Gov. Greg Abbott caught in a lie during school voucher rally in East Texas

Gov. Greg Abbott has been caught in a lie about the state of Texas’ education system, this time falsely claiming that a Dallas public school no longer allows students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Republican governor’s claim came during a pro-school voucher rally at the Athens Christian Preparatory Academy in East Texas.

During the event, Abbott railed against “woke agendas” in Texas public schools — a familiar trope he often invokes to sell the merits of his school-voucher plan.

Abbott told the crowd that a Dallas public school principal was forced to quit her job and move to Amarillo because kids at her North Texas campus weren’t allowed to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

“She said the school where she came from, they were not doing that anymore,” Abbott recalled. “She believed in patriotism and knew that was a fundamental tenant of educating our kids, so she moved out to Amarillo to do that.”

Jim Boyle, am Austin-based public utility attorney, tweeted out video of Abbott making the claim. He described the governor’s story as “fiction.”

Here’s the problem with Abbott’s anecdote: students in Texas public schools have been required by state law since 2017 to say the Pledge of Allegiance to both the U.S. flag and the Texas flag.

Indeed, Abbott’s fanciful yarn about unpatriotic public schools is just the latest he’s spun to get families, especially those in rural Texas, behind school vouchers.

The governor told a similarly improbable story during a 2023 pro-voucher rally at San Antonio’s St. Mary’s Magdalene Catholic School.

During that stop, Abbott recounted a story about a school principal who left public education because a history teacher was teaching their students to “disrespect the flag.”

Although Abbott’s pro-voucher bill, Senate Bill 2, passed the Republican-controlled Texas Senate earlier this week, State Rep. Diego Bernal told the Current the legislation will face more of a challenge in the House than the governor anticipates.

“To say, ‘Here’s tax dollars to go somewhere where not every kid can get in, not every kid can afford it, it’s not even geographically available to everybody, and you don’t have to take the [the state’s standardized achievement tests]?’ It’s a fucking scam,” said Bernal, a San Antonio Democrat.

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This article appears in Feb 5-18, 2025.