We Can't Cut Our Way Out of This

These are desperate times for public schools in Texas.

Some state leaders say the media is overplaying the budget story, that they don’t believe things are as bad as they are being portrayed.

But here’s the reality in districts across the state: The current budget proposal from the Texas House would mean a cut in funding of $250 million for the Dallas Independent School District, up to $350 million in Houston ISD, and about $100 million each for Austin and San Antonio’s Northside school districts.

In mid-February, Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa proposed a plan that would cut 4,000 jobs, increase class sizes and eliminate numerous programs to prepare for the worst-case scenario of losing $250 million of the district’s budget.

Hinojosa pulled no punches about the effect such drastic cuts would have.

“It’s going to be very painful,” Hinojosa told the Dallas Morning News. “It’s inevitable we’re going to have personnel cuts. It will have a tremendous academic impact.”

In Austin ISD, proposals to deal with the looming cuts have spawned a backlash from parents and community members. The district is considering cutting more than 1,000 positions next year and looking at a long-range proposal that could result in the closure of nine Austin schools.

There are similar scenarios playing out across the state. The crisis is real and it can’t be overstated.

This Legislative Session is shaping up to be one of the most difficult in recent history. Lawmakers are looking to make up for an estimated $27 billion shortfall and it looks like the majority of that money will be found in cuts, not new revenue.

Public education is especially vulnerable. First, because it makes up such a large share – 44 percent – of the state’s general revenue budget. But schools also stand to suffer most because districts have been struggling financially for years under an unwieldy school funding system.

Texas school districts have been doing more with less for years. At the order of the state Supreme Court, lawmakers were forced to fix the school finance system – long the subject of law suits for not funding schools adequately or equitably. But their changes in 2006 resulted in a system that froze funding for most districts.

Many have received no additional per-student funding since 2006, even as the state heaped on costly requirements, including mandated salary raises. That meant that districts quite literally have had to do more with less, and with increasing accountability standards each year, do it better.

And districts have risen to the challenge. Despite frozen funding levels for the past five years, TAKS scores have improved in every category since 2004. In last year’s state accountability ratings, nearly 70 percent of districts and campuses were rated either exemplary or recognized.

But school leaders can’t continue to produce these kinds of results if their feet are cut out from underneath them.
There is no fat left in Texas public schools. Districts have already cut to the bone, sacrificing everywhere possible without affecting the classroom. But there’s no way the classroom will be protected from the draconian cuts lawmakers are talking about -- $10 billion over the next two years.

Why isn’t there enough money to fund Texas schools? A major reason is when the Legislature reduced school property tax rates from $1.00 to $1.50 in 2006, they didn’t find a way to replace that money. A business tax was supposed to replace the money school districts lost, but it has fallen short of what it was supposed to bring in by about $1.1 billion a year. That’s due in part to the economy, but it’s also because of loopholes in the law that allow many businesses to get around the tax.

The problem became worse in 2009 when the Legislature used $3.5 billion in federal stimulus money to fund public schools, requiring districts to use it for reoccurring expenses. When that one-time windfall ran out, it left another hole in the budget.

We have a structural deficit in Texas that has led to the crisis we are in today. There are short-term fixes lawmakers can employ that may buy some time, but they must address the structural deficit and figure out a way to fund public education in Texas in an adequate and equitable manner.

Gutting education funding in a state that grows by 85,000 students a year, where nearly 60 percent of those children come from poverty, is detrimental to the future of Texas.

Texas children need and deserve a quality education and the state’s economic future is dependent on their success. Balancing the budget on the backs of students is a dangerous tactic. School leaders across the state are urging lawmakers to truly make education a priority and find a way to fund the future of Texas.