Generally politics, specifically state mandated school curriculum.
Right after we moved out, Oregon passed laws decriminalizing hard drugs and removed graduation requirements (and they are considering continuing waiving graduation requirements I hear). The Oregon teacher's association (and gov in general) got a sweet retirement deal in the 90's, that they "realized" that deal is draining the state of money it needs. The teachers association is trying to teach fewer hours each day (for the kids) and have more half days (once a week) for teacher prep (for the kids). One of my kids was directly saying teachers would talk up direct action activism the the like in class. Then the new curriculum came out that had sex ed starting in Kindergarten and had massive ideological components to them. This was in 2020 and it has continued unabated from there. These were state level activities; districts can't meaningfully push back; teachers could be fired for not adhering to them. I have family who are teachers so I don't speak from ignorance here.
Texas ISDs (independent school districts) also get funding from the state, but they get much more funding locally. Practically speaking, Texas ISDs vary much more. So do your research. Then support what is good and seek to improve to make it even better.
these rules are kind of a joke right? I see top comments breaking them all the time, i guess dismissing comments as "sjw and woke" is permitted on this site
They are no joke. That doesn't we moderate every comment that deserves it. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
There's another aspect to this, though, which is that people with strong political views tend to view the site as dominated by their enemies. Meanwhile the people with opposite political views think their enemies dominate it. These perceptions are what happens when passionate feeling meets cognitive bias. See for yourself: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
natural gas is used for heating, and for the time being it's more energy efficient to heat using natural gas directly than using electricity from generated from the grid which for me is a mix of nuclear hydro & natural gas
just the political atmosphere? or something more specific?
also what part of texas, one of the big cities? a suburban city? rural?