Little Agreement on How to Fix School Finance System
A teachers group has urged Gov. Rick Perry to call a special session to address education funding, but there's still plenty of disagreement on what fixing the school funding system would actually mean.
Some think lawmakers should eliminate the use of local property taxes and pass a constitutional amendment to create a statewide property tax. Others want a more immediate fix: Spend a couple of billion dollars to stop additional teacher layoffs — and call lawmakers back to Austin to do so.
“State government has the money to do that — it’s taxpayers’ money, called the Rainy Day Fund,” said ...
Comments (6)
hans5162@ix.netcom.com hans
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is nothing more than a bunch of ideologically oriented lying hacks. They consistently lie and misrepresent facts. They cherry pick incomplete data to support their agenda, which is to destroy support for public schools through underfunding them.
"Peacock said the Rainy Day Fund should only be used for one-time costs, not recurring expenses like teacher salaries. He said adding another patch to the heavily bandaged school finance system won't help anyone." Well, guess what? The Legislature will have no choice but to use the Rainy Day Fund to fill the multi-billion dollar hole the Legislature left in Medicaid, which is lately estimated to be $14 billion dollars. That would appear to be a recurring cost.
Until we vote the jokers who listen to these lying sacks out of office, we will continue to fall behind other states and other developed countries in education, access to health care and other indicia of development.
gypsy314 ne
Remove Government from the payroll and making choices and let parents and teacher work the details out NO Unions. Quit paying for illegal aliens children would save billions. Quit buying books use tablets computers that can be updated instead of buying new books. How can we say to our children the program has been cut but we have money to educate children that are here illegal because there parent have NO respect for our laws look what they are teaching there children just break the law and hide out until we can protest enough to change there minds. I for one will not put up with the leaders we have now trying to teach gay crap to our children. Im for one man one women and that is the way God made us. Until the devil has sicken the homosexual's to feel they do not know what is right or wrong. I will not visit any state that supports homosexuals and will not rest until the military appeals the gays serving openly. Who in the hell wants to bring there family around gays openly acting like it is normal. The homosexual will say Im racist but most Americans know that im saying what Americans feel. Look people vote to keep gays out and now the states do not put it to the people to vote because they know the people will not except the gay sickness.
Merle Breiland
It might be worth while to review the healthcare costs for the teachers. Some unions provide the insurance at greatly inflated rates and use the profits to support their favorite political pac. I know of one case where the insurance was put out for bid and the costs dropped by more than half which allowed teacher's raises and not having to lay off teachers due to budget contraints.
What it all boils down to is to look beneath the surface to fine the real costs and problems.
Jose Gomez
I am reluctant to call him Mr. I will address him a "Peacock" that is what he is a peacock. "We don't see the need for a special session" Of course you do not see, you are blind to the reality of the current condition of our educational system. Texans have spoken and have not only identified the problem with our school system, they have also given you the solution. You and your cronies are so bullheaded and arrogant that your riches do not allow you to see reality.
All you think about is all the monies that businesses give you .
"We do not have to do anything until the courts mandate us to do so, anyway, that is going to take a long time" "In the meantime, the heck with the teachers, students, after all they don' count".
Governor Perry once again "COMES TO THE RESCUE" AMIGO, I just got fired from position at the University, what can you do? DON'T YOU WORRY, I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU, REMEMBER, I AM THE GOVERNOR. IT DOES NOT MATTER THAT YOU PULLED OUT A KNIFE, THAT IS BESIDES THE POINT. I HAVE THE POWER AND BY TOMORROW YOU WILL HAVE A HIGHER SALARIED JOB. I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU.
Alice Taylor
#Gypsy and Merle
Teachers in Texas are not unionized.
Teacher's salary rates are set by local school boards and have nothing to do with unions and there is no collective bargaining for salaries or benefits.
Texas is a right to work state.
Teachers who unionize will be fired, will lose their certifications to teach and will lose their retirements, according to state law.
Outlawing teachers unions can't and won't work because teachers unions are already against the law here in Texas.
You can't outlaw what is already against the law.
Just because you hear about teacher's unions in other states doesn't mean what you read or hear applies to teachers in Texas. It doesn't. It never has.
I can't get much plainer than that. I'm a public school teacher. If a union for teachers here in Texas exists, I'm sure it would be news to the 32,000 public school teachers who lost their jobs this last year.
Denise Miller
Few Texans understand the difference between the public education system in our state and that of heavily unionized states. Unions have little to no impact on education policy or financing in Texas because of state-imposed limits on their ability to bargain. (Witness the bizarre comments offered by our legislators in the last session and we see that they don't know much about education in Texas, either.)
The state has complete control of the retirement system, defacto control of the health benefits for all but a few of the largest districts. Texas educators do not have either a generous retirement or health benefit, and both of those are currently under attack.
RE: Mr. Peacock. The most costly students to educate are those who are at-risk and they are concentrated in the least funded districts. The idea that the entire population would be educated through a competitive business model school funded by vouchers is an absolute absurdity. Private schools achieve lower costs not through efficiency but often by skimping on qualified instruction and declining to enroll at risk populations -- special education, dyslexic, multiple handicapped and the economically disadvantaged who increasing swell our public school populations. Vouchers will, however, allow affluent families to more to a more selective environment without shouldering any of the responsibility for funding an equitable public system. That leaves us to speculate that you do not really intend to truly educate all of the students of Texas.
It is time to stop talking trash about what you don't understand; to quit tearing down one of the best assets of our country; to get real about funding and upgrading the public system to actually educate the type of students who are now walking through the school doors.