Let’s be clear: This isn’t education reform. It’s economic sabotage by design, not accident, as evidenced by the billion-dollar diversion from the public to the private sector with no public oversight. It’s a calculated attempt to shrink public institutions and turn education into a product, reserved for those who can already afford access. Despite the confetti statements from the Governor’s office, no, this is not a win for “parent choice.” It’s a win for privatization, and Texans—especially those in rural, immigrant, and working-class communities—will be paying the price.

Vouchers Passed, but Who’s Buying?

SB2 establishes a $1 billion Education Savings Account (ESA) program, giving qualifying families about $10,000 yearly to cover private school tuition, homeschool costs, transportation, textbooks, and therapy. On paper, it’s being sold as a lifeline for underserved students, but let’s not get distracted by the branding.

That $10,000 doesn’t come close to covering the actual cost of elite private schools in Texas, which average more than $11,000 annually and climb much higher in urban centers. More importantly, private schools participating in the ESA program aren’t required to accept anyone. They can—and will—cherry-pick their enrollees. That means students with disabilities, discipline histories, or families who can’t foot the rest of the bill will be left behind. Unlike public schools, these private institutions don’t have to abide by federal protections like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

To top it off, SB2 bars undocumented students from participating altogether. That’s right—while public schools remain constitutionally obligated to educate all students, the state is now writing checks that explicitly exclude immigrant families. So much for “choice.”

Rural Reality Check 

Take it from Hazel, a Students Organized for a Real Shot (SORS) organizer and student in rural North Texas: “There’s no ‘choice’ where I live. My public school is the only school. And now they want to take money from it?”

That’s the reality for thousands of families across Texas. Public schools in small towns aren’t just classrooms—they’re lifelines. They’re often the largest employers, food hubs, and mental health support systems in the entire community. Gutting them doesn’t create opportunity. It hollows out the very infrastructure that keeps these places alive.

Some conservatives have recognized this contradiction. Though when it came time to vote, only two Republicans, former House Speaker Dade Phelan and Rep. Gary VanDeaver, dared to oppose SB2. The rest folded under pressure from Governor Abbott and the powerful voucher machine which includes groups like the American Federation for Children and Texas-based mega-donors (like Dick Uihlein and Jeff Yass) who’ve spent millions reshaping the Legislature through targeted primary campaigns. Make no mistake: This wasn’t just a policy fight. It was a hostile takeover.

What About Public Schools?

While many lawmakers were busy high-fiving over vouchers, public schools continued to drown under outdated funding formulas and chronic disinvestment. Texas still ranks in the bottom third of states for per-pupil spending, and even after the Legislature approved a $7.7 billion education package through House Bill 2, many districts are still facing budget shortfalls and teacher shortages.

Sure, HB2 raises the basic allotment from $6,160 to $6,555, and ties future increases to property value growth. But educators on the ground know it’s not enough. The funding doesn’t account for years of inflation or meet the rising costs of special education, staffing, and school maintenance. It’s a start, but it’s far from transformative, and lawmakers knew that when they passed it.

Meanwhile, teachers continue to leave the profession in staggering numbers. According to the Texas American Federation of Teachers, more than 66 percent considered quitting in 2022. Instead of offering competitive salaries or mental health support, this Legislature gave them censorship bills like Senate Bill 13, which would authorize politically-appointed parents to make sweeping decisionsabout what books students will be able to find in their school libraries, coupled with gestapo-like legal action against teachers deemed to have violated Texas state law by “teaching woke critical race theory.” Because nothing says “thank you for your service” quite like criminalizing your curriculum.

Manufactured Crisis, Manufactured Choice

First, they failed to fund us. Then, they blamed us for failing.

That’s the playbook. The state basic allotment per pupil hasn’t budged since 2019, starving school districts of resources. Yet when STAAR test scores dip, schools are cast as the problem, and the Texas Education Agency swoops in with state-mandated takeovers. That’s the manufactured crisis. Lawmakers are selling “choice” as the solution, but it’s a trapdoor, not a lifeline.

Jakiyla, a Students Organized for a Real Shot (SORS) Dallas-Fort Worth area organizer, noted, “After COVID, our schools were already struggling. And now with this voucher bill, we’re being told we don’t even deserve recovery. We’re just collateral damage in someone else’s agenda.” Jakiyla’s words speak to what countless students across Texas are feeling. Let’s not pretend vouchers are happening in a vacuum. They’re part of a broader campaign to destabilize and delegitimize public education.

