Texas
High Plains farmers are experimenting with novel techniques to protect Texas’ future soil
![High Plains farmers are experimenting with novel techniques to protect Texas’ future soil](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/4LcMl4meGgpPCmGe36Snv9iAF6I=/1200x630/filters:quality(95):focal(0x0:3000x2000)/static.texastribune.org/media/files/475301ce5de7aa16f129d8c5da2f1d68/Cornfield%20JF%20TT%2001.jpg)
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LUBBOCK — Jeremy Brown was reading his Bible one day when he had a thought about the farmers who would be tending the land after him.
He wondered: Will I have done enough to leave behind acres capable of growing a crop in an unstable climate?
“I see myself as a steward of God’s creation,” said Brown, who farms near Lamesa. “I started thinking, ‘What does it mean to have good soil?’”
To answer that question, the fourth-generation farmer changed the practices that he’s known his entire life. First, he started growing organic cotton. Then he upped the ante — he turned to regenerative agriculture, which puts a focus on the health of the soil year-round rather than how much he harvests in the fall.
Texas farmers see the impacts of climate change first-hand, as long droughts and merciless heat waves have made the state’s agriculture industry lose billions of dollars. In the High Plains, some farmers, like Brown, are looking to regenerative agriculture or organic practices — of nearly 250,000 farms in Texas, there are only 383 organic certificates statewide — as a way to conserve water and keep their soil healthy.
The practices are not widespread or a guarantee, but those farmers are hopeful the practices will eventually pay off as Texas continues to grow hotter and drier.
Katie Lewis, a soil scientist for Texas A&M AgriLife in Lubbock, said she saw an increase in farmers turning to regenerative practices last year when cotton crops failed.
“That was a really good indicator that they want to improve the overall health of their soil and get to a point where they can start implementing these practices,” Lewis said. “It’s all about farmers figuring out what works best for them and their farms.”
Brown is the first to admit that some regenerative practices are still a challenge for him in dry West Texas. When he first started, Brown said it was a complete failure. He was learning from farmers in wetter climates.
Brown said it can take anywhere from five to 10 years to see a farm flourish after switching to regenerative agriculture. But the setbacks haven’t stopped him from pursuing regenerative agriculture on his farm, about 62 miles south of Lubbock. Instead, he focuses on the six principles of soil health, uses what works and makes adjustments when needed.
“The principles of soil health still apply, but how you implement them can be different depending on your environment,” Brown said. “We tried to rotate crops, but when you look at everything we do out here, cotton is what I grow best, so I’ve adapted for that.”
In the last three years, Brown has given himself more space when he plants for most of his acres, which gives him room to establish a crop to cover and protect the soil from overheating and drying out. In turn, he uses less water because the soil can hold moisture. Brown uses other techniques too, such as changing the kind of crops he plants on certain sections of land, not disturbing the soil through traditional tilling, and using livestock to graze and for natural fertilizer.
“We are using cover crops and livestock as our nitrogen to improve the fertility and health of the soil,” Brown said. “Especially the livestock because you need to manage them and move them every day, you can’t just put them out there and let them be.”
Eric Simpson is another farmer who has shifted to regenerative agriculture. His family owns At’l Do Farms near Shallowater, about 12 miles northwest of Lubbock. With hardly any rainfall since June, he says it has been a tough growing season but his crops are in better shape this year than they would have been otherwise.
“I think all the practices we’ve put in place have allowed us to conserve as much moisture as possible,” Simpson said. “As much as we can prepare for the rain, the better off we’ll be.”
For Simpson, preparing for the rain means growing winter cover crops so there is a living organism in his land at all times. Simpson primarily grows corn, sunflowers and pumpkins, and plants commodities such as radishes, winter wheat, and Austrian winter peas. The cover crops act as natural mulch, and Simpson leaves the residue to help protect the land.
“During the summer when it’s extremely hot, I’ve got the ground covered by this organic matter so the sun is not making direct contact with the soil,” Simpson explained. “And, I don’t have the dirt blowing around as much when it’s windy.”
The coverage has also helped the neverending concern that plagues High Plains farmers — water availability. After getting incredible amounts of rain at the start of the summer, 200% of the normal rainfall in the Panhandle and 130% in the Lubbock area according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the ground has dried up once again.
Simpson has leaned more into irrigating his crops this year because of the weather, but he feels better about using it since his practices make the most out of the water he’s pumping out.
“I would be losing a lot of water to evaporation from the heat and the wind if the soil wasn’t covered,” Simpson said.
