Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Can our state have a budget surplus at the same time its public schools are underfunded?
Though troubling, the answer is “yes.”
While school districts across the state are grappling with difficult decisions due to budget deficits, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar estimates that an extra $27 billion in state funds will be available when the Legislature convenes in January.
How can Texas be sitting on a sizable surplus — including within the Foundation School Program, the primary source of state funding for schools — as districts are experiencing shortfalls in the tens of millions of dollars?
In response to the comptroller’s revised revenue estimate, Gov. Greg Abbott said we can “expect a very large property tax cut coming out of this next legislative session.” While the need for property tax relief is real and undeniable, so too is the need to properly fund our public schools.
Texas public schools receive both state general revenue and local property tax revenue. State revenue is intended to help increase overall funding and addresses the inherently inequitable system that arises from funding schools based on local property taxes. But the state revenue has been declining. Ten years ago, the state contributed 48.5% of the cost of education, but in 2017 that number declined to 42.4%.
Put differently, in 2008, the state contributed about $17.1 billion toward education for about 4.7 million students. However, in 2017, Texas public schools enrolled more than 5.3 million students. The state’s contribution was only $19.3 billion. Despite the 13.7% growth in the total student population, the proportion of funding the state contributes declined by 12.6% per pupil.
Advocates for the state’s current system naively suggest it is existing law that requires the state to use the expected growth in property taxes to fund public education before factoring in state funding. Legislators are elected to ensure state laws benefit its citizens and this law has not protected public schools. At the very least, it ought to be amended.
Nationally, Texas ranked 40 out of a total of 51, in which Washington, D.C., is counted along with all 50 states when it comes to funding levels. The Lone Star State received an “F” mark for its funding level of $11,987 per student, which was $3,127 the national average of $15,114.
The low ranking put Texas at the bottom of the list with 10 other states. New York State was the highest in the national report, spending $11,520 above the national average per student, while Arizona was at the bottom of the list, spending $5,397 less than the national level of $15,114.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,691 posts, read 58,004,579 times
Reputation: 46171
Texas School Districts Switching To Four Day School Weeks
Sounds like a great excuse for those using school as daycare to lobby for a 4 day workweek! (a good idea BTW)
Better yet, I would suggest parents NOT use School as daycare, in fact... quit work while kids are home, and school them yourself, you can always go back to work when you get your kids raised. or... start a home business and teach the kids to run it The business can pay for their college
Imagine no more ISD taxes (hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!!!)
No more buses (no more fuel emissions from empty buses, no more bus expense, no more fuel needed)
No more school buildings sitting empty 1/3 the yr (no more need to heat / AC, repair)
Teacher and school officials can be productively working and starting businesses and growing their communities.
Kids will benefit, because parents will know exactly what they are learning (they're not learning much in school, according to our international test scores, and the employees hired from HS graduates.(?) What did they learn?, they can't spell, write, do math, communicate with other employees or customers... they're just like school kids... sitting on their hands waiting to be told exactly what to do. (Did your boss ever have time or patience for you to do that?)
Vast improvements needed.
Not sure a 4 day school week will get there, but hopefully it will break the disaster we currently call public education.
Giving kids another day off out of the feedlot / farrowing pens of public school classrooms might give the kids a chance to be creative, self motivated, entrepreneurial (my kids had businesses or revenue producing activities at home since age 6, as did all their peers) Home schooled country kids. as a group, there were 8 families helping each other build homes, several had Homeschool businesses, kids never wondered what to do, they knew they would be in FT college by age 16 and paying for their cars / food / insurance / clothes. My HS age kids had 2-3 jobs / day while attending college (at night, so they could work days). Didn't kill them, they did not have time to be rebellious (yet) ~ age 40, could happen any minute.
Last edited by StealthRabbit; 02-12-2023 at 12:32 AM..
Texas School Districts Switching To Four Day School Weeks
Sounds like a great excuse for those using school as daycare to lobby for a 4 day workweek! (a good idea BTW)
Better yet, I would suggest parents NOT use School as daycare, in fact... quit work while kids are home, and school them yourself, you can always go back to work when you get your kids raised. or... start a home business and teach the kids to run it The business can pay for their college
Imagine no more ISD taxes (hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!!!)
No more buses (no more fuel emissions from empty buses, no more bus expense, no more fuel needed)
No more school buildings sitting empty 1/3 the yr (no more need to heat / AC, repair)
Teacher and school officials can be productively working and starting businesses and growing their communities.
Kids will benefit, because parents will know exactly what they are learning (they're not learning much in school, according to our international test scores, and the employees hired from HS graduates.(?) What did they learn?, they can't spell, write, do math, communicate with other employees or customers... they're just like school kids... sitting on their hands waiting to be told exactly what to do. (Did your boss ever have time or patience for you to do that?)
Vast improvements needed.
Not sure a 4 day school week will get there, but hopefully it will break the disaster we currently call public education.
