"‘Robin Hood’ not the villain in Texas schools," by Chandra Villanueva

School finance in Texas is not well understood, particularly the history of what we know either as "recapture" or "Robin Hood" in Texas. Chandra Villanueva explains the importance of recapture to equity very well in this Dallas Morning News piece. I also encourage you to read Trinity University Professor Enrique Alemán's piece titled,

"Is Robin Hood the "Prince of Thieves" or a Pathway to Equity? Applying Critical Race Theory to School Finance Political Discourse." Drawing on Critical Race Theory, he encourages us to see Texas' system of school finance as institutionalized racism. CRT, by the way, should be less understood as a "theory," than as a fact of our highly stratified society—with race/ethnicity, along with gender, class, sexual orientation, documented status, being major, intersectional axes of differentiation. -Angela Valenzuela

‘Robin Hood’ not the villain in Texas schools

Legislature refuses to fully fund districts, leaving them to squabble over recapture

By Chandra Villanueva | Dallas Morning News

For years, the Texas Legislature has underfunded the basic allotment, failing to base what it pays for education on actual costs. (Smiley N. Pool/Staff Photographer)

When school budgets get tight, property-wealthy districts are often quick to blame the primary equity tool of the school finance system, recapture.

However, recapture, also known as “Robin Hood,” is not the villain in this story. The real problem is the basic allotment, the base level of funding the Texas Legislature funds per student. The Legislature does not base what it pays for education on actual costs.

The basic allotment, the foundational building block for the whole school finance system, is an arbitrary number. It’s not connected to the cost of providing a quality education. In fact, it’s not based on anything at all.

The Legislature underfunded the recommended amount in 1984 — pre-pandemic and pre-modern workforce. Since then, the Legislature has made random changes in irregular intervals. This arbitrary basic allotment also determines if a district is considered “property-wealthy” or “property-poor.”

In simple terms, the school finance formulas start with the basic allotment and then adjust it based on student characteristics of a district, such as how many students are economically disadvantaged, emergent bilingual or another recognized special population. The formula rightfully recognizes that some students require more expensive educational resources. The basic allotment with these adjustments determines the amount of funding the state allows each school to have for its operating budget.

Once the funding amount is determined, school districts tax local property to raise the necessary funds. If the local tax base is unable to meet the allowed funding amount, the district receives state aid. If local property tax revenue is greater than the allowed amount, the state “recaptures” the excess revenue to help fund education statewide.

Those who villainize recapture claim it doesn’t take a wealthy district’s low-income student population into account. We know that’s not true because the formula takes all low-income students into consideration.

But here’s the rub –– in addition to the basic allotment being arbitrary, the amount of additional funding for low-income, emergent bilingual and other special student populations is also arbitrary and was set in 1984 with few changes since. This is why districts are unable to meet the needs of students, because the funding they receive doesn’t reflect their actual costs.

Our state education laws dedicate recaptured dollars to education, just not exclusively to property-poor districts. The amount of recapture revenue collected is roughly the same amount needed to support the network of charter schools across the state. Charter schools are non-taxing entities, yet they are fully funded by the state. Regardless of your opinion on charter schools, the revenue must come from somewhere.

Rapid expansion of charter schools is another reason recapture is growing across the state. Recapture is triggered when a district collects more property tax revenue per student than the state allows it to have. When a student leaves a traditional ISD for a charter school, the amount of property tax revenue that district collects per student increases. That means the district is more likely to collect excess property taxes than allowed by the state because the district has fewer students to support. School districts that have many charter schools within their boundaries, such as Houston ISD, end up paying recapture revenue due to the large number of students lost to charter schools.

Recapture is not the villain. The Legislature has never provided an adequate level of funding for our schools and refuses to make annual adjustments for inflation. As property values rise across the state and additional students move to charter schools, more districts will appear wealthy but, in reality, everyone is underfunded.

Recapture is not the school finance villain — the Texas Legislature is the villain when it neglects our greatest public good and keeps schools underfunded.

Chandra Villanueva oversees Every Texan’s work on education, workforce development and job quality. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Commentary: The steep price of charter schools by Texas State Rep. Mary E. González and Michael Lee

Texas state representative Mary Gonzalez and Michael Lee in this commentary lay out what amounts to a new reason why we should resist funding charter schools as a state, citing of the exportation of our tax dollars to other states as a consequence of approving Learn4Life and Doral charter schools: 

"Exporting your tax dollars to another state removes those funds from the Texas economy, enriching other states at the expense of our own. That’s something we should be reluctant to do at any time, much less in the middle of a global pandemic, historic unemployment and an economic recession. But this is nothing new. These are simply the most recent charter companies with out-of-state ties to be approved to operate in Texas."

A pertinent policy solution that would save at least $882 million that would go to traditional public schools is one where charters receive the same per-student funding as the districts where charters are located (source: Support a legislative agenda for all Texas students in 2019 and level the playing field for public schools). 

-Angela Valenzuela

Commentary: The steep price of charter schools

By Mary E. González and Michael Lee, For the Express-News Jan. 21, 2021

Charter schools receive an average of $1,150 more per student compared with the traditional school district.

