Even with an extra $8.5 billion for public schools, Texas still trails the national average in per-student funding by $4,000
Seeking to wring as much favorable publicity as he could over signing an $8.5 billion (but still inadequate) increase in state funding for public schools, Gov. Greg Abbott claimed the new measure, House Bill 2, “ensures that our schools are funded better than ever.”
Sure, $8.5 billion is a huge figure, and it is a good step in the right direction. But what really matters is how much $8.5 billion translates into additional funding for each of Texas’ 5 million or so students. Do the math, and you will find that it is about an extra $1,700 per student for the next two years. That also sounds impressive, but it still leaves Texas’ per pupil spending in average daily attendance (ADA) about $4,000 less than the national average for the just completed 2024-25 school year.
There was a lot of talk during the legislative session about schools needing a funding boost of as much as $1,300 per student to recover from inflationary losses suffered since the last meaningful increase in public education funding in 2019. But the boost in school funding in 2019 still left per-student funding in Texas several thousand dollars less than the national average then. This is because of the state’s record, especially in recent years, of doing such an inadequate job of funding schools. Inflation just made the shortage worse. The total appropriations for education may be huge, but the needs of the second largest student enrollment in the country are great and growing.
In its most recent annual ranking of each state’s financial commitment to public education, the National Education Association, using data from the Texas Education Agency, calculated that Texas spent an average of $13,189 per student in ADA during 2024-25. This was $5,664 less than the national average of $18,853 and ranked Texas 47th among the states, almost scraping the bottom. Only Idaho, Oklahoma and Utah spent less per child.
Add $1,700 to $13,189, and Texas would be spending $14,889 per student, still about $4,000 less than this year’s national average and theoretically rank us 39th. But by the time the additional House Bill 2 funding is spread over the next two years, other states will have increased their per-pupil spending as well, and the national average and Texas’ deficit will be more.
What is so important about the national average? Well, it is the closest thing we have to a national standard for education spending. And being so far behind the national standard on key benchmarks is a strong indication that Texas, the second most-populous state, isn’t trying hard enough.
Had lawmakers, for example, not given Abbott his top education priority – the $1 billion voucher bill for private schools — and added that money to House Bill 2 instead, it would have increased per-student funding for public schools by another $200. Now, voucher advocates will come back for more tax funding at the expense of public schools every time the Legislature meets.
Some provisions in the new school finance bill – including teacher pay raises, changes in special education funding and incentives to increase the number of certified teachers – are good, but Texas schools are still underfunded. At present, the average teacher pay in Texas is more than $10,400 less than the national average, and the raises in House Bill 2 won’t close that gap either.
At his bill signing ceremony, Abbott spoke of making Texas “number one” in education, a goal that, for starters, will require a new governor or an overhaul of Abbott’s political priorities. And whoever the governor is, it will require substantial increases in public school funding every budget period for the foreseeable future, not just once every six years.