KV line, which obviously for the project to already be well underway, the laws for that were passed years ago. And the justification for that had when it was justified, when it was argued we are going to need these, data centers were not a thing. They were not uh they were not even significant single digits of percentage of of our use on the grid. Yep. And so it it cannot have been, was not the justification for the line. But now, because data centers have gotten so much attention, data centers are actually absorbing the blame for the 765 and inflaming attention on the 765 tube. Now that's it, there are absolutely a lot of homeowners and a lot of property owners all across Texas who are very concerned about the eminent domain that is and will be used to run these lines. Some of that testimony from Chairman Gleason, from others, did show that their estimates and their plans worked in a 20% over it. So they were they were going to spend 20% more to run these lines in terms of how much wiring you'd need and how many, how many towers you'd need, and all that, solely for the purpose of trying to minimize cutting through the middle of properties.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

So while eminent domain is never fun and should absolutely be minimized every time it is used, and should be used absolutely as minimal as possible, there it's also not true that there was no attempt to minimize its use. So there clearly was some attempt. Well, you know, was it enough? That's a that's a political question, and we'll work that out. But what's been strange to me is see the the conflation, the the assumption that these two are related, and they're just not. And in fact, several of the senators, Senator Sparks being one of the most vocal of them, have said, hey, look, if your point is you got to do these transmission lines all across the state so that you can get more local generation to the Permian, how about we just put in a bunch of data centers and let the data centers pay for generation in the Permian? And you won't have to bring it all here. And he's not wrong.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

No, and there's also just the argument of like the there's more to electrify out in the Permian than just data centers. The reason why we're putting out those things out there is because we need to build out, we're trying to build out more power to the Permian. For oil and gas, right, for drilling, for for oil gas operations.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, literally that was the justification for doing the lines was we need reliable electricity in the Permian, and there were there was not yet a reason to do generation of reliable electricity out there. Plenty of wind, plenty of solar because of the space and and the ability to lease from farmers and the like, but but that has not helped the the oil and gas producers out there who need electricity.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Right. Because and and let's explain that a little bit because wind blows it, it doesn't always blow. The sun goes down from half the day, and you need power 24-7. And so what the connecting the Perme does is it does bring it balances how much reliable energy is going with how much with how much renewable energy because renewable is not reliable, and so you end up beating more wind and solar that's available for folks and back in the triangle to you know to help offset or whatever, because it's built out now. We need to stop incentivizing it at the federal and state level, but we should use what we have. And on the flip side, we the Permian that's producing all the thermal that we have because it's producing all the natural gas and all the power, you know, whatever, and basically funding a good chunk of our economy is a to funding a good chunk of our economy, they need more reliable energy coming back to them, and so that they've produced basically. So, you know, we have a whole system of things. There's just we have to make b balance the grid, and we just need to keep improving our grid. You know, we have 110, 120 of dispatchable at any time right now, which is up from like 90 from four years ago to the point where we just hit the record of 91 and whatever it was, 90 and change. And we didn't come close to hitting any sort of limit on what we could do because we've built it out. We need to keep building it out, if not for data centers, for other industrial growth. We are a growing and more group population growth because whether we build it or not, they're coming. People are have not stopped coming to Texas, they still want to keep coming to Texas, and there's until they stop coming, we gotta keep planning that they're gonna be doing it because they have for 170 years.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah, we have every reason to assume that the thousand people a day we've been adding to Texas for years now is going to continue. And therefore, our need for both water and power is going to continue. The one of the questions I gave a talk a couple of weeks ago, one of the questions was okay, given given that a thousand people a day are moving to Texas, do you want them and us to pay for the additional infrastructure we need? Or would you rather have big industrial clients like data centers be able to pay for the extra infrastructure that we all need anyway? And that's one of the challenges. Well, you know, going back to the 765 talk, um, there were two big points in that hearing that uh that were continually talked about. One was the question why don't the oil and gas guys out in the Permian just, you know, use it right there to produce electricity? And yay, they'd have electricity. And and the answer from former Commissioner Staples, now head of Texas, uh Texoga, the oil and gas association, said he he doesn't have the details on why they don't, but he guarantees everyone that if it was the the highest and best use and most profitable option they would have they had, they would absolutely have already done it by now. So there is good reason. And I I bet it's a little bit of not being able to really pull yourself up by your by your bootstrap, and and you know, the same reason that an electric car can't produce all that can't charge itself, right? There's the same thing. The oil and gas are there are higher and better uses of sending that oil and gas in its natural state than there is for an oil and gas company to try to generate electricity off of it right there at the side.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