Even though it’s been hard to adjust at times, Simpson said he sees a difference. Six years ago, his pumpkin patch wilted under the sun and in drought conditions. Now, his pumpkins are looking better in the same conditions, and he credits regenerative agriculture.
“A drought is a drought, so it doesn’t necessarily make things easier,” Simpson said. “But I see the results and I feel hopeful for implementing these practices.”
Lewis, the soil scientist, farms with her husband in Terry County, about 40 miles southwest of Lubbock. Some practices, such as rotating crops, are hard for their farm, so she understands how some farmers might be hesitant to incorporate them.
However, she is confident that regenerative agriculture practices will be more common in the future of the High Plains.
“I try to encourage farmers, who do have some irrigation water left, to start implementing some of these practices,” Lewis said. “So their soil is in a better state and able to capture and store moisture better.”
Disclosure: Texas A&M AgriLife has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Texas
Fort Worth's Sky Elements Will Be Droning North Texas with Fourth of July Celebrations
![Fort Worth's Sky Elements Will Be Droning North Texas with Fourth of July Celebrations](https://s24806.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Sky-Elements-record-setting-2023-July-4th-drone-show-Photo-Sky-Elements.jpg)
A moment from Sky Elements’ record-setting 2023 July 4th drone show [Photo: Sky Elements]
Last month, the Fort Worth-based drone light show company Sky Elements put their dazzling nighttime sky skills on national TV with an appearance on “America’s Got Talent,” earning a “golden buzzer” from Simon Cowell himself.
The 400-foot-tall, 300-foot wide display in the skies outside the the show’s studio featured a rocket liftoff and an image of Cowell in the sky as a waving, space-walking astronaut, capped by the AGT logo.
“It was really patriotic,” Cowell told the Sky Elements team after the demonstration. “And I think the way you told the story, the use of music, whether you’re 3 years old, whether you’re 100 years old, I think you’re absolutely going to love that audition.”
You can watch that AGT clip here for a cool, behind-the-scenes look at how the team’s drone show takes off.
See for yourself this coming week
Or you can watch Sky Elements in action yourself all over North Texas in the next week:
Tomorrow, Saturday June 29 at Toyota Stadium, Sky Elements will give a performance during FC Dallas’ 7:30 p.m. game against FC Cincinnati.
On Wednesday July 3, Sky Elements will perform Fourth of July shows in two local cities. The first will be the Denton Independence Day celebration at Quakertown Park, with “flight times” at 9:15 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The second will be held Wednesday during day 1 of a 2-day Sparks & Stripes celebration in Irving, with a drone and fireworks show at 9:20 p.m. at Levy Event Plaza over Lake Carolyn.
First drone light show to get FAA fireworks approval
![](https://s24806.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Pyro-drone-show-by-Sky-Elements-Video-still-Sky-Elements.png)
“Pyro drone show” with fireworks on drones by Sky Elements [Video still: Sky Elements]
In May, Sky Elements announced that it had become “the first U.S.-based drone light show company to receive FAA approval to attach fireworks to drones.”
The company had been working on obtaining the waiver for 26 months before the FAA finally granted its approval. The FAA green light allows Sky Elements to legally attach and launch fireworks from drones during their shows, creating what they call “pyro drone shows.”
It’s not the first time Sky Elements has made history. On Fourth of July 2023, the company snagged a Guinness World Records title for the largest aerial formation of words created by drones (by using 1,002 drones). Then last December, the company broke two more Guiness World Records with a 1,499-drone show in North Richland Hills.
And when Major League Cricket held its historic opening night last July in Grand Prairie, Sky Elements was there to mark the occasion with a drone light show.
Not just all over North Texas—all over the U.S., too
The DFW shows coming next week are just a glimmer of the stunning amount of events Sky Elements is booked for across the U.S. You can check out the company’s master list of performances by going here—including a patriotically astounding amount of shows it’s doing around this year’s July 4th.
Get on the list.
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Texas
Massive dust plume from Sahara Desert to bring hazy skies to Florida, Texas
![Massive dust plume from Sahara Desert to bring hazy skies to Florida, Texas](https://images.foxweather.com/static.foxweather.com/www.foxweather.com/content/uploads/2024/06/1024/512/FOX-Model-Wide-with-Dust-Tracker.png?ve=1&tl=1)
A new tropical disturbance is now being monitored for development in the eastern Atlantic Ocean just in the wake of Invest 95L, which is on the cusp of becoming a tropical depression or Tropical Storm Beryl.
