Inequa In Texas Essay

In the early 90’s a majority democratic Texas legislature debated on the equalizing school funds, but no plan was gained, mainly because it would require rising local and state taxes. Texas at the time having one of the nation’s highest taxes. The educational issue continued to face many special sessions in the Texas house, a new program was finally adopted that met the approval of the federal ruling. The new educational program shifted funding from local tax to state tax. While the program was

In the state the lower class Texan is currently at right now, the state of Texas provides minimal funding to schools in low income areas. Texas currently spends an average of $8,998 per student; the national average for education is $11,674 ranking Texas 46th in educational spending among the 50 states and the District of Columbia (Stutz, 2014). However, despite the continuous debates on television and radio, the topic of funding education in Texas has been a problem since 1973 with little to no improvements as prior to the legislative session of 2013, Texas ranked 49th in educational spending among the states (Stutz, 2014). Furthermore, despite what ex-governor Rick Perry might state, Texas’ education is not a “…national leader in education reform and student achievement.” (Perry, 2011) It is a real problem the American people need to address.

Education development has been an important matter in Texas for decades. Texas has been known for their improvements and reformation in public schools since their first attempt of a public school system. Within these improvements, came issues that escalated to create our public education system today. The issues that helped arrange the system are desegregation, equity in funding, and education policy.

State legislators slashed more than $121 million from college financial aid programs alone. TEXAS grants, the state’s financial aid program for needy students, now serves 29,000 fewer students than it did previously. College administrators have reported losing highly qualified students to private or out-of-state

Many of the other financing problems come from individual districts that some times misuse money that could be used to better the quality of education. Assistant Attorney General Shelly Dahlberg, said that individual districts must also “show they are spending their money efficiently”. Superintendents spend too much on items that they seem to prioritize such as iPads and equipment for the sports departments and other extracurricular activities that aren’t required by the state. At times, they also base their teacher pay on seniority rather than student performance. If Texas were to stop overemphasizing on the local control of its school districts and were to hold individual districts responsible for not spending their money efficiently, there would be a lot less shortcomings and a lot more money directed into bettering the

Texas faces many problems with the current educational system and many of them continue to go unresolved due to the way Texas has established certain laws. A decline in education has been seen since 2006 when legislators decided to cut property tax which pays for education (Maule). Those policies only further hinder the progress of education improving, which is why policies like those do not need to be further implemented. More involvement with students is needed and that will be acquired by having more effective teachers. Many studies have shown that students with effective teachers do better in class than those with ineffective teachers. Not only do students do poorly with ineffective teachers, but “[s]tudies show that most students drop out due to poor academic performance. And studies have proven that the teacher in the

11.13). When it comes to addressing the performance issues facing Texas schools, issues facing the poor, the reality of a water shortage, and problems relating to transportation, there is great reluctance among Texas Republicans when it comes to expanding the government’s role in improvements, as well as in raising the necessary funds through taxation. The Texas Politics Project (2017) explains that when it comes to the current state of Texas schools, supporters of a more fiscally conservative approach feel that such an approach “at least achieves average results with below-average spending” (p. 11.9). The current conservatism that defines the overall political approach in Texas may not be adequate in the long term. As we are seeing, changing demographics are substantially impacting the state of Texas and will likely lead to necessary changes throughout the state.

Approaching the halfway point of the program brought me to the Introduction to School Finance EDA 6240, which focused on the fiscal management of the organization and utilizing resources to maximize an environment conducive to learning. Because public education is a responsibility of each state, funding public education is crucial to creating a productive and successful society. The Florida Education Funding Program (FEFP) equalized funding for education regardless of how wealthy one area is over the other. An important component of the FEFP is the full time equivalent (FTE), which represents a student who was present during the Survey FTE week. Money is earned for each one of the FTEs. Learning about the base student allocation, the amount

“It did not take a court ruling for us to know that the school funding system in Texas needs serious reform. Just because the court held that it is constitutional doesn’t mean that we can’t and shouldn’t do better,” said John Cyrier, State Representative for Texas House District 17. “There are many House members, like myself, who believe that we need to enact serious reforms to make school funding more adequate and fairer across the board.”

Public school funding is unfair and unequal in most states. However, more concerning is out of the 49 million children in public schools, students living in poverty are affected the most. There are wide disparities in the amount spent on public education across the country, from a high of $18,507 per pupil in New York, to a low of $6,369 in Idaho (Baker, Sciarra, & Farrie, 2015). The question that all stakeholders should be asking is school funding fair?

When people think of Texas many might think of a rich and flourishing economy. With that thriving economy in mind, people may associate a great over all public school system in place. Unfortunately for Texans this not the case. In a 2016 report Texas ranks 43rd among the other states national k-12 education rankings (Fechter 2016). The determination of the ranking included 3 variables, chance for success, school finance, and K-12 achievement (Fechter 2016). The news is worse for the Corpus Christi Independent School District. According to Murphy & Daniel (2015), CCISD fell below nearly every statewide standard when it comes to academics. It is understandable that parents might feel that their child may

To solve most of Texas’ education dilemmas, we must ensure that state legislature along with every candidate and sate leader restores all funding and supports education for all Texas students. We must invest in high quality education as population continues to grow. This will help set the stage and make dreams reachable for the future leaders of

To point out another way to fix school funding in Alabama would be to use a weighted school system. A weighted system puts a specific dollar amount for each student based on their poverty levels, special education and many other factors. The weighted system is a penny-pinching way to save extra money. Each school has a per-pupil budget, this is the amount of money they spend on each student. The dollar amount spent on each child is determined by the skills and characteristics that impact their learning the most. If this weighted system was used statewide, it would free up millions of

To Get A Better School System by Gene B. Preuss explores the journey of educational reform of Texas through one hundred years of inequality, threats, and disagreements. However, the Supreme Court decision regarding Morath vs. Texas Taxpayers has highlighted that even in 2016, additional reforms are needed. Funding for public education is not a new issue and has been a pressing matter since the creation of the Texas educational system. Throughout the process of educational reform, Texans have mainly fought over public education funding in regards to bridging the gap between the portion of funding spent on urban areas and the portion spent on rural areas as well as the small earnings that teachers make. Yet, another area of concern, as pointed out in the article “Texas Supreme Court Upholds School Funding System”, is the Texas Legislature which severely limits the number of available avenues that the state can take when addressing the issue of funding. Together, the past issues of how to fund education and the inequalities that arose in spending, combined with the current issue

The sad reality of it all is that gross funding inequities continue to persist in the U.S and no one seems to be working steadily to rid this problem. When putting funding into education equity should be focused on rather than equality. According to the National Report card there are core fairness principles that must be followed to maintain equal opportunity. The 3rd principle states that the level of funding in a district should increase relative to the level of concentrated student poverty rate. Therefore state finance systems should provide more funding to districts serving larger share of students in poverty (Is School Funding Fair? 7). Examining the school district of Philadelphia one could see that this principle is not being followed. The No Child Left Behind Act was created in 2001 to ensure that no later than 12 years after 2001 (2013) all students will meet the states standards. The act