Texas Education Funding – A Hot Button Issue

Senate Education Committee Chairman Florence Shapiro and House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf have filed legislation which would sunset the current school finance system, known as Robin Hood, in September 2005. The bold legislation forces a debate on school finance. If passed, a special session would likely be called to address the issue.

In the current, two-year budget cycle, 118 “wealthy” districts are giving up about $1.5 billion in property taxes to poorer districts.

Texas public education facts:

Texas spends over $26 billion on public education

Texas has over 4 million students in public schools

Texas has 1,040 school districts in the State

In Texas, 25% of the schoolchildren are in 13 of the 1,040 ISD’s

Texas’ average expenditure per student is $6,500

Texas education funding: over 50% comes from local funds; around 45% from state funds and around 4% is federal

Texas schools spend less than 50% of that in the classroom

Texas has 274,000 teachers

Texas teachers’ average salary is just over $40,000