School finance in Texas is back for its biennial place under the legislative microscope. The Texas House was the first out of the gate with its plan and here is a look at it from two sides.
First, from my Rep. Dennis Paul (R-129). Rep. Paul sent this over the weekend:
The Texas Plan for School Finance Reform
Earlier this week the Chairman of the House Committee on Public Education, Rep. Dan Huberty, filed House Bill 3, the “Texas Plan” to provide meaningful school finance reform. I am a proud co-author of this legislation to fundamentally transform the public school finance in Texas.
The Texas Plan invests $9 billion above enrollment growth and current law entitlement toward student achievement, teacher quality and property tax reform, and will put more money into Texas classrooms than ever before. It represents the first major rewrite of the state’s public school finance system undertaken without threat of a court order.
You can visit www.TheTexasPlan.com to learn more about the plan. Here is a brief summary:
• Invests in Texas students and teachers by adding approximately $9 billion in funding above enrollment growth and current law entitlement over the next two years
• Empowers local school districts to put more money in their classrooms by raising the Basic Allotment from $5,140 to $6,030, an $890 increase per student
• Provides property tax reform by lowering school property tax rates by 4 cents statewide
• Reduces recapture from $7.7 billion to $4.7 billion for the biennium, a $3 billion or 38% reduction
• Establishes an early reading program that funds full-day, high quality Pre-K for low income students, setting the right foundation for students to be able to read at grade level by third grade
• Substantially raises the minimum teacher salary schedule and allocates an addition
• $140 million in funding for a teacher quality program, providing districts with the resources for recruiting and retaining teachers in the classroom
• Enhances the yield on the “enrichment” pennies, allowing schools to earn and keep more money for property taxes levied above the standard Tier 1 tax rate
• Creates a professional development grant program to train teachers in blended learning instruction so they can effectively combine e-learning and traditional classroom instruction
• Dedicates more money for dual language immersion education, which has proven to be more effective in producing greater achievement levels for multilingual and native English speaking students
• Equips districts with the resources needed to identify and intervene at the earliest signs of student dyslexia and related disorders
• Establishes an extended year program that allows districts to combat “summer slide” by providing 30 days of half-day instruction for students in grades PreK-5 during the summer months
• Updates the transportation funding model from a burdensome linear density model to a simplified one dollar per mile reimbursement
• Allocates resources to low-income students on a sliding scale (rather than an equal weight) to prioritize students with the highest needs, and provides more funding to schools with higher concentrations of economically disadvantaged students and generational poverty
• Quadruples the amount allocated to fast growth districts to build and equip new instructional facilities funding to $100 million per year
• Expands career and technology education programs for students in grades 6-12 (previously grades 9-12), making students more skilled and better prepared for the workforce or post-secondary education
• Establishes a grant program for districts to offer parents of economically disadvantaged students with learning disabilities in grades 3-8 access to additional services to help improve educational performance
Michael Quinn Sullivan included this in his Texas Minute report this morning:
• While Gov. Greg Abbott designated six items as emergencies and therefore eligible for rapid movement, only the Senate took floor action on two of them – and both were focused on creating new spending rather than tax relief or reform.
• There was a great deal of excitement in January when House Bill 2 and Senate Bill 2—the property tax reform measures — were filed with the blessing of Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen. The Senate’s Committee on Property Tax held a hearing the first week of February, the result of which was an improvement in their bill letting more Texans opt-in to the protections.
• SB 2 hasn’t been heard from since. Amarillo Republican Kel Seliger has expressed outright opposition to reforms protecting taxpayers, and there has been suspicious silence from several other Republican senators.
• Meanwhile, HB 2 finally received a hearing two weeks ago in the Ways and Means Committee. However, the chairman of the committee has yet to call for a vote. There seems to be little urgency for the legislation in the House.
• But that’s just the reform. What about relief? There is apparently a lot of surplus money available, but it appears lawmakers are more interested in spending it than giving it back to taxpayers. Rather than grow government on lefty do-gooder programs, that big pile of money should be given back to the taxpayers.
• Senators moved rapidly to pass a $4 billion teacher pay raise measure. It’s most notable for directing specific dollars into the classroom but contains no systemic reforms. They also passed Gov. Abbott’s $100 million measure creating new mental health programs.
• Speaker Bonnen did speak somewhat disparagingly last week about the Senate’s $4 billion pay raise proposal… as part of advocating for his own even-bigger plan to pump more money into an unreformed public education system.
• The Senate wants to give money directly to the teachers, while the House allocates more dollars to the same educrat administrators who have thus far failed to prioritize classroom spending. But make no mistake, both chambers have put a government spending spree ahead of property tax relief.