They have their pipeline infrastructure built to send it to be refined somewhere else because it needs to be refined closer to where it needs to get onto other platforms, whether it's tankers on the coast, that's why everything's on the coast. So that then it's where the pipelines go there. And so that sub micro backup pipelines other places, but that stuff's not built out, so they still have to send it back to the pipe to where it needs to be pretty you know refined to whatever its problem, whatever it's used, and then that stuff needs to be sent back. So you can either send it back as electrons over line or you can build a giant pipeline, and it's gonna have about the same effect when it comes to imminent domain. So, you know, and one can leak and lose money and all that other stuff for for what, you know, so it makes sense more to send it back as power versus as a product. So that is just my top of the brain gas, like yours. So it's probably somewhere in between those.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Undoubtedly there are multiple factors, and one of them is is that multiple comp many of the companies really should stick to their netting, and you know, if they're not a power selling company, they should stick to being a gas selling company, right? The the other point that was brought up by Commissioner Gleason was that the even even absent them that in uh in an otherwise equal state, a bigger grid with more uh transmission ability is a is by uh is automatically by its nature a more resilient grid. And we do need the most resilient grid we that is practical and practical that that is that makes sense. And that's that was the other point he was making that all all things being equal, you do want a more stable grid, and the more transmission will give it to you.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Well, let's pivot because once again, you were Republican Party of Texas chair. For I think four years from 2017 to 2020. Is that is that yeah, that's right. So you have an interesting insight in that you ran a party, you helped people get elected, you've been involved in the politic side, now you're on the consulting side on these issues, and so I'm just curious: what are you seeing these issues play out? How are you seeing these issues play out on the campaign trail or in on in in campaigns? And then how does that influence what you think will actually pass in the 90th? And so we'll get into those questions later, but so let's start on the campaign side. What are you seeing any what if any effect is this having on campaigns?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

What I am seeing the the two most impressive things I'm seeing from a campaign standpoint is a level of teamwork and a level of focus that I don't recall seeing in any prior set of campaigns. So and the most yeah, well, frankly, on on either side, the most obvious example I can give of that is there was there was a photo just a couple of weeks ago of the of every statewide non-judicial candidate for the November ballot all meeting together with the governor, strategize for the November election. There, to my knowledge, there literally has never been such an occasion. I've I've seen a lot of behind the scenes of multiple people working together and multiple people wanting to work together. I have never seen the, especially publicly, all of the principles together to do that. That's very positive sign, and that's very encouraging. The other thing is the messaging is more consistent than I recall seeing it in a long time. And we do see consistent messaging on the Democrat side, especially in the media. Like what you'll see the same question, the same question being asked and the exact same verbiage being used, you know, on 82 different news stations and reporters and things, all at the exact same time. And it's not a coincidence. But you seldom see the governor and the candidate for U.S. Senate and a statewide commissioner's office all talking about a focus on affordability and opportunity for everyday Texans, the way we are seeing that right now. And that will undoubtedly be tailored and will vary some between now and then, between now and you know, November, and certainly even between now and October when early voting begins. But I have never seen that to the extent that I'm seeing it now, and it's frankly very impressive.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

What would you think, you know, prognosticating, like, and let's let's just focus on on Texas and the legislature. Do you think Texas holds the key legislative spots? Do you think Texas holds the statewide seats? And do you think they hold the legislative chambers?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

