Texas priorities

This article makes me sad. I can't help but think that this state would be so much greater if it made quality education a high priority.

Here's an excerpt:

Looking six stories down from the VIP-ready "Texas Room" to a field made of the same brand of artificial turf on which the Dallas Cowboys play, Ken Purcell declares, "This is probably the best high school football stadium in the country. I'm not making any apologies."

Purcell, Denton Independent School District's athletics director, said he asked architects to incorporate aspects of state-of-the-art fields in Waco, Southlake and Mesquite, as well as the Cowboys' Texas Stadium, into Denton's $20.5 million football field, which opened in September.

Hence the separate locker rooms for each team's offensive and defensive squads; the three-story, $900,000 instant-replay scoreboard; the spacious two-level press box; and the glass wall separating the athletics staff offices, trophy hall and banquet room from the north end zone.

The 12,000-seat complex, which Denton voters approved by a 3-to-1 margin in a 2002 bond election, is one of 23 new or planned public school stadiums in the Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio metropolitan areas, according to a Houston Chronicle survey of the districts.

The combined price tag: $305.4 million.