Edu updates: School financing doubled over 10 years but performance remains flat

State's five largest districts join list suing the Legislature

According to the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board says “more than half the entering freshmen at Texas colleges and universities need remedial classes.”

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Empower Texans | By Michael Quinn Sullivan (posted Dec. 28, 2011 / read the complete story) – Texas public schools have doubled per-pupil spending over the last decade, but the academic results should leave teachers, parents, taxpayers and lawmakers wondering where the money has gone. And one school administrator doesn’t think college readiness should be a factor in considering public-ed performance.

According to the Texas Education Agency, school districts reported spending more than $25.2 billion in 2000 on 3.9 million school children. In 2010, the districts reported $53.7 billion in spending on 4.7 million kids. That means per-pupil spending rose from $6,360 per child in 2000 to $11,427 per pupil in 2010. Inflation over that period would get you up to $7,971, so where is the other $3,456 per student going? Shouldn’t we see some of that in the form of higher academic outcomes, and greater preparedness for post-secondary education?

Instead, SAT scores remained mostly flat: 985 in 2000 to a 989 in 2010. (The average scores for 2011 actually declined several points.)

One college administrator recently told me that when considering how unprepared so many public-school graduates are for higher-education, he sometimes thinks his institution's trustees should sue school districts for not performing as advertised.

Texas Public Education | By Dr. Jerry Burkett School funding lawsuits: Forcing the Legislature to fix education funding (updated Dec. 27, 2011) – A fourth lawsuit has now been filed against the Texas State Legislature and others. The latest comes also from the Haynes and Boone law firm whose suit will represent primarily wealthy school districts that are still giving revenue back to the state as part of leftover “Robin Hood” rules still embedded in our current school funding system. The Texas Education Agency, Commissioner Robert Scott, Comptroller Susan Combs and the State Board of Education are named as defendants.

Cypress-Fairbanks ISD has joined the Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition suit which now means that the top 5 largest school districts in the state are suing for equity and adequacy for Texas students.

Representing over 120 school districts, the Texas School Coalition plan to argue that the current finance system is in direct violation of the Texas State Constitution because it does not provide access to funding to provide adequacy for Texas students.