I think there's I think there's zero question that we hold now. First of all, I always preface this saying the the surest way to lose something is to take it for granted. So this all is is prefaced with the assumption that every campaign is going to go out there and run like their life depends on it. Uh Ted Cruz once said there's only two ways to run, unopposed and scared, right? The I hope, I hope that everyone who's on the ballot who has an opponent is running like there is a real chance that they could lose, even if it's supposedly an R plus 20 seat. With that as a preface, I think there is a near zero chance, if not a zero chance, that we lose either chamber in the legislature. I think especially gotta give a shout out. It has been impressive to see the way the speaker has been out campaigning for the members. It has really been very, very positive to see that. The and of course, the lieutenant governor has a long history of supporting the senators, and and so we got the same going on on that end. So I think there is a zero chance that we lose either chamber. On the statewide races, obviously there are there are a couple where the margin is far too narrow. We've seen polls getting released that actually show the the Democrat candidate having an advantage of two to five points. The polls very reliably overestimate Democrat support nearly every time. That said, I have been involved when a statewide elected official in Texas only got about 2.4% and was at the top of the ticket, and that hurt everyone down the down the line. So while we won't lose the House, for example, I've I've seen a weak top of the candidate, top of the top of the ballot candidate cost us 12 down ballot seats in the Texas House. I uh very much pray that uh the that the top of the ballot, and certainly Governor Abbott is doing everything he can do for that. And I I certainly hope that Attorney General Paxton's campaign is doing the same thing, to do absolute every everything they can to shore up their support and turn out, especially in any district where a house member, a Texas House member has challenges because that's the that's what we need.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah, I think I I I I see that being the case, kind of like how what are we gonna lose, who are we gonna lose if we maybe we pick up seats, who do we, whatever else on this on the house side. But I I have a general same feeling. The top of the ticket's going to kind of dictate you know how much how much give those lower candidates have, but they need to go out there and work their butts off because I've worked on state house races where they overperformed the top of the ticket by 10 points, 12 points. So like there's a lot either way, a margin to play with in those races, depending on how well you run your race and how you differ as a candidate from the top of the ticket. So it's a little too early to tell on some of that stuff, and some of it we just won't know till election day. But kind of just us, you know, with the let's let's look into January with let's just say a 80 to 68 split, 80, 60 split, whatever, 80-70 split in the House towards the Republicans. What sort of policies are you expecting to like really be pushed through and out of the 90th session, whether it comes to data centers, whether it comes to property taxes, et cetera? Like, what are the big priorities and what actually gets across the finish line?

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I think there is no question that the absolute top priority is property tax reform and property tax cuts. And that is the the governor's put out a plan, and I fully expect that the final outcome will be inspired at the very least by that plan. And so I think anyone who's working on that, focused on that, should pay very close attention to the governor's work. I think there's going to be more work to build on the success of school choice, which is really important. Uh long term, that's one of our biggest expenses. It's also one of our biggest causes for problems. A shocking percentage of youth are not aware that communism is not only the not only the ideology most likely to make you poor if you live under it, it's also the most likely to make it so that you're no longer living if you're living under it. And that's that is a massive failure of our education system. And that's just one example of the ways it has failed. When a you know, third of kids are not reading on grade level, that is entirely unacceptable. Or worse, when only a third of kids are reading on grade level. That's that is a massive failure. That is an F in anyone's uh evaluation. So I think there's going to be more on that. There absolutely is going to be more on power and water. I mean, we we passed the constitutional amendment. We did a $20 billion water plan over the next 20 years, but the but the water development board has put out that they expect that we're going to need about $85 billion worth of infrastructure for water. And again, the reality is you know, our prior generations did massive visible projects to make it so that Texas can today sustain 30 million people in the addition of a thousand people a day. Our generation has not done anything similar to make it so that it can sustain 50 million or 60 million and another couple thousand coming a day 50 years from now. And we need to, and again, I would rather have industry paying for that infrastructure that we need than having the taxpayers and bonds paying for uh that infrastructure. I think all of those will be priorities this coming session and for good reason.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Absolutely. Well, James, thank you so much for coming on to talk about all these hot button issues here in Texas. Where can people find you online and where can they find more information about you?