HOUSTON — A massive plume of dust from Africa’s Saharan Desert is blowing across the entire Atlantic Ocean this week, set to reach the shores of Florida and Texas in the coming days and casting a haze over typically blue skies.
The plume is currently forecast to skirt South Florida late Friday night into early Saturday morning, then push into the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.
Eventually, the plume is forecast to move into Southeast Texas Sunday into Monday, with Corpus Christi and perhaps Houston likely to see some of the effects.
Coastal communities along the Florida Peninsula and the Gulf Coast are accustomed to seeing plumes of Saharan dust over the summer, which can impact air quality, produce colorful sunrises and sunsets, and reduce the chances of precipitation.
182 million tons of dust a year carried away from Africa
As daily triple-digit heat bakes the Saharan Desert, hot, dry air rises from the surface and carries fine particles of dust from the sands. That dust-laden air climbs to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, where winds called the Easterlies or Trade Winds (blowing from east to west) carry that dust about 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean into the Western Hemisphere in what’s known as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL).
5 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE SAHARAN DUST PLUME
According to NASA, about 182 million tons of dust leave Africa every year, though that amount can vary depending on the amount of rainfall south of the Sahara region.
![FOX Model Wide with Dust Tracker](https://images.foxweather.com/static.foxweather.com/www.foxweather.com/content/uploads/2024/06/668/376/FOX-Model-Wide-with-Dust-Tracker.png?ve=1&tl=1)
Depending on the amount of dust being carried by the plume, air quality can be drastically affected. This means that people who have certain types of breathing problems can experience difficulty. People in the path of the plume can also experience eye, nose and throat irritation because of the fine dust particles in the air, according to WebMD.
The dry air from the hot, sandy desert also works to suppress tropical development and significant plumes of dust and dry air are common in the Atlantic during the first two and a half months of the hurricane season.
![Saharan Dust Trend](https://images.foxweather.com/static.foxweather.com/www.foxweather.com/content/uploads/2024/06/668/376/Saharan-Dust-Trend.png?ve=1&tl=1)
However, the current situation is a bit unusual in that there is quite a bit of tropical activity percolating in the Atlantic even with a significant dust layer.
Invest 95L and another tropical disturbance just to its east are holding positions just south of the dust layer, and are feeding off available moisture to their south to skirt the edges of the dust layer as they trek west.
However, the dust layer may become an important variable in the storms’ future development depending on their track.
Texas
The Growing Financial Strain of Charter School Expansion on Texas Public Schools
![The Growing Financial Strain of Charter School Expansion on Texas Public Schools](https://www.texasaft.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/image-13.png)
Every year, the State Board of Education (SBOE) approves new charter schools following a comprehensive application, review, and public hearing process that culminates in late June. The commissioner of education also approves dozens of new charter schools through the charter expansion amendment process each year, a process which lacks SBOE input and involves minimal accountability and transparency with no public notice or hearings.
To support SBOE members in making informed decisions about approving or vetoing new charter applications, Texas AFT collaborates with a broad coalition of public education advocates to analyze Texas Education Agency (TEA) data on school districts’ finances, enrollment, transfers, and cost of recapture. The rigorous analysis we provide to SBOE members aims to:
- Estimate the current revenue loss experienced by school districts within new charters’ proposed geographic boundaries due to students transferring from their home school districts to charter schools (“charter transfers out” or “charter transfers”).
- Project the additional estimated revenue loss these districts would face if new charters were approved based on their requested maximum enrollment.
- Connect charter expansion with other relevant fiscal impacts, such as districts’ costs of recapture. Every new charter student increases districts’ recapture payments to the state that fund charter schools.
This data-driven approach not only aids SBOE decision-making but also supports local advocacy efforts. School district officials, parents, educators, and community organizations use this information to voice their concerns to the SBOE, especially in districts facing rapid charter school expansion and its negative fiscal impacts. Across Texas, charter expansion is contributing to growing budget deficits, forcing many districts to consider closing neighborhood schools and holding Voter Approval Tax Rate Elections (VATREs) to balance their budgets.
In response to public education stakeholders from across the state voicing their concerns, the SBOE vetoed two of the five Generation 29 charter applications in its preliminary vote on Wednesday, June 26, including two of the three new charters that our union has been most concerned about. One of the proposed charters was to be located within Arlington ISD, the school district with the ninth highest total estimated loss of revenue to charter transfers from the 2019-2020 through the 2023-2024 school year. These results were upheld in the final vote on Friday, June 28.
