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By Dr. Harry Tennant
Monday, February 14, 2011 In The News: Next Year Texas Schools Will Have Around 100,000 Fewer Employees To Educate 85,000 Additional Students...hmmmm I've mentioned it a time or two...Texas is cutting funding for education drastically. Check out a few of the details the New York Times published in the much more lengthy and detailed article that follows these telling quotes:
"All across Texas, school superintendents are bracing for the largest
cuts to public education since World War II..." "...Gov. Rick Perry, easily re-elected in November, made it clear in his annual speech to lawmakers last week that he regarded raising revenue for schools as out of the question.." "To balance the budget with cuts alone, the governor and Republican leaders in the Legislature have put forth bills that would reduce the state’s public school budget by at least 13 percent — nearly $3.5 billion a year — and would provide no new money to schools for about 85,000 new students that arrive in Texas every year. School administrators predict that as many as 100,000 school employees would have to be laid off to absorb the cuts. "Not only are the proposed cuts to school aid draconian, but in addition the Legislature in 2006 put strict limits how much districts can raise local property taxes. That means local school boards find themselves trapped between rising enrollment, double-digit drops in state aid and frozen local taxes. Many school administrators blame the current budget crisis on an overhaul of the school finance system five years ago, which Mr. Perry and Republican leaders pushed through in response to popular anger over high property taxes. The Legislature put a cap on property taxes for schools and promised to make up the difference with a new business tax. But that tax has never produced enough revenue to make the districts’ budgets whole. The chronic shortfall in money for schools was papered over in the last two-year budget passed in 2009. Mr. Perry and Republican leaders in the Legislature used about $3.3 billion in federal aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to plug the hole. That aid has disappeared this year."
Posted at 11:53 PM Keywords: In The News , Budgets , School Financing , Texas 0 Comments |
