Posted on 12/24/2011 11:40:18 AM PST by DeaconBenjamin
School funding in Texas is in turmoil. State lawmakers slashed more than $4 billion from education this school year — one of the largest cuts in state history — and more than 12,000 teachers and support staff have been laid off.
Academic programs and transportation have been cut to the bone. Promising reforms are on hold or on the chopping block. Next year, the cuts could go even deeper.
Schools in Pasadena, just outside Houston, have seen tight budgets before, but never like this. There was $21 million in cuts this fall alone and 340 positions eliminated, Candace Ahlfinger, an associate superintendent of schools in Pasadena, says. Of those cuts, about 180 were teaching positions and 160 were support staff, she says.
Special education teachers who worked with dyslexic kids: gone. Teachers' aides: gone. Dozens of bus drivers, crossing guards and security personnel: gone.
With the district's $350 million budget shrinking and more cuts on the horizon, Ahlfinger says: "Everything has been on the chopping block. There's not been a sacred cow. There's nothing that we have said 'No, we cannot touch that.'"
The state granted Pasadena schools a waiver so that the district could legally raise class size above the maximum 22 mandated in grades K-4. About 7,000 schools have been granted such waivers statewide, a three-fold increase from last year.
A Charge For The Extras
Still, every morning teachers in Pasadena grit their teeth and pretend everything is fine. School officials here considered asking parents to pay for some services, but 80 percent of families in the district live at or below the federal poverty level.
In many school districts across Texas, though, parents are footing the bill for things like bus transportation, field trips, athletics and uniforms.
"Something's got to give, right?" says Jackie Lain with the Texas Association of School Boards. "They're charging for any of the extras that they don't absolutely have to provide, so that they can keep teachers employed in the classrooms."
Lain says the 6 percent cut in school funding this year was bad enough. Next year, it will be 8 to 9 percent.
Even wealthy school districts are feeling the pinch. Leander is a bedroom community just outside Austin that's growing like crazy, but it doesn't have enough money to open two brand new schools that it built to relieve overcrowding.
With less money from the state, Leander had to cut $20 million from its budget and lay off 213 employees, 50 of them classroom teachers.
Leander was supposed to open what's known as Middle School No. 8 this year. It's an enormous building and there's a lot of construction going on at the site, but that was slowed this summer because the district cannot afford to open it.
Leander schools Superintendent Bret Champion says Texas raised school funding consistently every year for the past half century, until now. "For the first time since World War II, the state hasn't funded what it had promised to fund," he says.
What Can Be Cut?
At a football game between Leander High and Vista Ridge High School, the funding crisis is the last thing on parents' minds. The stadium fills quickly; it's supposed to be a good game.
Leander has already eliminated golf and tennis. What if football is next?
"I'd spend a thousand bucks out of pocket myself to make sure it'd stay," says Ross Briton, whose son plays football. "I'd work two jobs if it took that to do it. End of story."
Briton says it's not just a sport here: It's part of the culture and a big part of the community's identity. The district should pare down the curriculum before it cuts football, he says.
"I would cut most liberal arts out of the high school. I'd keep math, science, reading. I'd add the vocational education back, because I think there's too much fluff," Briton says.
Several parents in the parking lot nod in agreement as they walk away; others stay behind to say they disagree. Cutting instructional programs, they say, is more damaging than cutting sports.
Kate Patterson works for a local nonprofit that ran a program for struggling readers in the Austin area, including Leander. Sadly, it's been cut, she says, and lawmakers don't seem to care.
"Honestly, I'm not looking to the government anymore," Patterson says. It's as if Texas has thrown in the towel when it comes to education, she says, but some lawmakers blame voters.
"Legislators respond to what they hear," says Scott Hochberg, a Democrat and state representative from Houston.
Hochberg says parents and community organizations that are aghast at the cuts' impact haven't put nearly enough pressure on legislators
"I think they need to put their votes where their mouths are," he says.
A Hold On The Rainy Day Fund
Texas, meanwhile, is sitting on at least $5 billion in its rainy day fund. It's mostly gas and oil revenues. Hochberg says lawmakers refuse to draw from the fund to blunt the education cuts because the governor told them not to.