Since 2021, Texas has passed multiple laws banning so-called “divisive topics,” cracked down on libraries, and launched attacks on curriculum deemed too inclusive. The state even flirted with legislation this session that would allow politicians to micromanage schoolbook collections—because apparently, To Kill a Mockingbird is a bigger threat than poverty or crumbling campuses.

This isn’t about helping kids. It’s about consolidating power and controlling what students learn and how they learn it. It’s about shifting accountability away from the public and into the hands of private actors with no obligation to serve all students, uphold civil rights, or even report outcomes.

What Happens After Sine Die?

As we approach June 2, the focus will shift to the implementation of these programs, legal challenges to SB2’s more extreme provisions (like its citizenship clause), and the behind-closed-doors conference committee process to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill. Expect behind-closed-door negotiations over who gets priority for vouchers, what oversight looks like, and how funding rules may shift over time. Generally, expect more spin, but the facts don’t lie. Texas educates more than 5.4 million public school students, and each one deserves a fully funded, fully staffed, censorship-free education. That’s not some radical demand —it’s a moral and constitutional imperative.

Yet, with the passage of SB2, the Legislature made a choice to invest in exclusion instead of equity and privatization instead of the public good.

This Is How We Fight Back

This legislative session was billed as a turning point—a chance to “reinvest in Texas kids.” Instead, lawmakers handed our future over to lobbyists and political donors, making it clear that public schools are not their priority. Unless we organize, speak out, and hold them accountable, this billion-dollar heist will be just the beginning.

Charter expansions are next. Teacher “accountability” bills are on the horizon. More manufactured outrage over library and classroom content is guaranteed. The goal isn’t excellence—it’s control.

But here’s what they don’t expect: resistance. From rural towns to big cities, from high schoolers to retired educators, Texans are waking up. We know what’s being taken from us. And we’re not going quiet.

If Texas has taught us anything, it’s that underdogs don’t stay quiet—and when we rise, we raise hell, and we’re just getting started.

This article originally appeared on https://www.projectcensored.org/texas-billion-heist-public-education/

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Da’Taeveyon Daniels.

In view of the Israeli Prime Minister, amid his own corruption trial, the truth about the Israeli-occupied territories seems to be equivalent to treason. Hence, his determination to destroy B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

The effort to decimate the last defenders of human rights in Israel cries for effective external intervention.

Why are Netanyahu’s autocrats after B’Tselem?

B’Tselem evolved in early 1989, when it was established by a group of Israeli lawyers, academics and doctors with the support of 10 members of Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The name comes from Genesis 1:27, which deems that all mankind was created “b’tselem elohim” (in the image of God); in line with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

As Jewish far-right extremism was spreading in Israel, B’Tselem reflected an effort to replace nascent Jewish supremacism doctrines with the original, universalistic spirit of social justice that had marked Judaism for centuries.

It was founded after two years of the First Intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories and in Israel. After two decades of futile struggle for decolonization and increasing Israeli repression, Palestinians resorted to protests, then civil disobedience and eventually violence.

Instead of taking a hard look at the causes of the uprising, the hard-right Likud government – led by Yitzhak Shamir, Netanyahu’s one-time mentor and ex-leader of the violent pre-state Stern group – deployed 80,000 soldiers in response, which started with live rounds against peaceful demonstrators.

The brutal repression resulted in over 330 Palestinian deaths (and 12 Israelis killed) in just the first 13 months. The objective of the newly-established B’Tselem became to document human rights violations in both Gaza and the West Bank. Amid a vicious cycle of violence, it sought to serve as the nation’s voice of conscience.

Today, it is led by human rights activist Yuli Novak who had to leave Israel in 2022 due to mounting death threats, and chaired by Orly Noy, left-wing Mizrahi activist and editor of +972 magazine. Despite mounting threats from the government, the Messianic far-right and the settler extremists, B’Tselem has insistently recorded human rights violations in the occupied territories earning the regard of rights organizations and awards worldwide.

In early 2021, the NGO released a report describing Israel as an “apartheid” regime, which the Netanyahu cabinets have fervently rejected. Yet, the NGO simply codified, with abundant evidence, Israel’s apartheid rule that had worsened over time. Several Israeli military, intelligence and political leaders had used the same characterization since the 2000s.

