Because of the complexity of school finance, it’s tempting to turn to per-student spending to understand how well — or how poorly — a district is spending its money. But that approach has its perils.
Public Education
Explore The Texas Tribune’s coverage of public education, from K-12 schools and funding to teachers, students, and policies shaping classrooms across Texas.
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Energy
Weekend Insider: Pocket Prairies, School Spending
Houston conservationists reintroduce native plants to the area, and we examine how much money school districts spend per student.
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Public Education
New Online Marketplace Emerges After Changes to Textbook Buying Law
In 2011, Texas drastically changed the way it regulates school district purchases of instructional materials. Last week, a new online marketplace opened, giving districts more than 100,000 options to exercise their newfound freedoms.
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Public Education
In Hard Times, Staffing at Schools Closely Watched
How school districts manage personnel costs will be increasingly monitored as debate over efficiency progresses — as will the ways they have coped with the loss of roughly 25,000 employees they shed before the 2011-12 school year.
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Public Education
A New Run at School Choice
Despite a half-hearted attempt at the end of the 2011 legislative session, the last real grasp lawmakers made at passing private school vouchers was in 2007. But that could soon change.
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Public Education
San Antonio City Council OKs Castro’s Pre-K Proposal
An initiative from San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro that would direct a portion of sales tax revenue to fund full-day pre-kindergarten unanimously passed the City Council, leaving it for voters to approve in November.
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Public Education
Testing Firm Hits Back Against Claims of Flaws
After a UT-Austin professor’s research suggested a flaw in the design of the state’s standardized tests, an official with the testing vendor said the firm welcomes an “open dialogue” based on well-founded evidence — but not what he called “wild conclusions.”
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Public Education
Fewer Than Half of Texas Schools Meet Federal Requirements
Only 44 percent of Texas schools met No Child Left Behind requirements for 2012. That’s a drop from 66 percent last year, meaning many of them will be subject to federal sanctions.
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Public Education
Michael Brick: The TT Interview
The author of a new book that investigates what communities lose when schools are shuttered talks about standardized testing and how students, teachers and parents cope with testing pressures.
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Public Education
In Preparing Students for College, a Struggle
Less than one in two Texas students met the state’s “college readiness” standards in math and verbal skills on the ACT, SAT and TAKS in 2010. And although the data shows that something is not going right, pinpointing why is difficult.