Critics say Texas tax break helps petrochemical companies and hurts public schools

. Beaumont ISD school board members did not respond to an interview request from Capital & Main.

“I used to call this area paradise,” Summerlin, an avid birder, told me while we were driving down Highway 181, which runs northeast from Corpus Christi through Portland and Gregory. We could see industrial plants rising over the rooflines of residential neighborhoods and shopping strips in every direction. “Now I call it hell’s highway to paradise,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Gregory-Portland ISD declined to make district leadership or school board members available for an interview. While school districts like Gregory-Portland ISD may benefit from a short-term injection of surplus payments, critics of the program say it starves statewide education funding and harms the overwhelming majority of Texas students. An analysis of operative Chapter 313 agreements by Central Texas Interfaith found that only 5% of Texas students — the program’s “winners” — benefit from corporate payouts.

Summerlin, who spoke against the Cheniere proposals at the Dec. 13 Gregory-Portland ISD school board meeting, said environmental concerns did not seem to be a factor in the decision-making process.

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