The Cost of Texas Education

• Texas is constitutionally obligated to provide an efficient public education system.
• According to the Texas Education Agency and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data, enrollment growth in Texas plus general inflation increases grew by 49% between the 1999-2000 school year and the 2009-10 school year.
• Comparatively, actual total education expenditures increased by 76% over the period, about 1.5 times faster.
• During that same time period, Texas’ per student spending, when all education expenditures are taken into account, rose from $8,003 per student to $11,642.
• The Texas Office of the Comptroller estimates that Texas spent over $11,000 per student during the 2010-11 school year.
• Despite the increases in education spending, Texas’ SAT, ACT, and NAEP performance has remained stagnant over the course of the last decade.
• At present, Texas has very few policies that encourage competition and efficiency in its public schools.

Recommendations

• Texas should reduce the money it spends on administration, overhead, and non-instructional functions.
• Increase competition in the Texas education system through education scholarships, tax credits, and expanded charter law so that our public schools are incentivized to run more efficiently.
• Have state funding follow the students, thereby empowering students to hold districts and schools accountable for performance.
• Reduce or remove any regulations at the state and local level that increase the cost of education, hinder innovation, and do not lead to higher student achievement, such as: state minimum salary schedule; locally-adopted salary schedules; paying teachers more for an advanced degree; multi-year contracts; teacher tenure; class size mandates; and teacher certification restrictions.
• Increase access to distance learning by reducing restrictions on online learning in Texas.
• Explore means to save costs on Texas education facilities. This could mean anything from creating more flexibility in seat-time requirements to increased use of learning technologies in the state’s public schools.
• Redesign the state’s school finance formula so that Texas delivers on its constitutional obligation to provide an efficient system of public education.
• Remove unnecessary levels of state and regional bureaucracy, such as Regional Education Service Centers.