We Deserve Better Than This: Faith, Fraud, and the Fight for Texas Public Schools

Back to School, Back to the Battlefield

By LONNIE KING

For most of my life, with four kids in the household, the back-to-school season carried a familiar kind of energy. The nervous excitement of meeting new teachers, making new friends, and manufacturing new routines.  The buzz of sharpened pencils and fresh notebooks. New school supplies, backpacks—and maybe most importantly, new wardrobes. 

But in recent years, especially here in Texas, that anticipation feels different. Heavier. This year, it’s not just students who are anxious. It’s teachers, counselors, administrators, and parents who are bracing themselves. Not just for a new academic year, but for the next legislative blow aimed at dismantling the very foundation of public education.

Now, I’ll admit, I don’t have a personal stake in the day-to-day rhythm of school anymore. My kids are grown. Their backpacks and lunchboxes have long since been traded in for careers, mortgages, and adult responsibilities.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring.

I think about the families who do have kids in the system right now. I think about the parents trying to advocate for their children while watching their local schools be defunded, micromanaged, or politically hijacked.

I also think about my granddaughter—only three years old now—and how her parents, my son and daughter-in-law, have already said they would never raise her in Texas under the current educational system.

So no, I may not have a child headed back to class this fall. But I’m still watching. Still worried. Still angry. And still deeply invested in what kind of state we’re shaping—for the kids we claim to care about, and for the democracy that depends on an educated public.

We’re not just sending kids back to school. We’re sending them back to a system under siege.

Chaplain in the Counselor’s Office: A New Low in Manufactured Morality

You may have missed this in the flurry of summer headlines, but earlier this year, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that allows school districts to hire religious chaplains in place of licensed school counselors.

Let me say that again: not in addition to… in place of.

The qualifications for being a licensed school counselor in Texas are rigorous. They require a master’s degree, teaching certification, two years of classroom experience, and clinical counseling credentials.

These professionals are trained to recognize signs of trauma, abuse, depression, suicidal ideation, and more—all of which are heartbreakingly common in today’s student populations.

Under the new law, none of that is required. A person can serve as a chaplain in a public school as long as they’re “licensed” by a religious organization—regardless of the legitimacy of that organization, and regardless of whether the individual has any actual training in mental health, education, or child development.

It’s not about faith. It’s about control. It’s about replacing expertise with ideology. It’s about substituting support with surveillance.

And it’s shameful.

This Isn’t What Faith Is For

I come from a faith background. I still believe faith can be a powerful force for good. But this? This isn’t faith. This is fraud cloaked in a clerical collar.

This isn’t about supporting students. It’s about scoring political points.

Let’s be honest—many of the same lawmakers who passed this bill would pitch a full-blown fit if a Muslim chaplain or a Unitarian counselor were the ones walking into Texas schools. It’s not chaplaincy they support; it’s their particular brand of cultural dominance.

But if your religious beliefs can’t survive without government endorsement, maybe the problem isn’t the culture. Maybe the problem is your belief system.

Why People Like James Talarico Matter

I watched a video recently of Rep. James Talarico—former teacher, former pastor, current state representative, and one of the few people in Texas politics who consistently speaks with integrity—debating the sponsor of the chaplain bill.

Talarico, like me, comes from a faith background. His grandfather was a Baptist preacher in South Texas who taught him that Christianity is a simple—though not easy—religion, rooted in two commandments: love God and love your neighbor.

In the video, he laid out the facts calmly, clearly, and with compassion. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t get personal. He just told the truth.

Talarico has carried his convictions with him into public life. But unlike many of his colleagues, he doesn’t weaponize faith to score political points. He doesn’t treat religion as a prop. He sees it as a calling—to serve, to protect, and to speak truth to power.

That’s why I admire him. Because his faith doesn’t compel him to conform. It compels him to confront religious hypocrisy, especially when it hides behind the mask of so-called Christian conservatism.

In a legislature increasingly overrun by faux piety and performative virtue, Talarico is one of the few voices reminding us what real moral leadership looks like.

And watching him do that, part of me wonders how he keeps going.

He’s outnumbered, outvoted, and often ignored by the majority party. I don’t know how he finds the strength to keep showing up. I think I’d have walked away by now.

But he hasn’t. Because he believes public education is worth protecting. Because he knows kids deserve real help, not spiritual posturing. Because someone has to speak up, even when it feels like shouting into the wind.

We Can’t Afford to Tune Out

As a new school year begins, we need to remember what’s at stake. We need to stop treating this as business as usual.

Public schools are being hollowed out by people who claim to love them. Counselors are being replaced with unvetted preachers. Teachers are being micromanaged, underpaid, and vilified. And children—real, complicated, hurting children—are being used as pawns in a culture war they didn’t sign up for.

It’s exhausting. I know. But we can’t give up. We can’t let this become the new normal. And we sure as hell can’t let these decisions go unchecked because they’re wrapped in religious language.

Our kids deserve trained counselors, not ideological babysitters. They deserve education, not indoctrination. And they deserve adults who haven’t given up on them—no matter how broken the system feels.

One More Thing: A Word to People of Faith

If you’re a person of faith who believes in compassion, care, and integrity—this is your fight too. Not because you need to bring religion into schools, but because you need to keep it from being weaponized. Real faith doesn’t manipulate. It doesn’t dominate. And it doesn’t demand government sponsorship to make a difference.

Let’s stop pretending this is about helping children. It’s about politics, power, and fear.

And it’s on us to say, “Enough!”

Restoring trust in education means more than prayer in schools. It means truth in legislation, integrity in leadership, and actual help for hurting kids.

Grace and grit to you!  — LK