Charter schools want access to the state’s Permanent School Fund, which guarantees bond issues for traditional public schools, allowing them to secure advantageous interest rates. Not everyone is on board — including the traditional public schools.
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.
U.S. House Votes on Texas Education Money [Updated]
In the latest round of the political feud over $830 million in federal funding, House Republicans, led by U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, passed a bill Saturday that attempts to block the enforcement of the Texas-specific Education Jobs amendment.
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
The best of our best content from Feb. 14 to 18, 2011.
Sara Hickman: The TT Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK7BaGFYzZs Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
Battle Over Rainy Day Fund Heating Up
Texas, like many other states, is proposing billions of dollars in cuts to help close a budget gap. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, one thing Texas has that nobody else does is $9 billion in a piggy bank called the Rainy Day Fund — and lawmakers are divided over whether to crack it open.
Texas Social Studies Standards Receive Failing Grade
A report from a conservative education think tank says social studies standards in Texas give students a distorted and politicized view of history that, in one case, resembles “Soviet schools harping on the glories of state socialism.”
Cy-Fair Superintendent on Education Cuts
In an interview with KRLD’s Scott Braddock in Dallas, David Anthony, the departing superintendent of the state’s third-largest school district, said districts are in a “difficult situation” as they try to meet new student achievement measures while coping with cuts.
Texplainer: Can the Lege Overrule Perry on Education Money?
Gov. Rick Perry has said he can’t sign an application to receive $10 billion in federal education aid because it requires an assurance he cannot constitutionally make: that the Lege will not use the money to offset state funding of public education.
Perry, Doggett and Their $830 Million Feud
Six months after Congress established the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund to help states retain and hire teachers, Texas is one of only two states that has not received its money. Whether the state will gets it depends on a game of political chicken between Gov. Rick Perry and a certain Austin Democrat.
David Dunn: The TT Interview
The executive director of the Texas Charter Schools Association talks with The Texas Tribune about how cuts in education funding will hit charter schools hardest, and how they can partner with traditional public school districts in “win-win”arrangements — like sharing facilities.


