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Texas School Finance Overview:Presentation to Texas Impact Agenda
System Requirements
±Constitutional Statements ±Supreme Court Statements ±Educational Context
Legislative Response
±Legislatively Established Goals ±Legislative Response to WOC ±Legislative Response to State Budget Crisis
Current Legal Challenges
±Equity ±Adequacy ±State Property Tax ±Rationality23
System Requirements
School finance reformin Texas is beginning to resemble anineteenth century Russian novel. Thestory line runs acrossgenerations, the plot iscomplex, the prose istedious, and everybody dies in theend.--William Hobby & Mark Yudof(1991)
System Requirements: State Constitution
Equity and Adequacy:
±³A
general diffusion of knowledge
being essentialto the preservation of the liberties and rights of thepeople, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of theState to establish and make
suitable provision
for the support and maintenance of an
efficient
systemof public free schools.
State Property Tax Prohibition
±³
No State ad valorem taxes
shall be levied upon anyproperty within this State´
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System Requirements: Supreme CourtStatements
General Diffusion of Knowledge
±³There is substantial evidence, « that the public educationsystem has reached the point where continuedimprovement willnot be possible absent significantchange, whether that change take the form of increasedfunding, improved efficiencies, or better methods of education.´ ±³«an impending constitutional violation is not an existingone, and it remains to be seen whether the system'spredicted drift toward constitutional inadequacy will beavoided by legislative reaction to widespread calls for changes.´
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System Requirements: Supreme CourtStatements
Efficiency ±³The amount of "supplementation" in the systemcannot become so great that it, in effect, destroys theefficiency of the entire system.´State Property Tax ±³The State cannot provide for local supplementation,pressure most of the districts by increasingaccreditation standards in an environment of increasing costs to tax at maximum rates in order toafford any supplementation at all, and then argue thatit is not controlling local tax rates.´
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System Requirements: Complex Undertaking
4.83 million students660,000 employees (333,000+ teachers)1200+ districts, 8100 campuses$35.4 billion annual general fund operating expendituresWealth per student ranging from $18,000 to$5.4 million across school districtsChanging student population/characteristicsIncreasing educational standards and requirements
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System Requirements: Demographic Shift
1994-95 2010-11 I
ncrease%
I
ncrease
EconomicallyDisadvantaged1,699,61246%2,909,55459%1,209,94271% At Risk1,533,28142%2,275,17946%741,89848%Limited EnglishProficient455,22412%830,79517%375,57183%TotalEnrollment3,670,1964,912,3851,242,18934%
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System Requirements: The Cost of Growth
The finance formulas provide for an average of $7,257 per student in ADA.An annual increase of 75,000 students costs $544 millionper year, statewide.Factoring in three percent inflation would add an additional$1 billion.
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System Requirements: PerformanceExpectations
4X4 RequirementsEnd-of-Course TransitionCollege and Career Readiness Standards
³
The commissioner shall periodically raise the state standards for the student achievement indicator « for accreditation asnecessary to reach the goals of achieving, by not later than the2019-2020 school year:(1)student performance in this state, disaggregated by race,ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, that ranks nationally in the top10 states in terms of college readiness; and (2)student performance, including the percentage of studentsgraduating under the recommended or advanced high school program, with no significant achievement gaps by race, ethnicity,and socioeconomic status
.
±TEC 39.053(f)
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Texas in National Rankings on PublicEducation Spending
NCES data on Texas current expendituresper pupil in membership
±1997-98: $5,444 -ranked 36
th
among thestates ±2008-09: $8,562 ±ranked 43
rd
among thestates
Enrollment growth/school construction costs may serveto keep current expenditures lower than in some other states
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System Requirements: PerformanceHistory
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System Requirements: PerformanceHistorySystem Requirements: PerformanceHistory
According to TEA AEIS data, 82% of low-incomestudents from the class of 2010 graduated on time.Of those, 38% scored high enough on either thestate assessment, the SAT, or the ACT to beconsidered college ready²meaning less than 1/3both graduated and were prepared for college.
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Legislative Decisions
State Finance Policy 1995 (42.001)
I
t is the policy of this state that the provision of public educationis a
state responsibility
and that a thorough and efficient system be provided and
substantially financed throughstate revenue
sourcesso that each student enrolled in the public school system shall have access to programs and services that are
appropriate to the student's educational needs
and that are
substantially equal to those available toany similar student, notwithstanding varying local economic factors
.The public school finance system of this state shall adhere to astandard of neutrality that provides for
substantially equal access
to
similar revenue per student at similar tax effort
,considering all state and local tax revenues of districts after
acknowledging all legitimate student and district cost differences
.
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B
asic School Finance Structure
0100020003000400050006000Tier II
B
: $351Tier II A: $354 ASATR: $343Tier I Formula: $4,935
M
eaningfulLocalDiscretion
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State average amount per WADA: 2009-10
G
eneralDiffusionof Knowledge
Tier I: The General Diffusion of Knowledge
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The purposes of the FoundationSchool Program set forth in thischapter are to guarantee that eachschool district in the state has:(1)adequate resources toprovide each eligible student a basicinstructional program--Texas Education Code 42.002
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