"The governor drew a very, very sharp line in the sand [saying] that the rainy day fund, which was specifically designed for periods of economic slowdown, would not be touched," he says.
NPR repeatedly called Gov. Rick Perry and numerous Republican legislators asking them to comment for this story; they refused.
The president of the anti-tax lobbying group Empower Texans, however, did not. For too long, Michael Sullivan says, the state has thrown tons of money at education.
"We've assumed that, well, more money equals better education. Let's just spend more money," he says. "How much more money do we need to spend? ... More, more, more, more. We have doubled real per pupil spending in the past 10 years."
And yet, Sullivan says, Texas has nothing to show for it. Schools still graduate students who are unprepared for college or work; that's why school districts have no credibility when they complain about funding, he says.
The Impact On Low-Income Students
Sandy Kress, an attorney in Austin with close ties to both political parties, doesn't go that far, but he too faults school districts for looking at this as a crisis rather than an opportunity to show they can be more efficient with the money they get.
"The system is getting defensive about having to make the changes it has to make," Kress says. "It's resisting change and accountability just as people who are paying the taxes are getting tired of paying the taxes. I am definitely worried."
Kress says efficiency and accountability are crucial, but he worries even more that Texas will revert to the bad old days when school districts used tight budgets as an excuse for neglecting low-income and minority students.
"The result is that children will be left behind, gaps will grow again and we may be in a place where we are retreating instead of advancing for the first time in 50 years," Kress says. "And this is disastrous."
Already, the $4.3 billion in school funding cuts seems to have made the disparity between poor and wealthy school districts worse. A poor district now gets $800 less per student from the state than a wealthy district.
More than 300 school districts are now suing. They're hoping the courts will declare the cuts and the school funding formula in Texas unconstitutional.
Only tens. Shoot we've got at $60mil foo-bah stadium going up now. In the middle of a freaking depression. The taxpayers are ecstatic. "We've got one too."
The obvious question needs to be asked: Is the liberal socialist NPR report talking about actual “cuts” (ie., less dollars spent this year than last year) or merely decreases in the amount of a wished-for increase?
(Note: I do not expect an answer. Nobody ever answers that question for some reason, probably because the government and their newsrooms hide, disguise, or spin the numbers beyond recognition.)
I’m sure if I add it all up, it is probably pushing some pretty high numbers. We had $13 Million for one football stadium for a middle school, three brand new middle schools, four new elementary schools, multi-million dollar renovations to all the high schools. And this is all in the past 48 months. I know each middle school was well over $10 million.
I don’t doubt it. It’s so much fun to spend other peoples money, then gripe when the other people say enough is enough.
Like a 16 year old girl with daddy’s Amex.
Personally, I don’t know how teachers can play along any longer. The so-called good ones, must have some clue what is being crammed down our kids throats. Why isn’t there a broad spread revolt?
I’m with you Wintertime.
Our numbers seem to be growing every day.
It's like the “Emperor's New Clothes”. Finally the little child in the crowd is shouting, “Look, Mommy! There are no good teachers!”
True, but the Texas Dept. of Public Safety has been tasked by the state constitution to protect the citizens of Texas against those who violate Texas law.
Fraud-any official document generated by the State that subscribes a penalty under the penal code for perjury to gain government services such as food stamps, housing, school lunch assistance, energy subsidies, Drivers lic or state issued ID. The list goes on.
Forgery-falsifying any state issued document such as drivers lic / state issued ID that gives false resident status or aids an individual in gaining state assistance.
There are a whole host of State laws that Texas could use to detain illegals. Use of public right of ways without proper license, lack of state mandated insurance, obtaining vehicle registration/vehicle inspection certificates illegally or under false pretense.
Many mentioned above are State Jail Felonies. When these folks are detained, determine their status. If here illegally, putt’em on a detention bus and ship’em down to the international bride and watch them walk across.
You don't have to drag them across, you simply let them off the bus, escort them to the bridge and do not allow them free movement except across the bridge.
You've not deported them, you just do not allow them to wonder back into the state.
One of our neighbors voted for the education temple bond stating that the kids needed better science labs.
