The fight to improve Texas public education gets a boost from noted economist Dr. Ray Perryman. From the InBox:
The Lone Star State is attracting more major corporate locations than any other (and has for a number of years) and is adding jobs at a strong pace. Growth is broad based, covering the spectrum from cornerstone industries to emerging sectors. While I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, some recent statistics show one critical area where the state is falling behind: support for public education. If we don’t fix it, we will erode our advantage in the years to come.
The Census Bureau recently released the 2016 Annual Survey of School System Finances. It provides information regarding spending on public elementary and secondary school systems (including public charter schools). Of the 50 states plus Washington DC, Texas ranks tenth from the bottom in spending per pupil at $9,016, well below the national average of $11,762.
Part of the explanation is that most of the highest-spending states (such as New York, which is the highest at $22,366) are characterized by high costs of living in their major population centers. However, there are many states (such as Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, and South Carolina) that outpace Texas by a significant margin.
In instructional spending (basically teacher salaries and benefits), Texas stands at $5,514 compared to the US average of $7,160 (thirteenth from the bottom). While instructor salary is near the middle of the rankings, the employee benefits are literally the lowest in the nation (by a notable margin). Texas also spends far less on support services at $3,002 per student (the national average is $4,107).
Texas students’ college entrance exam scores are below national norms. According to Prep Scholar, the average SAT college entrance exam score in Texas was a 1020 of 1600, compared to a national average of 1060. The ACT also reported that the class of 2017 in Texas averaged a 20.7 composite score out of 36, below the national average of 21.0. These numbers are not catastrophic, but they do not bode well for the race to be a global technology player.
Texas increased total spending per student from 2015 to 2016, but only slightly (from $8,861 to $9,016). It was below the national average rise and certainly not sufficient to move up the rankings. While academic performance depends on more than just dollars, adequate resources are essential to quality education. Future prosperity depends on supporting public education and providing the funds to attract quality teachers and give them the support that they need. More folks who are raised in Texas stay here than in any other state. The kids we educate will either contribute to growth and competitiveness or be a drain on public and community resources. It is up to us!!
It is important to note that Dr. Perryman isn’t some radical left wing progressive economist. In fact, his work has been cited by Republicans for years.
Texas Republican politicians might want to take note of this. Texas Democrats already have.
HISD spends about $9,805/student per year. With an enrollment of 214,175 I’m wondering how many students in the district there are they don’t have to spend a dime on. In a city of 2.2 million, with what appears to be 38% of the citizenry of school age (5-19) according the CoH stats, it would appear there would be about 840,000 that are being educated or dropped out.
I guess if we subtract Spring Branch ISD and a few others that are within Houston’s city limits we could generously cut the number in half to 420k. That would indicate about half of the students in the city limits are not in the HISD pipeline.
A lot of people appear to be operating with their children’s best interest in mind.
Huh. Interesting way to look at it. Thanks.
Dan Man: The following is a complete list of school districts serving the city limits of Houston Texas, in addition to Houston ISD:
Aldine ISD
Alief ISD
Clear Creek ISD
Crosby ISD
Cypress Fairbanks ISD
Fort Bend ISD
Galena Park ISD
Huffman ISD
Humble ISD
Katy ISD
Klein ISD
Lamar Consolidated ISD
New Caney ISD
Pasadena ISD
Sheldon ISD
Spring ISD
Spring Branch ISD
That doesn’t include the number of kids who attend private schools or are home schooled. I’m not sure that you can draw any reliable conclusions simply based on HISD enrollment.
Another interesting comment. Thanks FA.
Lamar? I didn’t bother to check any others but I’m pretty sure Houston doesn’t cross the Brazos. Do you think my estimate of about half the eligible students are participating on options other than HISD?
The reliable conclusion I came to was a lot of the people who are paying HISD school taxes that have school age children are not participating in HISD. Obviously 62% of the people paying HISD taxes do not have any stake in the district other than hoping they are paying to educate the people that are expected keep the community viable with an educated workforce. If, as I presume, the number is really closer to 82% then we may want to explore other reliable conclusions. Throwing more money at the status quo seems…unreliable.
You have to look at actual achievement, not money spent per student. A review of the National Center for Eduction Statistics (https://nces.ed.gov/) shows that Texas out performs other big states such as California, Illinois, and New York despite spending much less per student. We also have large English as a second language (ESL), urban, and rural populations, which brings down the average. If you compare cohort to cohort (i.e. rural, suburban, urban, and black, white, Hispanic, ESL, etc.), you’ll see that we do exceptionally well compared to even high performing states like New Jersey, which is basically one big suburb. I’m disappointed that a “noted economist” missed this. If spending were the answer, then we’d lag far behind Chicago, New York, and Baltimore public schools, but that’s not the care. In fact, Catholic schools in all of these cities out perform the public school and they spend much less per student.
Catholic schools, like all private schools, get to choose which students attend. Public schools take any student. That makes a huge difference in outcomes.
