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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Texas School Finance

There are several significant historical events dealing with Texas School Finance. I want to focus on three that I think are very important issues/events and all derive from historical events that occurred in Texas School Finance. The first is the move away from a formula funded system, to a formula/plus grant/plus hold harmless system. This has severely crippled funding for schools, particularly in smaller rural districts. If you look back to history the “Robin Hood Plan” was introduced as a formula funded system and we have moved away from it. It basically spread funding out from richer school district’s to poorer. This made funding more equitable to all students, even those from extremely poor districts.

The second School Finance issue that I feel of great importance is the Target Revenue System. This system puts a value on students in different schools. For example, a student at RISD is “worth” $4958, while a student at a neighboring district would be worth as low as $4500 or even as high as $12,000. This is an asinine way to fund schools, all the while telling us that we should all perform the same on standardized test. If this be the case, then why are all students not “worth” the same at all districts? The state continually states that all students are to perform at the same achievement level on standardized text, yet they can determine how much different districts are allotted for student education.

The last important issue that I have chosen as significant is the continual added unfunded mandates. Even as far back as the early 1800’s there was talk and evidence of unfunded mandates. We are still seeing them today. More and more, we are expected to cure all of the ills of society ( obesity, teen dating violence, etc) and we are continuously inundated with new mandates from our legislature. Yet,the money to fund these programs is not provided, and so we are forced to use local money to do this work. Many of these initiatives are things that should be taught at home, but more and more are expected to be taught at school.

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