Grading Texas – Page 71 – Texas State Teachers Association

School spending shouldn’t be a political inconvenience

The biggest single expenditure of state government is education. It costs a lot of money to provide, operate and support classes for more than 5.2 million public school children whose numbers are increasing by about 80,000 kids per year.

Most people think what taxpayers spend on public schools is a great investment in our state’s future. Some of our state “leaders,” though, seem to regard it as more of a political inconvenience, which is a major reason why Texas spends about $2,700 less each year to educate a child than the national average.

Educators hope to improve on that effort during this legislative session, but proof of how tough a fight it will be emerged this week when House and Senate budget leaders presented their initial spending proposals for the upcoming two years.

The House’s version offered at least some optimism for educators, students and families, but the Senate’s draft was awful, putting a less-government, less-education ideological mentality over the real-life needs of school children.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and his Senate budget team proposed spending enough money on public education only to cover enrollment growth, and much of that amount will not come from state funds but from local school tax dollars.

This means the Senate plan would not cover budgetary shortfalls that many school districts are still suffering from the $5.4 billion in education budget cuts imposed by the legislative majority six years ago. And it would plunge Texas even farther down the lower rung of states in its financial commitment to public school children.

Moreover, Patrick will try to worsen the damage by once again promoting a raid on education tax dollars for private school vouchers and other privatization schemes that would benefit a handful of students at the expense of the vast majority. (Remember this when Patrick pontificates how about much he “cares” about school children at the pro-voucher, pro-privatization school “choice” rally at the Capitol next week.)

Over in the House, Speaker Joe Straus and his budget team also have proposed a conservative spending plan, but it would increase public education funding by $1.5 billion above what is necessary to cover enrollment growth, provided the Legislature makes some long-overdue changes in the school finance system.

This is not as much money as students need, but it is a start in the right direction and signals that Straus is serious about beginning the job of drafting a fairer and more adequate school funding system. The House plan also may prompt lawmakers to dip into the Rainy Day Fund, a state savings account nearing $12 billion, to more adequately fund education, health care and other critical needs.

The final budget will be written this spring after much debate, negotiation and posturing. But the process begins with an ideological mindset on the part of the Senate leadership versus a more realistic view from the House that school kids are more important than ideology.

Dan Patrick doubles down on STAAR testing, A-F

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is consistent – consistently wrong on education policy and consistently refusing to admit it. Yesterday, he doubled down on his support for STAAR testing when, in an interview with the Texas Tribune, he reaffirmed his support for the new A-F grading system for public schools.

Because campus grades largely will be determined by STAAR scores, this will increase STAAR stress even more for kids, beginning with third-graders, a serious concern for parents and educators to whom Patrick remains oblivious.

School board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, parents and other people who actually know something about education are united in their opposition to the letter grading system because they know it will do absolutely nothing to improve public schools.

Instead, it simply will stigmatize low-income children, who likely will be tagged with the most Ds and Fs, if we can’t persuade the Legislature to repeal the law before it goes into effect next fall. Texas’ entire public education system is under-funded, but low-income and special-needs children are particularly ill-served by Patrick and a legislative majority that would rather punish and label kids as failures than own up to their own failure to adequately and fairly fund all the public schools.

“Anyone who thinks in the education community that…that system is going away – not going away,” Patrick said in his Tribune interview.

Fortunately, the legislative process is still a democracy, and Patrick doesn’t have to have the final say. Had it up to here with STAAR? Then tell you own legislators. Here is how to find your individual state senators and state representatives and how to contact them. Click on this link and fill in your home address:

http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx

Time for educators to fight back

Elections have consequences, folks, and beginning this week Texas educators are going to get a preview of what some of these consequences may be for their jobs, their students and their students’ families. And you are not going to like what you see coming from either Austin or Washington.

So, it is time to start pushing back.

The new session of the Texas Legislature convened today in Austin, where public education, educators and students remain under attack. Even though schools are woefully under-funded, the legislative majority, egged on by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, will consider spending as much as $3 billion of local school tax revenue for other state programs and stealing from what’s left of the public education budget for private school vouchers.