True, but you’re missing my point. We outperform other big states and spend much less; we are on par on a cohort basis with high performing states but spend less. We have more rural and ESL students, which also makes a difference. The problem is not money, its parental involvement.
Ross,
To echo and expand on part of what Phil says. It’s my considered belief (as a 20+ year educator) that the crucial difference between the success of private schools and the struggle of public schools is the commitment of the parents to their children education. Not to demean parents who elect to send their kids to public schools, but the reality is that parents who send their children to a private school are emphasizing their commitment with a sizable financial investment. To put it bluntly “one values most, that which is most costly to obtain”.
At parents night at a private school it is completely normal to see a 100% attendance rate by at least one parent of each child. The are there and they are actively involved. They talk to the teachers, they look at the facilities and participate in the parent organizations. Why? Well, frankly one of the reasons is to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth. I believe that the the crucial difference – not the fact that private schools get to pick their students.
I agree that parent participation makes a huge difference. When my kids were at Bellaire fully 1/3 of the student body had a parent that volunteered at the school. My wife and I are both HISD educated and we were fully aware of the reputations of our local public schools. We bought a house we could afford in the Bellaire district in the 80’s and bailed out of Meyerland pretty soon after the last one had graduated because of the infernal tax increases.
The parents during that era knew each other well through school, little league, church, scouts, and just being neighbors. I still live close to where I grew up and I do not get the sense occurs here.
My son goes to an HISD all magnet high school, and parent participation is high, which you would expect in a magnet. We are very happy with the teachers and the school.
Not all parents can participate in school – it’s tough to do that when you work two jobs to get by, others just don’t know how important school is, others don’t care. The public schools still have to educate those children, and it costs more than when parents are involved, since teachers have to replace the parents to some extent, and the students require more one on one assistance to learn.
Unlike the suburban districts, HISD doesn’t build palaces. The newer are nice, but not over the top. The sports facilities are basic, and not at all fancy. Schools are being replaced or renovated, and the costs seem reasonable for the results. HISD has the lowest tax rate in the area, and the most generous homestead exemption.
The biggest issue with schools is that Dan “Despicable Human Being” Patrick and his minions keep cutting state funding for education. The State’s share has dropped from about 50% to under 40%, with local taxpayers making up the difference. Throw in Robin Hood, which goes back to the State, and not into education, and districts are suffering. Without Robin Hood, HISD would not have the budget crunch that now exists. Austin ISD sends $5,000 per student to the State, which is ludicrous, and adds an average $1,400 to homeowner tax bills. All so Danny boy can tell his rich friends their State taxes are going down.
Dollars alone don’t create a good education environment, but they are a necessary ingredient. In Texas I think we should step back from the political spectrum and figure out what we need to do to create the best system. We have many problems other states don’t have such as a large population of poor, English as a second language students. But in Texas we are problem solvers and we can do it. We can raise these kids up. If it takes a few dollars more, there are plenty of wasteful spendings to cut.
Dr. Perryman does the public a disservice by evaluating Texas’ educational system on the basis of dollars spent by other states. There are far too many educational variables between states to rely on such a simple means of evaluation. Even test scores, which would appear to be a better measure of educational success, must be carefully evaluated because of the different student makeup of states.
I have heard Dr. Perryman on several occasions. Take his position with a grain of salt.
The other comments make excellent points:
-Student achievement has to be the main variable that determines the success of public schools (or any school), not the money spent, therefore Dr. Perryman’s argument is a misdirection.
-Parental involvement is the most important variable in the educational success of children. This was determined decades ago when Bill Bennett was Secretary of Education under Reagan.
-There are an indeterminate number of children who are in private schools or who are home schooled–or have dropped out, although the dropouts are a minor component. The higher the proportion of those who are not in the public schools correlates with parental dissatisfaction with government schools.
-An important variable that negatively impacts average student performance is the size and diversity of groups that traditionally have lower achievement relative to other groups. Texas is much less homogeneous than many other states. This is not a PC thing to say, but it is a fact.
So, what to do? What is the best policy change to make? How do we get the best performance out of the maximum number of students so that Texas will have a workforce with the educational skills to meet future challenges?
I suggest the problem is that the Government owns and operates the schools. In the absence of market forces, there is little incentive to excel. In fact, governments, in the name of equality, always pitch to the lowest common denominator leading to a race to the bottom. It does not matter how much money you throw at them, they will always under perform. In the era of the participation trophy, there is little incentive to be the best.
More than a century and a half ago we socialized education for the purpose of turning the children of Catholic immigrants into Protestants. We have come full circle and turned the public schools into vehicles of anti-religious indoctrination. We can’t initially go back to ending the public funding of education (but that is a goal we must strive for), but we can reverse the incentives in the system by getting the government out of the business of owning and operating the schools.