Texas AFT extends the use of this district-level data to our legislative advocacy. During legislative sessions and the interims between them, we meet with current and prospective Texas Legislature members to discuss public education advocates’ concerns about charter school expansion and share data on how expansion affects the school districts they represent. This data-driven approach is effective to demonstrate the fiscal impact of charter schools even among legislators who were initially unconcerned about charter expansion. These hard facts help counter misleading claims made by charter school marketing campaigns and the many well-funded lobbyists employed by the charter industry.
Detailed analyses of charter expansion’s fiscal impact on affected school districts can be found on our website. The results of our updated analysis on estimated revenue loss due to charter transfers are alarming. School districts statewide are experiencing a large and growing drain on their resources due directly to charter expansion, as charters enrolled about 8 percent of Texas students (ADA) in FY 2023 but received about 20% of Foundation School Program state aid for public education.
Major urban districts like Houston ISD and Dallas ISD continue to experience significant fiscal impacts due to unlimited charter expansion, while smaller school districts have seen a comparatively small number of charter transfers translate into a large impact on their budgets. School districts in the Rio Grande Valley and the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, El Paso, and Austin areas have seen the most charter expansion over the past several years. Charter schools are rapidly expanding into rural Texas as well.
These figures represent a significant financial burden, diverting resources that could otherwise enhance educational services and student experiences in public schools. The scope of this issue is expanding, as evidenced by the increasing number of affected districts and the rising total estimated revenue losses:
- 2019-2020: $2.82 billion (at least 297 districts affected)
- 2020-2021: $3.25 billion (at least 309 districts affected)
- 2021-2022: $3.32 billion (at least 312 districts affected)
- 2022-2023: $3.56 billion (at least 322 districts affected)
- 2023-2024: $3.60 billion (at least 325 districts affected)
When considering these figures, it is also important to realize that the number of charter transfers, total estimated revenue loss, and tally of affected districts are undercounts because the number of charter transfers out from a school district are sometimes not available (i.e. masked) to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Masked numbers are typically small although larger numbers may be masked to prevent imputation.
However, the available data reveals a growing financial strain on public education resources:
- The number of districts experiencing revenue loss due to charter transfers increased from at least 297 in 2019-2020 to at least 325 in 2023-2024.
- At least 377 districts have faced some level of revenue loss due to charter transfers over the five-year period.
The implications of these findings extend beyond district finances to the communities they serve. The growing financial pressure could lead to:
- Increased class sizes, layoffs, and cuts to pay and benefits as districts struggle to balance budgets without necessary funding.
- Reductions in extracurricular and academic programs, particularly those serving economically disadvantaged communities where charter expansion has been most prevalent.
- Potential school closures, which have devastating effects on local communities and economies, leading to longer commutes for students and job losses for educators and support staff.
The trends of increasing revenue losses and the broadening impact across more districts are unsustainable and demand immediate attention from policymakers. Action is needed to mitigate further adverse effects on public schools and ensure a more equitable approach to public and charter school funding. The data clearly shows that the financial viability of many districts is at risk, which has severe implications for educational quality and equity across the state.
These stark realities underscore the need for robust, data-driven discussions among policymakers, educators, and community stakeholders. As we advocate for a more equitable approach, we must consider:
- Implementing a more rigorous approval process for new charter schools and expansions, with greater emphasis on their potential impact on existing public schools and taxpayers.
- Developing funding mechanisms that do not disproportionately disadvantage public school districts when students transfer to charter schools or create a funding advantage for charters.
- Increasing transparency in charter school operations and finances to ensure they are held to the same standards of accountability as public schools.
- Investing in public schools to enhance their ability to meet diverse student needs, reducing the perceived need for inefficient, parallel systems such as charter schools or private school vouchers.
- Establishing a moratorium on new charter schools and on the expansion of existing charter school networks through charter expansion amendments.
- Conducting a comprehensive study of charter school impact on public education, including the fiscal impact on public school districts, the state budget, students, school employees, and taxpayers.
Texas AFT remains committed to using data-driven advocacy to protect and strengthen our public education system. We call on all stakeholders – legislators, educators, parents, and community members – to engage in this critical conversation about the future of public education in Texas. By working together and making informed decisions based on comprehensive data, we can ensure that all Texas students have access to high-quality education without compromising the financial stability of our public school districts.
The challenge before us is significant, but with continued advocacy and collaboration, we can work towards a more equitable and sustainable educational landscape for all Texas students to thrive.
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