Giving kids another day off out of the feedlot / farrowing pens of public school classrooms might give the kids a chance to be creative, self motivated, entrepreneurial (my kids had businesses or revenue producing activities at home since age 6, as did all their peers) Home schooled country kids. as a group, there were 8 families helping each other build homes, several had Homeschool businesses, kids never wondered what to do, they knew they would be in FT college by age 16 and paying for their cars / food / insurance / clothes. My HS age kids had 2-3 jobs / day while attending college (at night, so they could work days). Didn't kill them, they did not have time to be rebellious (yet) ~ age 40, could happen any minute.
Some kids will grow up feral if they are not sent to school. You and 8 other families taught your kids because you had the inclination to do so, but that is not the case for others. They don't want to stay home and teach. Teaching is a passion which not all of us have. Not everyone wants to stay home and take care of kids. Not everyone knows how to teach.
While you might not care if kids grow up feral, as a society and first world country we can't allow this. It will affect society for the worse to have people that ignorant who's parents didn't or couldn't teach them. If something must change, it's the way they teach/train them. Maybe handing them over to boot camp as soon as they turn 12 or 13 might work better. But I feel that this might be polemic enough that it would be a very great debate. Not a subject for this particular forum.
Imagine no more ISD taxes (hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!!!)
No more buses (no more fuel emissions from empty buses, no more bus expense, no more fuel needed)
No more school buildings sitting empty 1/3 the yr (no more need to heat / AC, repair)
Teacher and school officials can be productively working and starting businesses and growing their communities.
At this point … I’m not amazed that there’s republicans pushing for the elimination of public education
I wonder if this will make parents in those school districts pay more attention to their local school board elections next time around? Few people vote in local municipal elections but those are the ones that affect people the most and are more important than who the Governor or President is.
Location: East Texas, with the Clan of the Cave Bear
3,264 posts, read 5,629,527 times
Reputation: 4763
Quote:
Originally Posted by elnina
I don't know how helpful it will be to most working parents. School day generally ends around 4PM.
So, parents need to be at the school or home about that time. Most white collar workers work 8-5 plus commute time, so it's inconvenient either way.
School now runs 8AM to 3:30 Pm with an 8 hour day for most Texas upper level grades.
School would run 7:30AM to 5Pm or 8AM to 5:30 PM
Don't see the problem here. Please explain the conflicts.
Texas School Districts Switching To Four Day School Weeks
Sounds like a great excuse for those using school as daycare to lobby for a 4 day workweek! (a good idea BTW)
Better yet, I would suggest parents NOT use School as daycare, in fact... quit work while kids are home, and school them yourself, you can always go back to work when you get your kids raised. or... start a home business and teach the kids to run it The business can pay for their college
Imagine no more ISD taxes (hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!!!)
No more buses (no more fuel emissions from empty buses, no more bus expense, no more fuel needed)
No more school buildings sitting empty 1/3 the yr (no more need to heat / AC, repair)
Teacher and school officials can be productively working and starting businesses and growing their communities.
Kids will benefit, because parents will know exactly what they are learning (they're not learning much in school, according to our international test scores, and the employees hired from HS graduates.(?) What did they learn?, they can't spell, write, do math, communicate with other employees or customers... they're just like school kids... sitting on their hands waiting to be told exactly what to do. (Did your boss ever have time or patience for you to do that?)
Vast improvements needed.
Not sure a 4 day school week will get there, but hopefully it will break the disaster we currently call public education.
Giving kids another day off out of the feedlot / farrowing pens of public school classrooms might give the kids a chance to be creative, self motivated, entrepreneurial (my kids had businesses or revenue producing activities at home since age 6, as did all their peers) Home schooled country kids. as a group, there were 8 families helping each other build homes, several had Homeschool businesses, kids never wondered what to do, they knew they would be in FT college by age 16 and paying for their cars / food / insurance / clothes. My HS age kids had 2-3 jobs / day while attending college (at night, so they could work days). Didn't kill them, they did not have time to be rebellious (yet) ~ age 40, could happen any minute.
Most people cant afford to quit work to homeschool their kids because they dont have the money they would need to survive without working.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,691 posts, read 58,004,579 times
Reputation: 46171
Quote:
Originally Posted by temptation001
Some kids will grow up feral if they are not sent to school. ...
While you might not care if kids grow up feral, ... Maybe handing them over to boot camp as soon as they turn 12 or 13 might work better. ....
Dairy Farm Boarding School worked pretty good for me.
We might want to first start teaching parents that there is a significant responsibility to bringing children into the world and society.
4 day school week, driving kids (and parents) more time together to get life worked out might drive home the responsibility thing. For the Feral kids and parents... Public School should not be tasked with this, it is a societal issue, and schools could focus on their deliverable (an education).
For kids marginalized by inept parents... public school is not a reasonable substitute, and should not be used as such.
Straighten out the family, and task schools to meeting a very strict and focused and mandatory deliverable (education). i.e. School is a privilege, not an free benefit. If parents / kids aren't ready for that, FIX IT (Poor farms, social programs), but don't detract from the deliverable necessary for our schools to deliver to a potentially successful society, economy, nation.
It's easy if you totally re-invent schools to TEACH and ONLY to teach. Worked 100 yrs ago, or the USA would have never attained world respect and greatness, which they no longer have BTW.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The business can pay for their college 
(hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!!!)
