English teacher Megan Holden watches her students file into her overcrowded classroom. At the same time, Texas representatives file into the capital, set to decide the path of education funding for the next two years.
Texas’s 89th bi-annual legislature session convened on Tuesday, January 14, and will run through June 2, 2025. During the 140-day session, Texas lawmakers will construct the state’s budget and pass further policies, determining the future of funding for public education across Texas.
“In the public schools, we are responsible for educating every child,” Holden said. “Trying to do this with so many students, and such a small budget is really hurting public schools and public education.”
Outside of special legislative sessions called by the governor, Texas’s regular bi-annual legislative sessions are the only opportunity for lawmakers to pass bills. While the state budget is the only bill lawmakers must pass, hundreds of additional bills will be passed during the session.
“I hope we will have more funding per student, so families don’t have to provide the finances for our education,” sophomore Elenor Klentzman said. “In the marching band, we are only allotted about $30 per student, meaning our families have to pay upwards of $7,500 out of pocket.”
Texas’s basic per-student funding allotment was last increased during the 86th legislature in 2019 and has remained at $6,160 since. However, when adjusting for inflation, the per-student allotment has decreased by over $1,000 in the past six years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of the 2023 fiscal year, Texas’s per-student spending is over $3,500 behind the national average.
“Inflation has driven up the prices of literally everything, so when we’re trying to pay for services, or just get paper supplies, the cost of those things has gone up, but we still have the same amount of funding from the state as six years ago,” history teacher Mathew Parente said. “If they’re not going to reallocate money actively then they should do it passively; Whatever inflation is recognized as, funding automatically gets that bump.”
Per-student funding also serves as the basis for recapture, a significant factor in the budget deficits of property-rich school districts, including AISD. When the local property taxes collected by a district exceed its funding allotment, the excess money is sent to the state through the recapture system, where it is distributed to property-poor districts. When recapture money is leftover, it’s absorbed into the state’s general budget. Increasing per-student funding would increase all districts’ funding allotment, reducing the amount property-rich districts pay to recapture.
“I feel that the intent of recapture is good, but the actualities of it are bad, so that needs to be reconfigured,” Parente said. “If they’re accounting for money that should go to education then, it should go to education, not a general fund.”
During legislative sessions, lawmakers can pass bills that instate mandates on school districts, potentially necessitating districts to adjust their budgets to meet mandates. For example, House Bill 3, passed in 2023, requires an armed officer to be present on every campus. While the bill increased districts’ school safety allotment by $15,000 per campus and $10 per student, districts, including AISD, report the allotment not fully covering all mandates under the bill.
“Underfunded mandates are a real issue because they take money from the classroom and put it into other things, which in turn creates larger classes,” Holden said. “Large classes damage the relationship between student and teacher, which is what causes students to learn. So, bigger class sizes are the number one threat to good education.”
Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), or vouchers, are a new piece of legislation that lawmakers may instate this session. ESAs would allow parents who opt out of public education for their children to receive money from the state to help cover their child’s private education. Last legislative session, vouchers were tied to the bill increasing public school funding, preventing both when the bill failed to pass.
“Any money that gets removed from public schools is further threatening the public school system,” Holden said. “There’s not enough money to go around as it is.”
