Texas Should Shut Down the Education Cartel
Dear Reader: This is a piece is about a powerful but little-known organization in Texas, the Texas Association of School Boards. It’s a story of how even in a state where conservatives have been governing strongly for years, shadowy left-wing groups amass huge sums of public money and use it against us. Whether you’re a Texan or not, it’s a case worth studying: there are networks like TASB in every state, and we need to fight them everywhere. – Joe
Most Texans have never heard of the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB). TASB is an NGO which purports to represent Texas school districts and the boards that govern them. It takes taxpayer dollars from nearly every school district in the state through membership dues. It offers questionable “services” to members and benefits financially from relationships with major vendors. And its crown jewel is a massive and unaccountable risk pool for its member districts that operates outside the usual frameworks that govern insurance.
TASB’s revenues have grown steadily for years, surpassing $100 million for the first time in 2025. And it has used those funds to become a powerful political operation, lobbying in favor of left-wing social issues and higher property tax, and fighting against education reforms. It does all this with very little transparency owing to its “private” status. That may be changing soon, thanks to more and more Texas leaders waking up to the fact that we’ve allowed unaccountable organizations to metastasize in our state.
Aristotle explained in Politics millennia ago, “…often a great change of institutions takes place unnoticed when people overlook a small alteration…” In the derelict corners of bureaucracy, cancers and corruptions take root that eventually threaten our culture, our children, and the fabric of our society. The left has run that play in Washington and in the universities, and they have run it just as well in states that conservatives naively assume are “safe” because of the way they vote.
For years, many conservatives in Texas have worried about the left winning elections, and what that would mean for our governance. Unfortunately, the left learned long ago that winning elections in a complex country is just one way to rule; another option is to capture the institutions that operate beneath elections — like boards and associations with large, hidden pools of public money.
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Propublica: Wisconsin Association Of School District Administrators Inc 2025 Revenues: $1,580,000.
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Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
