School Finance – Texas

What to Know: The Texas Public School Finance Commission has released a draft report that proposed repurposing existing school dollars to provide incentives to school to improve student outcomes.

“An early estimate shows Gov. Greg Abbott’s proposal for a school finance fix would provide three times more dollars for property tax relief as it would additional money for school districts in 2020,” Texas Public Radio reports. “…Commission members spent Tuesday morning discussing a long list of recommendations for improving the quality of public schools they have developed over the last 10 months; ideas include incentivizing schools to offer high-quality pre-K and pay effective teachers higher salaries. They plan to vote on a draft report on Dec. 19, and are expected to deliver a final version by the end of the year.”

The TPPF Take: Too much public education money is spent on things that don’t affect academic achievement.

“Without any new taxes, Texas school districts can repurpose funds and improve student outcomes by adopting teacher merit pay programs, which encourage our best teachers to stay in the classroom,” says TPPF’s Kara Belew. “We need to be sure we’re spending the money we already allocate to public education in the most effective way possible.

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