Photo: Tom Reel /Staff photographer

We’ve all heard how overly complex accounting systems at the Pentagon led to $400 hammers and $7,000 coffee makers. Well, Texas has something akin to that: charter schools.

Under the current charter school funding scheme in Texas, charter schools receive on average $1,150 more per student compared with the traditional school district in which the charter school is located. That’s right: The state pays charter schools more to do the same job as your local school district.

There were 296,127 students — or 5 percent of all students — enrolled in charter schools, according to a 2018 report from the Texas Education Agency. That means the state paid more than $340 million for something traditional public schools are already doing. Those funds would go a long way toward providing enhanced education services at traditional public schools.

Each and every charter school resides in a fully operating traditional school district. Those traditional school districts already do the same job as charter schools. They educate our children. The state hasn’t set up a separate state-supported firefighting system to compete with existing firefighting departments. That would be absurd — and so is setting up duplicative school systems.

Our traditional school districts do a remarkable job educating our children. Each time the state has raised the bar in its accountability system, traditional public schools have met the challenge — and then some. In addition, traditional school districts have led the way in adapting to the new environment brought about by COVID-19. They have reinvented everything from how children interact with their teachers, to providing food for our children, to helping ensure internet connectivity for students. Our traditional public schools are leading the way, and they deserve our respect and thanks.

Recently, two out-of-state companies were approved to run charter schools in Texas: Learn4Life charter school has ties to California, and Doral Charter School has ties to Florida. Once those charter schools are operational, they will receive taxpayer dollars from Texas. Learn4Life will send 15 percent of its revenue to California. Doral will send $750 per student to Florida.

Exporting your tax dollars to another state removes those funds from the Texas economy, enriching other states at the expense of our own. That’s something we should be reluctant to do at any time, much less in the middle of a global pandemic, historic unemployment and an economic recession. But this is nothing new. These are simply the most recent charter companies with out-of-state ties to be approved to operate in Texas.

Building and investing tax dollars in a duplicative education system is concerning, even in the best of times. Given the economic environment and grim budget situation the state faces, it threatens both the education system that our kids need to learn in the post-COVID-19 world and the education our kids need for the future.

State Rep. Mary E. González is a member of the House Public Education Committee, the House Appropriations Committee and the Legislative Budget Board. Michael Lee is the executive director of the Texas Association of Rural Schools.

[REPORT] Education Underfunding Tops $19 Billion over Decade of Neglect

For Immediate Release July 15, 2018

Contact: Andrew Crook 607-280-6603 acrook@aft.org

Education Underfunding Tops $19 Billion over Decade of Neglect Report Unveils Link Between GOP Tax Cuts and Gutting of Public K-12 and Higher Education Post-Recession

PITTSBURGH—Governments in 25 states have shortchanged public K-12 education by $19 billion over the last decade, with low-tax Republican states guilty of the worst underfunding, a groundbreaking report by the American Federation of Teachers, released today, reveals. “A Decade of Neglect: Public Education Funding in the Aftermath of the Great Recession” details for the first time the devastating impact on schools, classrooms and students when states choose to pursue an austerity agenda in the false belief that tax cuts will pay for themselves. The comprehensive report offers a deep dive into the long-term austerity agendas and historic disinvestment that sparked the wave of nationwide walkouts this spring. Among the findings: K-12 education is drastically underfunded in every single state in the United States. When you control for inflation, there are 25 states that spent less on K-12 education in 2016 than they did prior to the recession. But there are signs of the negative impact of austerity even in states with relatively stronger investment in schools. Chronic underfunding explains why, in 38 states, the average teacher salary is lower in 2018 than it was in 2009, and why the pupil-teacher ratio was worse in 35 states in 2016 than in 2008. While the recession may have forced budget cuts on our schools, the report exposes how Republican legislators and governors prolonged the damage by cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of public schools.  A majority of Americans instead support repealing tax cuts for the rich and using that money to invest in education, infrastructure and healthcare. The report measures each state’s “tax effort”—that is, how much they tax, compared with how rich they are. Of the 25 states with the worst K-12 funding, 18 of them have taxed their residents less since the recession. Five of the 11 states with the lowest K-12 funding—Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas—are also among those with the lowest taxes on the rich. The problem only gets worse in higher education, where 41 states spent less per student, creating a massive affordability and accessibility gap. This explains why tuition and fees for a two-year degree in 2017 rose at three times the rate of inflation when compared with 2008, and why the cost of a four-year degree rose even higher, putting college woefully out of reach for far too many Americans. “These problems belong squarely at the feet of elected officials, many of them Republicans, who rather than investing in our future, insisted on ushering in counterproductive austerity,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “When legislators choose to prioritize millionaires over children, our country suffers. And when our education secretary says that money doesn’t matter in schools, we tell teachers, parents and children that they don’t matter either.” The report was accompanied by a key resolution, considered by delegates today at the AFT’s biennial convention, to turn the data into action. “The Fight for Investment in Our Future and the Fight Against Austerity” states, in part, that the AFT “will … investigate legislative, policy and grass-roots solutions to increase investment in public services, including the identification of new revenue streams,” and “will work to channel the activism we are witnessing across the country in this moment into a movement for enduring change by electing pro-public education, pro-worker candidates in November.” Read the full report here.

Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten

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The American Federation of Teachers is a union of 1.7 million professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do. Randi Weingarten                                                    Lorretta Johnson                                                                     Mary Cathryn Ricker                   PRESIDENT                                                SECRETARY-TREASURER                                                        EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO Communications Department • 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W. • Washington, DC 20001 • T: 202-879-4458 • F: 202-879-4580  •  www.aft.org AFT Teachers     •     AFT PSRP     •     AFT Higher Education     •     AFT Public Employees     •     AFT Nurses and Health Professionals

Sad commentary in this national report on school funding by David Sciarra where texas gets lumped with Arizona and florida as follows:

 Even more disturbing is that many states with unfair school funding make little effort to invest in public education. States such as Florida, Texas, and Arizona have economies that can support greater investment, but are unwilling to do so.

one obvious commonality across these states is a huge latino population that is hurting from not solely under-investment but an actual de-funding of public education together with a lack of school board leadership on the matter.

-Angela valenzuela

MAY 03 2018

School Funding: Deep Disparities Persist 50 Years After Kerner

Author 

David Sciarra, Esq.

  

Fifty years after the Kerner Commission warned of a nation divided, school funding remains profoundly unfair and inequitable in most states, shortchanging  students across the country. Those most disadvantaged by this enduring failure are millions of children from low-income families and children of color, especially those in high-poverty, racially isolated communities. 

In the United States, public education is a state obligation. The states, through their finance systems, account for approximately 90% of all education funding in local districts and schools.

Every day in schools across America, the lack of funding deprives students of the qualified teachers, support staff, academic interventions, full-day kindergarten, early education, and other programs they need to be successful in school. Unfair school funding remains entrenched in most states, as it has for decades, impeding efforts to improve outcomes for students, especially poor children, those learning English, and students with disabilities. 

The deplorable condition of state school finance is laid bare in the 2017 edition of the National Report Card, Is School Funding Fair? This report goes beyond raw school spending by analyzing both the funding level in each state and whether funding is greater in higher-poverty school districts.

There persists a wide gulf in how much states invest in public education, from $18,719 per pupil in New York to $6,277 in Idaho. Most states also fail to allocate more funding to high-poverty districts so they can deliver the resources necessary to give students from low-income families the opportunity for academic success.

Seventeen states, including Virginia, Connecticut, and Texas, have “regressive” school funding, which means they provide less funding to their high-need districts than wealthier ones. Nevada is the nation’s most unfair, with low spending and less money for a burgeoning population of students from low-income families and those needing English language instruction.

Twenty states, including New York, South Carolina, and Michigan, have “flat” funding. These states fail to allocate additional funds to address the academic, social, and health needs of students in their poorest schools. Some of these states, such as North Carolina and Oklahoma, send a very modest increase to poor schools, but rank at the bottom of the nation in overall spending.

Only a few states, notably Massachusetts and New Jersey, fairly fund their schools. These states provide sufficient funding and significantly higher funding in the poorest districts. They also are the nation’s highest performing overall, with students from low-income families making strong gains.

Even more disturbing is that many states with unfair school funding make little effort to invest in public education. States such as Florida, Texas, and Arizona have economies that can support greater investment, but are unwilling to do so.

California, by contrast, has made substantial new investments in recent years to boost funding to its high-need schools, and recent evidence suggests the new finance system is paying off in higher achievement and graduation rates in those districts. Yet per pupil spending in California is still among the lowest in the country.

For our students, this is not about dollars. Funding levels determine whether effective teachers, Advanced Placement classes, guidance counselors, extra learning time, and other essential resources are available in the nation’s classrooms. In states with unfair funding, children are less likely to have access to preschool, pupil-to-teacher ratios are higher, and wages for teachers are not competitive with other comparably skilled professions. The chronic and severe underfunding of public education is behind the wave of teacher strikes and walkouts now sweeping across the nation. 

The sad fact is most states still fund schools the old-fashioned way. Lawmakers decide how much they’re willing to spend, usually based on last year’s budget, and then distribute funding to satisfy powerful political constituencies. Only a handful have enacted finance reforms driven by the actual cost of basic education resources, including the cost of supports for struggling students and other interventions crucial in high-need schools.   

In many states, elected officials staunchly resist school funding reform, even in the face of court orders, as is now the case in Kansas. Governors in Colorado, Texas, and Connecticut have fought funding lawsuits rather than use the courts to leverage action by recalcitrant lawmakers.  

Unfair school funding is a major reason why our nation remains segregated, separate, and unequal a half century after the Kerner Commission issued its call to action. It’s time to put this issue at the top of the national education agenda.

David G. Sciarra is Executive Director of Education Law Center and a co-author of the National Report Card.