How to do this? We pass a Texas Constitutional amendment that removes all the offending language requiring an efficient system of free public schools that has given us Robin Hood and all the other ills and replace it with nothing or, my preference, a statement that education is the sole responsibility of the parents or guardians. There also ought to be a statement that unequivocally prohibits any government regulation or control of education.
Next, the Legislature mandates an orderly transition in which all public school assets are sold to the private sector over a five to seven year period. It also sets up a voucher fund by broadening the base of the sales tax and dedicating a certain number of cents of the state sales tax to fund it. Parents may choose to take the voucher or not, schools may choose to receive the voucher or not and charge additional tuition or not. As school property is sold, the underlying bond debt is paid off. If any debt remains upon the last sale, the debt service rate remains until the residual debt is finally paid. Upon the last sale in an ISD, the M&O rate disappears and the ISD goes out of existence. Special vouchers can be created for certain costly services, although I don’t much like that, it still picks winners and losers, but may be necessary to get this done politically. The state can create a fund to assist educators and administrators who want to band together as for-profits or not-for-profits to borrow money to buy school buildings, thereby speeding the transition. At the end, almost half the property tax in Texas will evaporate.
We should do the same thing with our county owned junior colleges and voucherize them as well.
My prediction is that a race to the top will ensue and Texas will quickly become the premier place in the world for education. The worst schools in the new privatized system will be better than the average public school today. A large proportion of schools will be better than the best schools today. Additionally, the cost per student will drop. Because of market competition, education will be provided cheaper, better and faster.
I also think we should privatize our public post-secondary schools. They are mostly rich and fat and don’t need public money.
Contrary to popular belief, education is not a public good. It can and is easily provided by the private sector.
hmmm…things to ponder Bill
Bill: Charter schools, which are essentially privately run, publicly financed schools, have a spotty record. They regularly go broke in the middle of the school year, tossing students onto the street. Many have frankly awful performance and the kids don’t learn. And, as I recall, more than a few charter school leaders are currently making license plates. On the other hand, some have fantastic results.
I can’t really talk because I’m Catholic school educated (my only year in public school, 7th grade, is where I met my wife of 46 years) and my daughter went to public school only for her senior year of high school). So, both my parents and I paid for education twice. Once in private school tuition and again in school taxes.
But I have a few thoughts.
First, in the “Happy Days” era, when I was in school, about the only professional career paths for women were teacher or secretary. Smart, dedicated, ambitious women ended up in classrooms. Today, they’re doctors, lawyers, airline pilots and just about everything else. Yes, there still are smart, dedicated teachers but not as high a percentage as when I was a kid. We could change that by paying teaches a heck of a lot more and treating them like the professionals they are.
Second, parental involvement is important. Educating your child has to be a priority for parents. And, parents, if your child isn’t learning, is it the fault of the teacher or school or is it that your child isn’t putting in the work.
Third, too many kids now have a sense of entitlement. They feel entitled to get that A. They are entitled to everything on a silver platter and they don’t expect to work for it.
The military has two education systems. DOD schools, mainly overseas, produce outstanding results. The question is what the military does right running K-12 schools? I think it is involved, disciplined parents who make learning a priority. A better question is why, other than to free up money to buy F35s that are flying Edsels, the military is trying to close those schools?
The second military education system is training new troops. The military can take a high school grad and after a year or so have a competent mechanic for jet fighters. And, overall, it does a pretty good job of training people for complex jobs. Again, what is the military doing right?
Money for education is important. And, a lot of it is spent in ways that arguably foolish. Every high school doesn’t need an indoor Olympic size swimming pool. Yet, many suburban school districts are building incredibly expensive centers for everything from basketball courts to multimillion dollar football stadiums.
There aren’t any easy answers to improving the education system but starving it for funds isn’t one of them. The Legislature still hasn’t appropriated enough school funds to make up for cuts during the Great Recession. At least one Houston area school district is having to fire a lot of employees, including teachers, because its voters turned down a tax increase.
On the other hand, there’s a reason school districts tend to have bond elections or trustee elections on odd days. That’s to guarantee that turnout will be low and the district employees who have a vested interest are a high percentage of those who show up to vote.
It’s not just parents who need to get involved. Voters do too. They need to vote for school trustees and bond issues centered on the schools’ most important task: educating children, not football.
We’ve been throwing dollars at education for years. Most of the money goes down a rat hole. Many of today’s high school graduates can barely read and write, or add and subtract, while many cannot multiply and divide. That’s why McDonald’s cash register do the math for its employees.
American history has been rewritten to meet political correctness standards. Civics has become a course in diversity and multiculturalism.
This is not just a Texas problem. It’s the same all over the country. California has thrown billions of dollars down the education rat hole with no better results.
Catholic schools turn out well educated students. I realize that private schools can pick and choose the students they accept. However, my understanding is that Catholic schools do accept a good number of minority students. They just do not bother with all that PC horseshit.
It’s too bad no one really has a solution to the downfall of American public education.