B’Tselem warned that Israeli governance was no longer about democracy plus occupation. It had morphed into “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” – that is, apartheid. And the kind of military excess that led to the genocidal atrocities in Gaza.

How is the Netanyahu cabinet undermining B’Tselem?   

Recently, the Knesset passed a preliminary reading of two bills. They are an integral part of a broader shift from democracy to autocracy. The ultimate objective is to eliminate human rights (and other rights) groups from Israel, including B’Tselem, and to marginalize the autocratic harsh-right’s critics.

In its efforts, the Netanyahu cabinet is relying on two proposed laws involving NGO taxation and the ICC. In the former case, the proposal slaps an 80% tax on donations from foreign countries, the UN and many international foundations supporting human rights. This will effectively cut off the NGOs’ funding. The proposal was approved in a preliminary reading.

The second bill, which has now also passed a preliminary reading, seeks to criminalize any cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC). It could be seen as the Israeli version of the US Trump administration’s sanctions to undermine the ICC, its activities and members.

With its diffuse language, the Israeli ICC bill can be exploited to criminalize not only active assistance to the court but the release of any information indicating the government or senior Israeli officials are committing war crimes or crimes against humanity. According to Israeli scholars of international law, “the definitions in this dangerous bill are so broad that even someone sharing on social media a photo or video of a soldier documenting themselves committing what appears to be a war crime could face imprisonment.” More precisely, half a decade in jail.

If the “ICC law” criminalizes the work of B’Tselem and other human rights NGOs by making human rights defense a punishable offense, the “NGO taxation law” is intended to drain the meager financial resources of these NGOs.

Whose “foreign subversion”?            

B’Tselem is an independent, non-partisan organization. It is funded by donations: grants from European and North American foundations that support human rights activity worldwide, and contributions by private individuals in Israel and abroad. These donors do not represent the kind of “subversion” that the Likud governments attribute to human rights NGOs. Nor do they possess major financial resources. Even right-wing NGO critics estimate B’Tselem’s annual funding at most about $3 million per year.

Things are very different behind the donors of the Kohelet Policy Forum, led by neoconservatives with US-Israeli dual citizenship, and its many spinoffs. These have served as the Netanyahu cabinets’ thinktanks and authored many of their policies, including the “judicial reforms.” Totaling several million dollars, Kohelet in particular benefited from multi-million-dollar donations made anonymously and sent through the U.S. nonprofit, American Friends of Kohelet Policy Forum (AF-KPF).

For years, these money flows originated mainly from two Jewish-American private equity billionaires and philanthropists, Arthur Dantchik and Jeffrey Yass, the co-founders of Susquehanna International Group (The Fall of Israel, Chapter 6).

With a net worth of $7.5 billion, Dantchik is an active supporter of neoconservative Israeli causes. And so is Yass, with net worth estimated at $29 billion. Between 2010 and 2020, his Claws Foundation gave more than $25 million to the Jerusalem-based Shalom Hartman Institute, the Kohelet and other right-wing causes. As the publicity-shy Dantchik and Yass began to suffer from Kohelet’s negative PR, they took distance, while other money flows offset the difference.

By 2021, more than 90% of Kohelet’s $7.2 million income came from the Central Fund of Israel, a family-run nonprofit that gave $55 million to more than 500 Israel-related causes. It was run by Marcus Brothers Textiles on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, which sponsors highly controversial settlement projects in the West Bank, while supporting the far-right activists’ ImTirtzu and Honenu, which is notorious for defending Jewish far-right extremists charged with violence against and killings of Palestinians.

Toward a unitary, autocratic Jewish state     

Given the present course, the ultimate demise of human rights in Israel is now a matter of time. The Netanyahu cabinet will decide when to bring the legislative proposals to hearings in the relevant parliamentary committees, to prepare them for final approval.

There is no doubt about the final objective: the creation of a state “from the river to the water,” but not the two-state model enacted almost eight decades ago. Nor the secular-democratic Jewish state with a vibrant Arab minority. The goal is a Jewish unitary state in which both the rule of law and democracy will be under erosion.