Your state legislators need to hear from you – early and often:

# Demand that they reject vouchers and other privatization schemes, including education savings accounts.

# Demand that they spend your local school tax dollars on what you paid them for – education.

# Demand that they dip into the state’s Rainy Day Fund to increase school funding. This savings account is for emergencies, and school funding is an emergency. The fund was not approved by Texas voters to be hoarded by ideologically driven state leaders who are intent on reducing government, beginning with education. The Rainy Day Fund’s balance is approaching $12 billion, a definite bright spot in an economy and revenue stream recovering from the recent plunge in oil prices.

# Demand that your legislators abolish or significantly cut back on the STAAR testing regime, which continues to unnecessarily stress our children and rob them of valuable learning time.

# Demand that they repeal the A-F school grading system, which will put more stress on STAAR testing and do absolutely nothing to improve public education.

As the session unfolds, TSTA will alert you to more issues as well as developments in these. To learn who your state representative and state senator are and how to contact them, click on this link and enter your home address. Then contact them:

http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx

Meanwhile, any educator who took a gamble on Donald Trump for president rolled the dice for an all-out attack from Washington on public schools, and the person who will lead the charge is Trump’s choice for education secretary, Betsy DeVos. A billionaire member of the Amway family, DeVos has no experience in public education (not even as a student) and knows nothing about it, but she has been spending a lot of time and money trying to dismantle and privatize it.

In her home state of Michigan, DeVos fought to undermine public schools with tax cuts for the wealthy. She also advocated for vouchers to divert tax dollars from public education so private schools and for-profit charters could profit off taxpayers with little or no accountability. Now, DeVos and Trump want to wage their campaign across the nation.

DeVos’ Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week. If she wins committee approval, the full Senate is expected to vote on her confirmation within a few weeks. Tell Texas’ two U.S. senators – John Cornyn and Ted Cruz — that you oppose DeVos’ confirmation and why.

https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/?

https://www.cruz.senate.gov/

It will take time for election consequences to play out, so educators still have opportunities to make a difference – but only if we speak up and demand that lawmakers listen.

School taxpayers may end up subsidizing another tax cut for businesses

If Gov. Greg Abbott has his way, many Texas homeowners soon may see part of their school property taxes be used to subsidize another tax cut for businesses. It would be the second tax reduction for businesses in two years even as school taxes continue to increase, despite a minor property tax break approved during the 2015 legislative session.

If you think your school taxes are spent only to support public schools, you should learn about a feature of the state’s school finance law that has been getting some media attention on the eve of the new legislative session. Tied to complicated school finance formulas, this feature provides that the state’s share of paying for public education decreases as local school property tax values rise.

As you know, your home and other taxable property values have been increasing, causing your school tax bills to increase even if your local school board doesn’t raise your tax rate. Statewide, property values have been increasing so much that the Legislature will see a reduction of about $2 billion in the amount of money it is required to pay for public schools during the next two-year budget period.

Legislators could change the law and keep paying the $2 billion – or more. But early signs indicate the governor and the legislative majority don’t plan to do that. Instead, they will spend the “windfall” on other programs, maybe even to help cover Gov. Abbott’s priority — another reduction in business taxes.

Two years ago, the Legislature approved and Abbott signed a bill that cut the business franchise tax by 25 percent across-the-board, resulting in the biennial loss of $2.6 billion in revenue for education and other state needs at a time when schools already were – and still are – under-funded.

In 2015, the Legislature and voters also approved a constitutional amendment that increased the homestead exemption on school property taxes. Collectively, it was worth $1.2 billion during the recent budget period but only about $125 for the average homeowner. Since then, rising property values have more than wiped out that savings.

Now, the governor thinks those tax reductions, particularly for business, weren’t enough.

“I want to see (more) tax cuts,” he said in an interview with reporters last month. Specifically, according to the Houston Chronicle, he said he would like to see the business franchise tax and the energy margins tax reduced “by as much as I can get.”

Or, did he mean by as much as school property taxpayers can provide?

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