SPEAKER_01 32:06

So I'm on X and LinkedIn. As you said, we at Hyperscale News, we keep people informed on this huge, move, fast moving, really big, really important industry of data centers and the power, water, and political challenges that they face. And then at JDK, we do state and local government and public relations to help the companies who want to do this right and want to build, help us build that future moving forward, that they can do that and do that as efficiently as possible and be welcomed by a community, not opposed by a community. That's what we'd like to do. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Well, thank you so much for coming on today. And I hope to hear from you more as we get into the next session and we get through this election. But yeah, thanks for coming on. You bet. Take care. Thanks again to Chairman Dickey for coming on to talk about the data center issue. We've talked about it a lot on this show about data centers, AI, power, and infrastructure and transmission lines and the whole all of it. Water, a lot of talk about water. There are always going to be those talk conversations. And we're going into a legislative session in January where we're not sure what the composition of the House is going to be or any of that stuff. And so we're talking about the issues now more in the abstract, and we'll drill down into actual policy and legislation shortly. And I'm looking forward to that. But I want to make sure that you are, if you're watching this show, that you're well aware of just the nuance and the and the size and scale, it's bigger than Texas on this issue. So thank you for to all the guests, including Chairman Dickie, who've come on to add more context to that issue for you. We're going to talk start talking now about that election that's coming up in November. But we're going to get there a little different way. The TEA, which is the Texas Education Administration, released the school and district ratings for the last school year this past week. So a few years ago, we changed from an old system that was like exemplary or failing or whatever to an actual just A through F scale, kind of like it there, you know, it's you're being graded in school, the schools are being graded the way they're supposed to be. And those A through F ratings came out, and there's been some consternation. One of the things that can happen with these ratings, if you are a failing school or a failing district for five plus years, the TEA is required to take certain actions against you. And one school district hit that mark. They hit it on the campus level. Two campuses in Austin ISD failed for a fifth straight year, got another F, and that requires TEA to take certain actions. Now they haven't decided what that action is going to be. A lot of people are predicting that's going to be a district-wide takeover. There are other options on the table that could include closing those schools or creating some sort of conservatorship, which is to say the TEA puts people on the ground and in charge of or having to AISD decisions would have to go through them in order for them to actually be implemented. My guess is that we're going to see a school, uh, the uh the TEA takeover of Austin ISD. We've seen that in Houston recently, a few years ago. Houston had a similar problem. Pretty much immediately after the law could have gone into effect and then had those years hit in place, Houston got taken over because Houston had had some failing high schools and middle schools and whatever else in the historically black areas of town for a long time, which is why this legislation was passed. It wasn't passed by Republicans. Back in the days when we had Democrat chairs, chairman at the time, Harold Dutton, carried this legislation. This is Democrat legislation. Democrat were heavily involved with the idea of how would the state take over a local school district? Because you there is an element of you don't want to take over local control unless you have to, and what are the metrics by which the state would need to come in? And the major one is either the district-wide, or even if you have the same school being treated or have failing repeatedly, would be enough for the state to have to take action. Austin ISD is looking like it's gonna be taken over because they've had systemic failure across the board in these schools for so long. There was another school that went from an A F to I believe a D, but they could have gone up to a C that was four-year and was also a school that could have pushed them over the edge. Why is this kind of gonna play now statewide? Well, Gina Anahosa, who's a state rep from the Austin area, was the former board president of Austin ISD. And while she cannot be necessarily directly linked to the problems that are going on today, when you're board president for as long as she was, and on the school district, she was providing the advice and guidance to the as a as a as a school board president to the superintendent. And so the 10 years ago, and those policies put into place start to put the start to build into what become comes down the line. The stuff that's happening now is a lot largely a product of what happened five, ten, fifteen years ago, and it takes can unless you have specific actions that occurred. Now it's hard to pin it back on her. I'm not saying it's her's fault specifically, but she was part of a culture and a system. She was part of a culture and a system at IS AIST that has been failing kids in the poorest districts for so long. So this is a topic that's bad for her, not just because of her personal ties to the district and her professional ties to the district, electoral ties to the district, but because she's trying to run as if she's some magical education candidate that knows how to fix the problems of whatever Republicans have been doing. Well, when her base district is having to be taken over the state for systemic failures, she was part of that system. It's harder for her to then go out and argue that, oh, this is because of school choice, which has only been in effect for a year, has nothing to do with these ratings. It hasn't even kids haven't even left the district for that yet. Right? So you have this problem on her end where it's like, oh, you know, we got to fix public education. Well, Austin ISD is a is a ISD that if you look at how much they tax, is very much into they have to redistribute a ton of their of money back to the state because they are so far above the limit, the recapture limit that we've talked about in the past. But basically, you can only take so much money before the state starts taking most of it if you're a school district. And they are very high into it, they have very high school tax rates. And despite that, they are still failing students in several of their schools and several of their campuses. Now, they tried to get around this with one of the campuses, a fourth campus, but they closed that school separate from all before these rankings came out. And so, and it was and they had a year to go. TEA has come out and said now that if you close a school to try and get out of this type of thing, where those kids go to school has to be at least an A or B. The plurality of students from the school that's being closed need to go to an A or a B school. Otherwise, those failing grades attach to the school where most of the students have been transferred to. So if you travel for