Nobody wanted to think about it in January. But as the middle of May approaches, with little more than two weeks left in the 82nd legislative session, a growing chorus of voices is asking: What happens if lawmakers can’t agree on school finance reform?

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With school districts across the state passing belt-tightening budgets due to cuts expected at the Legislature, Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports that some districts are gearing up for legal challenges.

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We’ve annotated the contracts of the 10 highest-paid school superintendents, along with those who lead the state’s 10 largest districts, so readers can view their pay in the context of retirement benefits, performance incentives, and perks like automobile and cellphone allowances.

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The 2006 tax swap — lowering local school property taxes and creating a new business tax to make up the difference — is at the center of Texas' current budget troubles. The architects are still pointing fingers over what and whom to blame for the state's “structural deficit.”

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On the heels of a newly approved House budget that leaves public schools $7.8 billion short of what they're entitled to under current funding formulas, the House Public Education Committee today considered a round of school finance bills.

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The Texas public school finance system, responsible for underwriting the education of the nation’s second-largest student population, is notoriously byzantine. Here’s our layman’s guide to figuring it out.

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Want to get the attention of 11,000 Texans? Propose a $10 billion spending cut to public education.

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School districts won't know exactly what nearly $10 billion in state cuts means to them until lawmakers pass a new school finance bill. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune takes a look at the first bill of the session that gives districts an idea of what to expect.

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For the latest installment of our nonscientific survey of political and policy insiders, we asked what it would mean to make deep cuts to public education, as proposed by the House, the Senate and the governor.

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For lawmakers scrutinizing every possible saving, “administrative costs” presents an easy mark. But there may be less to cut than they imagine.

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Texas school districts are bracing for budget cuts and layoffs in the coming months. And as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, education advocates are particularly concerned about the state's roll out of STAAR, a new testing system, in 2012.

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Texas school districts are bracing for budget cuts and layoffs in the coming months. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the cuts have some worried about 2012, when the state will roll out STAAR, a new testing system.

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For the latest installment of our nonscientific survey of political and policy insiders on issues of the moment, we asked whether public education is sufficiently funded in Texas — and how deep the coming cuts are likely to be.

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Cutting $10 billion public education funding could push more than two-dozen school districts from the group that receives state financing into the group that writes checks to the state to even things out between richer and poorer districts.

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With just 56 students, Marathon ISD is one of the state's smallest. But its fate is critical to the West Texas town's survival. And if what is happening here works, it could serve as a model for other towns looking to shield their way of life from the death knell of school closures.

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Leaders from school districts across Texas had tough words for lawmakers as they gathered this morning to denounce the "devastating" cuts to state public education funding.

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With some top state leaders warning that Texas’ dire fiscal situation will lead to the loss of several thousand state jobs, House budget writers will release their first draft budget today. As Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, big job cuts may be just the beginning.  Full Story

On the letters page of Wednesday's New York Times, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, slams Gov. Rick Perry for failing to take $830 million in federal money that Perry and other Republicans complained had strings attached but that Doggett says would have prevented "anti-education 'smoke and mirrors' budgeting" by the state.

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