Texas Fails to Give Schools Sufficient Share of Funding

By HARVIN C. MOORE

I believe the current legislative and judicial debate concerning the inadequacy of Texas’ current system of school finance is perhaps the most crucial issue of our time. Coming out of that debate will be either (1) the increased funding critically needed to prepare our children for successful lives and careers, and thereby ensure a healthy future economy or (2) little change to an inadequate system that, while having improved significantly, will not solve the problem of low achievement by many of our children.

Texas schools are funded by two sources: revenue from the State of Texas, and local property taxes. This school finance system has been nicknamed “Robin Hood” because richer districts must share their revenues with poorer ones to ensure that every child in Texas receives about $7,000 in total funding – an amount the State considers adequate to fulfill the constitutional requirement to provide “a general diffusion of knowledge.”

Sharing is not the problem in Texas school finance. The problem is that sharing begins before adequacy is attained – and that happens because of the insufficient - and worsening - State financial contribution to public education.

In 1980, the State of Texas provided 54% of the total funding for public schools: today that number is only 36% and falling. In the HISD, the State share of funding has been rapidly declining and is now only fourteen percent. That leaves the other 86% of the cost of funding HISD schools on the backs of local property owners. That burden, which is probably unconstitutional (because it amounts to a State property tax, a point which is now being argued in court), has also become unbearable to taxpayers. Property owners rightfully deserve a cut in property taxes, as long as another source of public school funding can be found that fairly distributes costs across the entire State economy.

Rising real estate values have increased Houstonians’ property tax payments by 41% in the last four years. Taxpayers assume that, because they make their checks payable to the HISD, the HISD gets all that extra money. And yet HISD’s revenues over that period have only increased by 15% (most of which has gone to fund a 16% increase in teacher pay).

Where’s the rest of the money? Higher property tax revenues could have substantially increased our per-student spending - were it not for Robin Hood. But as HISD has received more tax revenues, the State has offset that increase by reducing its share and sending less money to the HISD, and more money elsewhere. As a result, most of these additional property tax dollars paid to HISD in the last four years – over $360 million - have been spent elsewhere in the State despite desperate local needs.

The big question before the court – and I think it is a great shame that our State leaders resort to the courts to declare something this obvious – is whether the $7,000 equalized level of funding is adequate. Your State government is arguing in court that it is adequate, citing a study prepared for the Texas Legislature that showed current funding is adequate to provide a 55% passing rate on the TAKS reading or math tests. Friends, I hope we all agree that having almost half our children failing the minimum standards is NOT adequate.

Some politicians declare that Texas spends “plenty of money” on public education, supporting their statement with the chilling claim that only 57 cents of every dollar is spent inside the classroom, implying the other 43 cents are being wasted on overhead or other mysterious things. The truth is, however, that their definition of “inside the classroom” is surprisingly limited. For starters, the dollars used to finance, maintain and operate classrooms are not spent “inside the classroom” under their definition. Also excluded from that definition are necessities like transportation, libraries and cafeterias.

So if your idea of a good Texas public education is for children to walk to a completely unmaintained school building without air conditioning, water, electricity, a library, cafeteria, counseling, healthcare services, extracurricular activities, or even a principal – then you are living in the same world as the folks that say that Texas schools waste money because only 57 cents of every dollar reaches the classroom.

How about administrative and bureaucratic “waste”? Texas schools spend only 4 cents of every dollar on central administration, and in HISD that number is just 3 cents. Former Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff, known as the “Father of Robin Hood,” just testified in court that school districts do a better job of carefully spending money than any other governmental entity of which he is aware.

I believe that the courts will rule that Texas’ school finance system is inadequate. Legislators will then be charged with creating a system that is adequate, which leads to the next issue: how to divide the costs fairly statewide. Special interests have barraged legislators arguing that a sales tax or a new business tax on their industry would be terrible for the economy. And yet a grossly uneducated workforce hurts the economy much more.

It will take some real statesmanship to stand up to special interests and do the right thing for our children and our future. If we do not, we will all pay for it – and the bill will be immeasurably higher. Funding public education is not cheap – but it can be fair.

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
Click here to see a chart showing how the Texas Education Dollar is spent.