The latest public education news from The Texas Tribune.
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.” Full Story
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Nine SBOE members say there's a potential $2 billion for public schools in the state's Permanent School Fund — but they need a constitutional amendment to get it. Full Story
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To avoid government shutdown, congressional Democrats agreed to repeal an amendment that would have prohibited Texas from using federal funds to replace, rather than supplement, state funding of schools. Full Story
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The Social Security numbers of 164,406 students who graduated from eight Texas school districts over the past two decades were placed at risk for identity theft, according to Texas Education Agency documents obtained by The Texas Tribune. Full Story
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With budget gridlock in Washington, and massive education cuts at home, the Texas school districts that qualify for federal "Impact Aid" dollars are waging a war on two fronts. Full Story
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A bill from state Rep. Rob Eissler modifying how end-of-course exams factor into graduation led House Republicans into a debate over how best to handle student testing during what one called "extraordinary times" in public education. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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The Texas House started with a $164.5 billion budget and ended with the same total. But lawmakers spent the better part of a weekend making changes inside the budget for 2012-13 before giving it their approval, 98 to 49. Full Story
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No time to follow every twist and turn of the Texas Legislature? We've made it easier for you with our weekly recaps of the action under the dome. Full Story
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At this morning's TribLive conversation, state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, the longest-serving woman, African American and Democrat in the Texas House, forcefully argued that state funding of public education should not be cut — unless school districts are made to tap into their own reserves. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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Last year, Texas police issued 300,000 students for offenses like chewing gum, truancy and cursing. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee today discussed a bill that would mean far fewer citations for youngsters in schools. Full Story
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M. Smith on the continuing controversy over Beaumont's school administrators, Tan on the deepening divide over the consequences of the House budget, Hamilton on the latest in the fight over higher ed accountability, Grissom on young inmates in adult prisons, Aguilar on the voter ID end game, Tan and Hasson's Rainy Day Fund infographic, Ramsey on the coming conflict over school district reserves, M. Smith and Aguilar on Laredo ISD's missing Social Security numbers, Galbraith on environmental regulators bracing for budget cuts and Ramshaw on greater scrutiny of neonatal intensive care units: The best of our best content from March 21 to 25, 2011. Full Story
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Beaumont's Carrol A. Thomas, who makes $347,834 annually, is the highest-paid superintendent in Texas, even though his district of about 20,000 students is considerably smaller than those in other Texas cities. Full Story
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No time to follow every twist and turn of the Texas Legislature? We've made it easier for you with our weekly recaps of the action under the dome. Full Story
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Senators tried to improve the funding picture for public education on Thursday when the Senate Finance Committee voted 13-2 to add $5.7 billion to its initial proposal. But that's still about a $4 billion reduction from current levels. Full Story
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Republican senators say the state's budget shortfall will mean educations cuts, but they said schools should focus first on eliminating non-classroom expenses and keeping as many teachers as possible. Full Story
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The state’s 1,030 school districts have — in total — $10.2 billion in reserves and another $2.1 billion in unspent federal stimulus money. Can they use that money to avoid draconian cutbacks? It's not that simple. Full Story
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At Tuesday's Senate Education Committee hearing on a trio of anti-bullying bills, the parents of children who committed suicide after being picked on by classmates asked lawmakers to fix a system they say failed their families. Full Story
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A disk holding the Social Security numbers of thousands of current and former students in the Laredo Independent School District — a total of 24,903 — has gone missing, according to the Texas Education Agency. Full Story