Regarding Texas funding “only 55% of the costs needed to educate students”, I would take it with a lot (lot!) of salt. There was a big trial in NY, where NY City argued insufficient funding. All solid evidence that was produced to show why arguments for what is sufficient or insufficient hold little value did not stop the court to rule that NYC “needs” many billions more in funding. Such decisions — in courts or in commissions — are political decisions, not truly based on any evidence or logic. For more on this, read chapters 1, 2, 6 & 7 of the same book linked above.

Oh, and don’t hold your breath for NYC achievement to skyrocket now that they got the money.

FWIW, the tax rate in my district is 7.8% and has been well over 5% for a long, long time. We spend about $8K per student (toward the bottom of the rankings for comparable school districts) and post some of the highest test scores and graduation rates in the state. We receive about $300K from the feds, a number that has been steadily declining for several years, so, from a financial viewpoint, we have no incentive to play the NCLB game. We’re about 25% minority (negligible ELL).

Choice doesn’t just go a long way towards solving those problems, it’s the crucial step without which no subsequent steps can be taken.

As always Allen, the answer is, pay for the goals you want.

If Texas is only willing to fund a 55% proficiency rate than that is the goal.

This took place in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, so the $11K then is probably about $17K now (more or less).

I’ll also note that by court order, property tax rates got almost to 5% … I don’t think that this is sustainable.

-Mark Roulo

Have we ever tried to overfund education *at the classroom level* to see what would happen?

We have tried this at the school level. Google for “Kansas City Missouri Desegregation”. From the Cato piece that this search brings up:

For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, “You can’t solve educational problems by throwing money at them.” The education establishment and its supporters have replied, “No one’s ever tried.” In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.

Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil–more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers’ salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.

The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.

This does *NOT* prove that more spending *can’t* work. Maybe we just didn’t spend enough (or, more likely, the district is/was disfunctional and was incapable of spending the money well). But we do have a case where a ton of money was spent.

-Mark Roulo

I work in a fairly cushy suburban district, and even I only get $55 to spend on supplies for the entire year (anything else I need comes out of my own pocket).

I think that choice can go a long way to solving the problems you mention.

The message in that lack of correlation is that funding’s not nearly as central to education outcomes as proponents of public education would have you believe. But what drives public education isn’t the “education” but the “public”, the political, and like all political institutions success is measured in funding levels. Until education replaces funding as the measurement that drives public education the ills that afflict public education will continue to do so.

The question, Mike, was what percentage of the Texas state budget currently goes to education?

You ought to consider that there are answers to questions not asked in your evasions. But that might be pushing you beyond your capabilities.