Texas House wants to give public schools $220 more per student

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The Texas House filed legislation Thursday that would increase the amount of funding public schools receive per student by $220, a figure that public education advocates say falls short of what they have been asking for in recent years.

House Bill 2 — filed by Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado — would increase the base amount that schools receive from the state per student each school year from $6,160 per pupil to $6,380.

“That is real money to classrooms. Not just money that is spent on public education, but real money in the classrooms,” said House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, said during a press conference Thursday.

The proposal was one of several education-related bills filed Thursday. House Bill 3 — also authored by Buckley — would create a voucher-like program known as education savings accounts that would allow parents to use taxpayer money to help fund their children’s private school tuition. The bill ties the program’s per-student benefits to public education funding so the amount available to each student would increase when public schools receive more money and dip when public education funding declines.

“The Texas House is preparing to transform education in our state this session with our two-step proposal to provide a historic investment in classrooms while expanding educational opportunity for Texas parents and students,” Burrows said in a press release Thursday.

The House also unveiled a separate bill that would overhaul the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam, or STAAR.

Public school administrators and education advocates have been asking for an increase to the basic allotment to account for recent high inflation and higher costs since the COVID-19 pandemic. Several school districts have been forced to pass deficit budgets in the last few years. The allotment hasn’t been increased since 2019 and recent efforts to do so have been unsuccessful.

Two years ago during the previous state legislative session, lawmakers failed to increase the funding allotment or teacher pay despite having a $32.7 billion budget surplus at their disposal. House Democrats and rural Republicans that session banded together to defeat voucher legislation, but it came with a cost. Gov. Greg Abbott, the state’s top school voucher advocate, vowed to veto any legislation that increased public school funding that didn’t include a voucher program.

HB 2 would also require that school districts use at least 40% of any funding increases received from the basic allotment to pay for raises for teachers and other district employees — higher than the current 30% requirement. Such a boost would only allow for small raises for teachers, said Clay Robison, a spokesperson for the Texas State Teachers Association.

The average teacher salary in Texas is $60,716, which ranks 30th in the nation, according to the National Education Association, an organization tracking educator pay across the United States. Earlier this week, the Senate proposed its own increases to teacher pay based on experience and performance.

Robison said neither the increase to public school funding nor the changes to employee compensation included in HB 2 come close to what schools need. To account for inflation, schools need at least $1,000 more per student than what the basic allotment currently provides, he said.

“This is wholly inadequate. They have to do better and they can do better,” Robison said of lawmakers’ efforts.

House Democrats railed against HB 2 and the chamber’s voucher proposal during a press conference Thursday afternoon. State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, said the funding proposed in HB 2 doesn’t “dig us out of the hole that our schools are in.” State Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, said the proposed funding increases wouldn’t help schools keep up with high inflation.

“This is a shell game being played by Republican leadership trying to make people think that they have turned the corner and [have] begun to fully fund public education, hoping that we will not notice that the real purpose is to pass a voucher bill,” Bryant said.

State Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos, D-Richardson, told The Texas Tribune in an interview Thursday that the allotment increase that has been proposed is an “insult,” especially considering the Senate’s voucher proposal would allow families to receive more in taxpayer dollars — at least $10,000 a year per student — to help them pay for their children’s tuition at accredited private schools. The bill, she said, is “just another way for them to continue to dismantle our public education.”

Chandra Villanueva, director of policy and advocacy at Every Texan, said the proposal “missed the mark” and should have included inflation-based adjustments. Without them, school administrators will have to continue fighting for new funding every year to help them keep up with costs, she said.

She added she was disappointed that the bill wouldn’t switch school funding to be based on student enrollment, which she said would be more equitable than the state’s current system. Texas is one of a handful of states, including California and Missouri, that determines state funding for public schools based on average daily attendance instead of enrollment, which some public education advocates consider to be a more stable metric to calculate the funds schools should receive.

HB 2 would also create new restrictions on uncertified teachers in Texas public schools. The proposal would not allow schools to hire uncertified teachers to teach core curriculum courses, such as math, reading or science. In 2023, uncertified teachers accounted for nearly 40% of new hires in Texas school districts.

In addition, the bill would increase funding for the Teacher Incentive Allotment, a state program that is meant to reward high-performing teachers. Nearly half of the state’s school districts participated in the program for the 2023-24 school year, according to a Texas Education Agency report. Some education advocates, including Villanueva, have criticized the merit-based program for its reliance on standardized test scores to determine whether teachers get raises.

HB 2 also proposes changes to the way Texas funds special education. According to the bill, the amount schools receive for special education should be based on students’ individual needs.

The new proposal would be a sharp change from the current system, in which schools receive special education funding depending on how much time a student spends in a particular setting. Two state special education task forces in the last several years have recommended the state change the current settings-based funding model to a system that accounts for the types of services students with disabilities require.

The change would fulfill a long-standing desire from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike to overhaul special education funding. Special education advocates say that under the current system, schools aren’t being set up to have enough funding to provide for students with disabilities who attend them.

The bill would also allow children with disabilities to be eligible to attend free pre-kindergarten. Under the current law, children can attend pre-kindergarten for free if they meet certain requirements.

James Barragán contributed to this story.

Disclosure: Every Texan and Texas State Teachers Association have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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