Our neighbor had the gall to say this to **me**! I homeschooled my kids at the kitchen table. Our “lab” was our **kitchen**!!! Yet, all three homeschoolers were accepted to the community college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. All finished all general college courses and Calculus III by the age of 15, and two earned B.S. degrees in mathematics by the age of 18.
This **idiot** of a neighbor ( a Democrat and product of one of the nation's socialist school systems) does not realize that what is needed to succeed in science is NOT NOT NOT NOT fancy labs but basic mastery of mathematics!
“Shoot we’ve got at $60mil foo-bah stadium going up now. In the middle of a freaking depression. The taxpayers are ecstatic. “We’ve got one too.”
Please understand that stadiums and new schools as well as major renovationS are paid for through Bonds, which are voted on by the people in the district.
so if there is a new stadium or glitzy school being built it was approved by the voters
AND NOT ONE CENT FROM THE BUDGET IS USED TO BUILD A NEW STADIUM.
If you are in a district with a new stadium you should have worked against the bond getting passed. What the bonds are to be used for is public knowledge BEFORE the vote.
Agreed!
I really do not care what the mechanism is called which steals money from the productive to pour into a hole in the ground.
The fact is, that tax money is spent on stuff, then the screwl boards bitch and moan about not having enough for the children.
Ahh...! Okay, so there IS an answer to my question at post #62 !
Thank you!
Just as I suspected: the author of this drek, Claudio Sanchez, is a lying sack of dog feces.
NPR. Surprise, surprise..
“I really do not care what the mechanism is called which steals money from the productive to pour into a hole in the ground.
The “ mechanism” is a VOTE, the will of the people,democracy, the fairest way of all.
if people on a district do not want the bond they can vote against the bond.There is no stealing. it is all about the number of votes for or against a bond. This has ZERO to do with a budget
Most of the construction finishing now was from bonds voted on in 08.
many many districts did not have their bond vote passed in the last 2 election cycles.
People who whine that new schools and stadiums take money away from an ISD budget are just too stupid to understand.
If they cared so much they would have worked to defeat a bond vote.
You say “the will of the people,democracy, the fairest way of all.” I call it the voting mob.
Let's look at my county:
**The school district employs more people than any other business in the county.
** The school district has ( by far) the largest single payroll of any entity in the county.
** Then there are the vendors to the schools and all their employees.
** There are no private schools in the county, these having been put out of business decades ago by the government school price-fixing cartel so parents, therefore, are likely to join the armies of socialist school workers to increase socialist school spending.
** The teachers unions have thousands of dollars available to them for advertising.
Solution of my husband and me:
We shrugged! My husband and I saved like crazy and sold our business early and retired in our fifties. We chose a county with the lowest possible property taxes we could find and bought a house far, far, far less than what we could fully afford. At least we can partially starve the beast. We are considering simplifying even further and living in an RV.
Personally, I consider government, socialist-entitlement schools such a threat to our nation and its continuing freedom that I will NOT have a socialist entitlement school teacher for a friend.
Our nation's socialist schools are **that** evil! Yes!
I am done with government socialist school teachers. I want them **out** of my life!
I agree with you completely that government is far far too entrenched and in control of public education. To think of how socialism/marxsim is forced on the young minds makes me want to shoot the teachers.
But that is not the same as being ignorant of where the money comes from that builds the schools and stadiums.
That is what I am correcting. It is up to the voters in his district to decide, through their vote, if they want biggest newest schools with coffee bars and indoor wave pools.
Finally , in the past 2 years many voters in many districts have said NO. good for them
What 0dumbo and all his minions are doing in the class rooms is evil. it is a different issue.
Nut I am hoping that seeing how votes can change things people woll then want to change what is being taught.
We were lazy and let it happen but it is never too late,
It is the voting mob against which Tocqueville warned. There are so many working directly for the socialist schools, so many contractors and vendors who benefit ( and their employees) that it is a difficult voting block to counter.
Nut I am hoping that seeing how votes can change things people woll then want to change what is being taught.
Are you assuming that our nation's socialist schools can be reformed? They can't. Socialism can not be reformed. They must be shut down.
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