Posted on 12/20/2024 1:08:16 PM PST by JeepersFreepers
Texas taxpayers pay an average of more than $50,000 per pupil for the state’s government-run schools.
Vance Ginn, an economist who runs the Texas-based Vance Ginn Economic Consulting firm, highlighted Tuesday on X that when maintenance and operations (M&O) and debt service (I&S) taxes are combined with current levels of outstanding debt, the total per-pupil cost is $50,334.
The average private school tuition, meanwhile, is only $11,340 annually per pupil.
In Birdville Independent School District alone, “Texas has taxpayers funding $42K+ per student at ‘public schools,’” wrote Ginn. “1) $15,125 per student for M&O and debt service. 2) $27,504 per student for debt outstanding. = $42,629 per student for M&O + debt.”
Ginn obtained the school data through publicly available information provided by the Texas Education Agency for 2022 to 2023. Overall, Texas had 5,503,301 students enrolled during that period.
The $50,000 number calculated by Ginn comes from adding property taxes collected to pay for M&O and I&S to the amount of outstanding debt per student.
M&O taxes are the primary funding source for Texas’ local governments, accounting for roughly 80 percent of property taxes. The majority of M&O taxes go to government-run school districts.
However, local school districts often pursue projects that require more funding than the original M&O tax rate allows. In turn, government-run districts hold bond elections to try to fund these projects.
“Over the last five years, Texas ISDs have added over $50 billion in new bond debt, bringing the total to over $185 billion,” explained Jorge Borrego, the policy director of K-12 Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Next Generation Texas.
Ginn’s calculation of the data was a response to Borrego’s original post, which emphasized that the outstanding bond debt amounts to $33,542 per pupil.
“While this money should directly benefit teachers and improve student outcomes, much of it is instead spent on massive football stadiums and extravagant facilities,” added Borrego.
Ginn told Texas Scorecard that “politicians at the state and local levels are forcing Texas taxpayers to overfund government schools.”
“Funding per student has increased by 42 percent since 2011, while student proficiency in 8th-grade math has declined by 40 percent,” stated Ginn. “We have an overfunding and overspending problem in Texas, and more spending will never improve education outcomes in a flawed government school monopoly system.”
The solution, he contended, is for Texas to establish universal education savings accounts to fund students directly and “save taxpayers about $20 billion annually.”
Data from Texas Policy Research shows that per-pupil spending has gone up every year since the 2014-2015 fiscal year. Total government school spending has jumped around 45 percent—from $60.4 billion to $92.4 billion—over the same period.
A graph shared by school choice activist Corey DeAngelis in August suggested that much of that new funding has gone to principals and administrative staff rather than teachers and students.
Enough RINOs in the last Texas legislative session joined all democrats to defeat school choice. As a result, more than a dozen RINO incumbents voting against school choice lost in the recent election.
Please note the graph at the bottom of the article.
$40,000 of that I am sure goes to their massive football stadiums.
Wow!
Insane.
Someone’s ripping off the taxpayers ROYALLY!!
“$40,000 of that I am sure goes to their massive football stadiums.”
Yup, and the poor districts use the wealthy districts Robin Hood money to build those stadiums.
It is absolute Socialism in Texas and your state leadership keeps it going.
“The average private school tuition, meanwhile, is only $11,340 annually per pupil.”
Something’s seriously wrong with that number. Even the few remaining Catholic schools are that much.
Usually private schools are about $25,000.
No, most of funding for big stadiums comes from private donors, at least around here. And we are the king of big football stadiums.
Our problem is Robin Hood. The majority of our property tax gets shipped off to Dallas and Houston school districts where it is promptly caught on fire warehousing gimmidats and illegals.
Public schools=Glorified daycare staffed by overpaid Marxist indoctrinated unionists.
U.S. taxpayers are the biggest chumps in all of history.
“much of it is instead spent on massive football stadiums and extravagant facilities”
Well it is Texas where high school football is the state religion.
Imagine a future world with no public schools.
It is going to be a long and bumpy ride—but that is where we need to go.
Yes. And it sounds like Texans are well represented
The Great Rush Limbaugh commented that all school staff (excluding maintenance) having no direct teaching interaction with students should be fired. Back in the 60s our principal was also one of the coaches. We only had one principal for the entire high school and no attorneys or social workers on the payroll.
That, and administrative bloat and all the benefits that go with each position. Administrative assistants, assistants to the administrative assistants, deputy assistants to the assistants, deputy principals, assistant principals, etc. etc.
All in service of increasing membership in the teacher unions. THAT'S ALL IT IS. Bolstering the power of the union. The students are getting dick.
My cousin home-schooled her son, who for university attended MIT for electrical-engineering, for “free.”
Bkmk
In our part of Central Texas, the public school system is griping about the loss of funding due to enrollment loses in recent years. Seems a lot of parents here are now putting their kids in private and Christian schools. Charter schools are starting to pop up everywhere, emphasizing STEM programs for the students.
The public school administrators, particularly those running for election/re-election, stressed how the school district needs to get back to prioritizing their STEM programs. Unfortunately, they continue to push the importance of the DEI nonsense. It is a never-ending cycle for voters here.
That is absurd. 50K per student and the admin staff up 95% yet the can’t hire armed security personnel that won’t run away leaving kids to die during a school shooting.
$15,125 per student for M&O and debt service
[annually, recurring]
$27,504 per student for debt outstanding
[accumulated]
The $15K has to go out each and every year.
The $27K has to go out in spurts.
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