The latest school finance news from The Texas Tribune.
If the House has its way, there will be 7.8 billion fewer state dollars headed to Texas public schools. Here's our searchable database built from state Rep. Scott Hochberg’s projections of how the funding cuts would hit 1,024 school districts across the state. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Tribune_Data_Public_Ed_Funding_Cuts.png)
We’ve collected and annotated the contracts of the 10 highest-paid school chiefs, as well as of those who lead the state’s 10 largest districts, for a total of 14, so readers can view their pay in the context of retirement perks, performance incentives and benefits like monthly automobile and cellphone allowances. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Intendent_WordCloud.jpg)
We’ve annotated the contracts of the 10 highest-paid school superintendents, along with those who lead the state’s 10 largest districts, so readers can view their pay in the context of retirement benefits, performance incentives, and perks like automobile and cellphone allowances. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Superintendent.jpg)
The 2006 tax swap — lowering local school property taxes and creating a new business tax to make up the difference — is at the center of Texas' current budget troubles. The architects are still pointing fingers over what and whom to blame for the state's “structural deficit.” Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Strayhorn055TT.jpg)
With budget gridlock in Washington, and massive education cuts at home, the Texas school districts that qualify for federal "Impact Aid" dollars are waging a war on two fronts. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/student-classroom-back.jpg)
On the heels of a newly approved House budget that leaves public schools $7.8 billion short of what they're entitled to under current funding formulas, the House Public Education Committee today considered a round of school finance bills. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100626_Scott_Hochberg_S.S._076.jpg)
The Texas public school finance system, responsible for underwriting the education of the nation’s second-largest student population, is notoriously byzantine. Here’s our layman’s guide to figuring it out. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/SchoolYearFunding_Chart.015.png)
Republican senators say the state's budget shortfall will mean educations cuts, but they said schools should focus first on eliminating non-classroom expenses and keeping as many teachers as possible. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/videos/SenateEDU.jpg)
The state’s 1,030 school districts have — in total — $10.2 billion in reserves and another $2.1 billion in unspent federal stimulus money. Can they use that money to avoid draconian cutbacks? It's not that simple. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/RainyDaySeveralUmbrellas.jpg)
Want to get the attention of 11,000 Texans? Propose a $10 billion spending cut to public education. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/4d5698434935f553fec6575eccd99085/BD%20INC%20Save%20Our%20Schools%20rally%2005%202011)
School districts won't know exactly what nearly $10 billion in state cuts means to them until lawmakers pass a new school finance bill. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune takes a look at the first bill of the session that gives districts an idea of what to expect. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/0e6315f63c53b428a142c0d985b6002a/BD%20INC%20Hochberg%2002%202011)
School districts won't know exactly what nearly $10 billion in state cuts means to them until lawmakers pass a new school finance bill. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune takes a look at the first bill of the session that gives districts an idea of what to expect. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/db58b6087477b2af248d140d2a21f145/BD%20INC%20Hochberg%2001%202011)
For lawmakers scrutinizing every possible saving, “administrative costs” presents an easy mark. But there may be less to cut than they imagine. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/SchoolFundingCuts.jpg)
Some state lawmakers are hoping a new state constitutional amendment will bring an end to the so-called Robin Hood school finance system, as Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies reports. Full Story
Texas school districts are bracing for budget cuts and layoffs in the coming months. And as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, education advocates are particularly concerned about the state's roll out of STAAR, a new testing system, in 2012. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100720_Sen_Educ_Comm_MG_5226x.jpg)
Texas school districts are bracing for budget cuts and layoffs in the coming months. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the cuts have some worried about 2012, when the state will roll out STAAR, a new testing system. Full Story
At last Wednesday's TribLive conversation, first-term House members Stefani Carter, R-Dallas, Cindy Burkett, R-Mesquite, and Rodney Anderson, R-Grand Prairie, explained why they think deep cuts to public education are possible. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/videos/NewGuys_Still_1.jpg)
Cutting $10 billion public education funding could push more than two-dozen school districts from the group that receives state financing into the group that writes checks to the state to even things out between richer and poorer districts. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Education-Funding.jpg)
They’re surely facing the worst budget cycle any of them have experienced. Yet in hours of testimony before lawmakers, the commissioners of Texas’ social services and education agencies appear largely unruffled. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/ac59f25ab80de3bd6ef9926a622bfba1/BD%20INC%20Thomas%20Suehs%202010)
Six months after Congress established the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund to help states retain and hire teachers, Texas is one of only two states that has not received its money. Whether the state will gets it depends on a game of political chicken between Gov. Rick Perry and a certain Austin Democrat. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/603df418e072af8b5391eeaca517b628/DO%20NOT%20USE%20Perry%20Dogget%20Side%20by%20Side%202011)