• When it comes to substantive property tax relief, neither chamber has yet done much. The Senate has earmarked $2.3 billion in its proposed budget, while the plan promoted by Speaker Bonnen contains $2.7 billion in relief.
• Even one of the House school finance measure’s co-authors, State Rep. Matt Krause (R–Fort Worth), says his chamber’s property tax relief offering is “not substantial.”
• Texans should be asking their state representatives: Why would the House spend so much money without trying for substantial property tax relief?
So you have two sides. I’m not well enough versed in the intricacies of school finance to discern the subtleties in each argument but it is important to note that the two sides have completely different backgrounds. On the Texas House side, it is being pushed by Rep. Dan Huberty (R-127), formerly a school board member. And on the taxpayer side, Michael Quinn Sullivan, well known taxpayer rabble-rouser (and I mean that in a good way).
The biggest problem I have with the Texas House school finance plan is the full out marketing assault to get their plan passed. When any organization does that, it doesn’t bode well for taxpayers. I mean really, setting up a one-sided website, TheTexasPlan.com, with no notice of who is paying for it? That should bother any taxpayer. And did you see all the fluff pieces this weekend about Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s challenges with dyslexia and how he really is emotional about our schools? Like those of us without dyslexia aren’t? And what a coincidence that his dyslexia was discovered the day the website was released, right?
Like I said, I don’t have enough knowledge to get into the depths of school finance. But I do have enough experience to know when taxpayers are about to get hosed.
DanMan says
Huberty was the guy that melted down over his home trash collection being compromised after Harvey.
Jeff Larson says
I simply recommend that everyone support Rep. Springer’s bill, HB2915.
This is true property tax relief.
Fred D Flickinger says
I see plenty of spending in the House Bill.
I don’t see anything about measuring out comes. What if we spend an additional $9 billion a year and get the exact same results?
Is this really what we are looking for?
Alex Shaskevich says
I need to see the bill text to make a decision. You should have given links not to websites that gloss over the details but have the details and what is in the bills.
So my beef is….where is the beef?
DanMan says
If urban districts throughout Texas are anything like Houston’s then let’s admit the facts; North American US citizens that have an interest in their kids education have few resources in the public system. Vouchers are the best answers period. Let’s codify reality. About 200,000 HISD students in a city of 2.3 million clearly shows the majority of families do not rely on their local public schools and should have help by either cutting their school taxes while they have kids in private schools or be granted vouchers.
My old school has had its name changed and caters to illegal immigrants as an “International School”. It lists its student body as 74% Hispanic 98% economic disadvantaged and 31% ‘recent’ immigrants. Compare that to the district at 71% Hispanic, 87% economic disadvantaged and 20% recent immigrants. The high school in the neighborhood I’m leaving is 81% Hispanic, 98% eco. dis. and a shocking 2% immigrant. For some reason they list that one without the ‘recent’ designation.
I don’t recall voting to educate Central and South America’s kids but that’s what we’re doing while feeding them three times/day.
That list of bullet points trumpeting improvements to public education by increasing spending is a joke when stood up against reality.
Ross says
DanMan, where do you get the idea that the majority of students in Houston don’t go to public schools? Your 200,000 number is HISD only. There are 19 school districts within the city limits of Houston, not just HISD. As for illegal immigrants, like it or not, the Supreme Court said years ago that they have to receive the same education as everyone else. Even in HISD, the number of students not going to public schools is less than 20%, and 14% of that is charter schools.
I would be OK with vouchers as long as private schools had to take the voucher as the entire compensation for education, with no additional charges to parents. The private schools would also have to take all applicants, provide special education services, provide no religious education, and perform all the other services public schools provide.
The main reason school taxes have gone up is the Legislature’s consistent under funding of public schools in Texas, with the State’s share dropping by over 20 percent since 2008. In the meantime, teachers are paid poorly, which leads to good teachers leaving the profession, class sizes get bigger, and the students suffer.
PeterD says
If private schools receive a massive influx of voucher money, the most likely thing to happen is they will just raise prices as has happened in the past. As Ross points out, they are not going to take the trouble children, the impaired, and tough to teach types any more than they do now. That leaves public schools with the hardest to teach and likely less funds to teach them though I doubt most will expand their programs much because their existing body of students contains those they want as students. Frankly, as long as those of us without children have to pay to finance public schools, or those who brought them up somewhere else before moving here, those with an actual choice can pay for public schools along with us-the choice to upgrade not affecting the need to educate the others. Like it or not, most students in public schools are here legally so whether they are anchor babies or not, that is a matter for the courts.