The Texas Permanent School Fund and the Quiet Power of Land I have been sitting with the Texas Permanent School Fund, and the more I study it, the more I realize it is not just “education finance.” It is a constitutional decision about what Texas believes education deserves. The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) is not a discretionary pot of money that can be redirected on a whim. Its existence, its purpose, and the basic rules that govern how it functions are written into th

There has been a lot of conversation recently about food policy in America. Whole milk is back in schools. Farmers receive government support when prices fall. Families continue to rely on food assistance to get through the month. At first glance, these topics can feel separate. They are not. Together, they tell a much bigger story about who our policies protect, where those protections are strongest, and how geography quietly shapes economic equity in the United States. Let’

For a long time, the story we were told was simple. Foreign nations had the minerals. The United States did not. That story was absorbed by the public, it was efficient, and convenient. It also quietly removed us from the most important part of the equation. The truth is that the United States has critical minerals across many states. What we gave up was not ownership of the earth. We gave up ownership of the middle. Processing. Processing is where raw materials become usable