another D school or to a C school, that F, those old Fs then now apply to that for this purpose. So that school that where those failing kids, kids who were failed, let's say that more accurately, are transferred to, well, that school is still on the hook for those ratings for making sure those kids get up to where they're not being failed. And so this is all sorts of stuff going on, the education issue. There's a ton of stuff going on. And this is one of the major issues, and it's hard to talk about because there's so much, there's always a little bit of nuance here and nuance there. But the simplest point is when you're talking about back to the election, we're talking about the governor's election in 77 days, 11 weeks. We're 11 weeks away from the governor's election, uh, and this the general election as a whole. And so it's not getting a lot of a lot of press because of the Senate's drowning it out, and Gina's not ringing a good race. But where she's trying to hit is on school choice and on education. Well, Austin ISD and these large school districts that or a lot of in these suburban districts that are also large, pull in a ton of money and they take cost a lot of property tax dollars for these communities. A lot of these people have to pay a lot of money to these school districts. Those two these districts need to not be failing the students. Whether it's my kid or my neighbor's kid or whomever else, these kids need to be well served and they need to be in good schools. And so if you're not providing that by from the school district level, the state is providing options to parents, parental choice. Now, there are plenty of arguments to be made on however that should or could look and how you can fix that. But when you're Gina Anahosa and this is your issue, Austin ISD failing looks really, really bad for you. And so at the end of the day, where her actions could conceivably be tied to the failing culture and uh the failing culture and systems of Austin ISD. And so now that she's running for governor and she's trying to run as an education on her education background and uh on education as an issue, it looks really bad. It this destroys the foundation of her own credentials that the school has failed Webb and Burnett Middle Schools for five straight years. Like it takes a lot for a school to fail. There are different metrics. Schools are given a more of a latitude if they're really overperforming with historically underperforming demographics. And so there's a whole host of ways that you can like really start to get your score higher up, especially in the elementary and middle school level where graduation rates aren't as part of the aren't part of the calculus. And so that these schools have failed, that there were other schools that they had to close or that barely got out of this, shows that they've not taken this threat of takeover seriously enough. Or even if they did, or they were trying to get a takeover partner, which they did, they did not find folks who could work within that their current system under their current superintendent or under the current culture created by the board that exists currently, where they could get those schools back up to par. And the reason why this is an issue for Gina Inojosa is that she is using her experience as the AISD board president to just talk on issues of education and on how we should as a state should be running it. And if for the state's having to take over AISD, why would anyone want to take her advice on how to run things? Simply put. So it's a political problem for her more than it is her actual necessarily directly linked to her fault. But nevertheless, it's still a problem. And it's a problem that for those people well, and then there's the secondary issue. Moving on, like let's let's let's put that in the rear view for now. Let's just talk about whether the state should be taking over schools. Houston ISD went from having several failing schools to like having like Four or five now, after being taken over for several years, having a lot of different changes made to they've one of the big things is they've done different types of curriculum that encourages a far more far quicker intervention with students before so they don't fall as far behind or as quickly. And if so, basically a student gets a mini test or a mini quiz on a on the topic of the day, and if they haven't figured it out that day, they get one-on-one discussions with the teacher or an aide or whomever so that they can quickly get caught up and make sure that students aren't falling behind. And that's one of the key elements of how they're uh of what HISC is doing. On top of that, we see a lot of news about teachers leaving, but the teachers who are staying, they've changed it from a tenure-based pay plan to a merit-based pay plan. And so some of the teachers via the T I believe the teacher incentive allotment, TIA, is getting a which is a way for the state is trying to pay good, bad, the best teachers hit certain benchmarks or whatever else, on top of how the HIC has structured their salaries for teachers. Instead of just paying people who've been there for 30 years and saying, Oh, they must know what they're doing, they're testing to see which teachers are actually performing, and their pay is based off that. So some so some teachers had their pay lowered because they weren't performing, and they're having now they're going to other districts that are still paying off tenure, getting the money that they think they deserve based off of how long they've taught, versus the results they're bringing in. And HISD is starting to see the fruits of that change in culture and that change in systems so that the students aren't being failed any longer. They're not just being passed along, they're being tested and they're being they're showing they're showing that the results are proving through. Now that said, there are still some failing campuses, and we in order to see if what Mike Miles and the TEA has done in Houston is a success, we're gonna have to look at it not just this year, but in four years, in five years, like once they get the out of state takeover management and back to an elected management system, how those changes are built back in and how that can how that builds into results over a longer period of time. We're gonna have to we're gonna have to look and see. But for now, it's been in my view, successful, and other people it's been critical because there's people who aren't happy with it, typically because they don't like the accountability, in my view. And I'd rather a kid be successful and the kids be successful than than have you know just making sure we're throwing money at a problem and the teachers and their unions get all that money. So that's where I'm falling on this issue. There's gonna be a lot more on this over the next weeks, months, and years, because there's gonna be a the major how education is funded and what gets funded is going to be a huge part of the neck of the 90th legislative session. So it's an issue we're gonna be hearing more about, and I'm gonna be doing my best to get experts and folks who are in this to kind of come on and talk to us a little bit about this as that issue becomes more prevalent either in this election or definitely in the 90th. So that's where that that election stands or that issue stands. With that, like, subscribe, comment, and I'll see you next week. Okay, bye guys.