B’Tselem is the harsh-right’s scapegoat for its own international isolation, but only the first one. There is more to come. Under the watch of and military aid and financing by the Biden and Trump administrations, the protection of human rights in occupied territories will soon be treated as a punishable crime, while the economic resources of the remaining human rights defenders will be decimated.

In Gaza, the international community failed to halt the genocidal atrocities. If it fails to protect the last defenders of human rights in Israel, it is likely to become complicit in new atrocities in the West Bank.

• Originally published by Informed Comment.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Steinbock.

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In the high-stakes world of high-speed, short-term securities trading, investors can reap massive payouts but often face higher tax rates due to the nature of their business. But one of America's richest men somehow earns billions from speedy trades while paying a tax rate lower than many middle-class Americans.

Among dozens of Wall Street billionaires whose tax returns ProPublica examined, one stood out: Jeff Yass of Susquehanna International Group.

Yass consistently pays lower tax rates than his peers, even as he has risen to be one of the top 10 highest earners in the country, receiving more than $1 billion per year in income. He paid an average federal income tax rate of just 19% in recent years, far below what many of his fellow Wall Street billionaires pay. That has saved Yass more than $1 billion in taxes over six years, ProPublica estimates.

What has made this pattern all the more remarkable is the nature of Susquehanna’s business: The firm was built on high-frequency trading, which tends to produce short-term gains; these are taxed at around 40%. And yet, year after year, Yass’ income has been taxed almost entirely at the 20% rate reserved for longer-term investments. (For more details, read our full story.)

ProPublica spoke to former Susquehanna employees and examined court records, securities filings and tax records to find out how Yass managed this. Taxes, according to Yass’ former colleagues, are an obsession for the billionaire and his fellow executives. As one former employee put it, “They hate fucking taxes.”

Susquehanna has crafted aggressive multibillion-dollar trading strategies that appear designed to slash its tax bill.

One main engine of Yass’ tax avoidance, ProPublica found, is a huge investment fund called Susquehanna Fundamental Investments. Every year, like clockwork, the fund effectively wipes out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Yass’ income that would otherwise get hit at the highest tax rates, while generating hundreds of millions in income that is taxed at the lower rate.

Regulatory filings give a glimpse of the fund’s trading. The fund has to disclose a snapshot of certain holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission a few times each year, though many types of trades are exempt from disclosure.

Over several years, the fund held billions of dollars of individual stocks in such companies as Google, Wells Fargo and Coca-Cola. These stocks are among the largest companies in the S&P 500 index. Meanwhile, the fund also held a large bet against the S&P 500. In essence, it held a bet against many of those exact same stocks.

Experts say that the counterintuitive strategy of simultaneously betting for and against the market can yield tax benefits. Essentially, it can offer a relatively low-risk way to generate short-term losses and long-term gains.

The short-term losses can be used to wipe away other short-term gains that would get taxed at almost 40%. Yass’ high-speed trading business generates hundreds of millions of these gains each year. The long-term gains replace the lost income, but get taxed at a much lower rate of around 20%. For every $100 run through this process, a trader would net from $17 to $20 in tax savings, depending on prevailing rates.

Because of the potential for abuse, there are intricate rules in the tax code barring certain kinds of bets for and against the same securities. These are known as “straddles” because the trader is standing on both sides of the same bet. (For a step-by-step on how straddles work, read our full story.)

It’s not clear whether the IRS has ever challenged Susquehanna Fundamental’s trades. But the agency has gone after Yass and his partners in other cases, resulting in bills for back taxes totaling more than $100 million.

In one recent case, the IRS found that Susquehanna violated restrictions on betting for and against the same stocks. Court records from the case show the firm bought more than $1 billion worth of Swiss stocks, while taking out equal bets against the same stocks at the same time and claiming tax savings in the process.

The firm is disputing that the trades were designed primarily to save money on taxes, and in 2020 sued the IRS in federal court to dispute its tax bill. It has maintained in court filings that it complies with all legal requirements. The case is still pending.

A spokesperson for Susquehanna and Yass declined to comment in response to detailed questions from ProPublica.

Ordinary income — including from short-term stock trading — was taxed at about 40% for high earners in 2017. But special kinds of income, like gains from long-term investments, were taxed at around 20%. This chart shows what percentage of each person’s taxable income was taxed at that lower rate in 2017.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Justin Elliott, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel.