Oliveira receives Champion for Children award

State Rep. Rene Oliveira admitted the Champion for Children award he received on Wednesday caught him a little by surprise

"Seldom are you really touched," the veteran Brownsville legislator told a luncheon gathering to present him the award. "You receive awards and you put them on your wall because they mean something to you, but this one was different."

The Champion for Children award was different because it is about children, the focus of his personal and professional life, Oliveira said.

The Equity Center in Austin, an advocacy organization for Texas' property-poor school districts, chose Oliveira for the annual award to recognize a lifetime of work in the Legislature making sure all children receive an equal chance at a quality education.

"The Equity Center is based on a singular principle ... that any child is entitled to the same education as any other child," Wayne Pierce, the center's executive director, said in presenting the award.

Oliveira said that finding an equitable solution to public school finance proved more difficult than it should have

"It was pitiful that we had to go to the supreme court so many times to get what everyone knew was the right thing - equitable funding.

Oliveira is a past vice-chairman of the House Public Education Committee and is currently serving his 12th term in the Texas House of Representatives. He recalled the inequalities that became evident as legislators hashed out school finance reform.

"We had districts where each child had a computer when all we were trying to get was a computer lab for a certain school," Oliveria said. "Those fights should never have been fought in the great state of Texas."

Ultimately lawmakers reached a funding compromise in which property-rich school districts contribute funds to property-poor districts.

Oliveira, a product of the Brownsville Independent School District, called public education "the great equalizer," saying it allowed him to earn a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin and his law degree from the UT School of Law.

Oliveira is senior partner in the Brownsville law firm of Roerig, Oliveira and Fisher. His children, also BISD products, attended the luncheon with him, and Oliveira announced that his son Rene Jr., recently received his law degree from the UT School of Law and has joined his father's law firm as a lawyer.

His daughter, Adrienne Marie, is a senior at the University of Texas.