EDLD 5342 Week 3 Part 3

The intent of the legislature to provide more funding to district’s with greater needs was not met. Again, I am left wondering if our legislature even understands public education and has a true desire to adequately fund it,  habitually plays politics, or are victims of unintended consequences of their formulas. The poorer district has a WADA of 5555.815 because it has more disadvantaged and at risk students. This district also has a total tax base of only 141 million dollars. The rich district has a lower WADA at 4794, but because it has a nearly 3 billion dollar tax base every penny of their tax rate provides way more revenue for them. The total revenue per WADA for the property poor district is $5044, whereas the richer district has a revenue per WADA of $7206.  When the formulas were changed in 2006, the richer district was still able to raise more money per WADA because of their higher tax base.

                                                         

While the poorer district receives more funds for  the Special Education Allotment, as well as Career and Tech ed, GT, Comp. Ed., and Bilingual Education allotments, the richer district receives more money overall. This means they can employ more staff members and offer more programs to their students. The poor district has to use these allotments simply to play catch up with basic services and programs. There is even a difference in the student/teacher ratio, with the poor district having a higher overall ratio. The richer district has a ratio of students to total staff and students to teacher that is lower. One can even take a look at the average salaries in each district and see that teacher pay and administrator salaries are higher in the richer district. Even though the state made some efforts in the funding formulas to provide additional assistance for students and the poor district benefits from having a higher WADA, it is clear that they may receive more for the weight of their students, but that the richer district is able to raise more money for their general fund and therefore be able to make more choices to provide enhancements to salaries, education programs, etc.

The legislature’s failure to provide an adequate and equitable funding system is further seen in the EDA numbers. The rich district may not receive any assistance with debt reduction, but the poorer district only receives a bit over $500,000. This minimal amount of assistance does not make a true difference in an age where the infrastructure in our nation is already crumbling and needs to be updated. One can imagine a situation where the property poor district could be struggling to maintain its buildings, let alone update or build newer up to date facilities.

In the end, it is the state’s responsibility to provide an equitable public education experience to all students in Texas. It is a responsibility mandated in our state constitution and it is one that is continually shirked. We live in a time where our politicians are more concerned with being reelected that doing what is right for kids. If you take a look at the demographic and economic trends it is situation that is only going to get worse. The baby boomers are retiring in droves and are concerned about their taxes, benefits, retirement, social security, and medicare. The legislature is not committed to scrapping the entire current system and starting over to create the right system. They seem to be more interested in cutting budgets. A recent article ran that showed the disparity in wealth between the older generations and the younger generations is at its highest gap/point in history. Even with that new data, we are cutting funds to education, childrens’ and family/health programs, and allowing college tuition to become unaffordable while not touching the entitlements for those already holding the wealth.  The only solution is to scrap it and start over with the aim of building the most innovative schools in the nation and doing what it takes to get there…whatever it takes. I wonder if we have the courage.