How Important is Education to Texas?

The biggest question of all right now in Texas is, How Important is Education to Texas?   Evidently education is not very important since Texas has proposed a bill to cut billions of dollars from our schools.  Meaning that there will be fewer teachers and bigger classrooms in a deficit as it is. At this point in time, we as a state are ranked 44^th in the nation without much to look forward to in the future.   Since I am a student of higher public education, this is of major concern to me. Texas could have received money from the government just like other states did but our governor decided against it.  Now the Texas legislature is trying to balance the budget on the backs of those who already were having problems just struggling to make it.  What will happen to us in the future when each generation is not receiving a proper education as were their fore fathers?  Do we really want to be put in that type of situation?  As an accounting clerk for Travis County, that is completely unacceptable for the state to be in such a deficit. They should have been getting audited and had other procedures put in place so that this would not occur.  According to the article that came out Saturday a week ago by Raise Your Hand Texas, we are really at a very unacceptable level and to cut more money is unethical.  How are we to cut funding and be expected to increase our ranking in regards to education?  Texas must stop teaching to just pass the tests. We need to get back to teaching all of the fundamentals as in China and India.