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Texas school districts’ best chance of seeing a significant increase in per student funding next year now appears unlikely.
After more than a week of negotiating behind closed doors, Senate leaders have released their version of House Bill 2. The proposal is scheduled for a hearing by the Senate education committee Thursday.
It keeps the $8 billion investment approved by the Texas House of Representatives, but instead of spending $3 billion to increase per student funding, it spends $4 billion directly on teacher pay.
Texas A&M Professor Lori Taylor studies school finance. She said it would be better to give school districts a general increase.
“I think that the districts are probably in a better position to know how to target an increase in in payroll revenue than the legislature,” Taylor said.
“(State lawmakers) have to recognize that the cost of living, cost of hiring, cost of education, have all gone up while the basic allotment has stayed the same,” Taylor added. “And that has created fiscal stress for school districts throughout the state and an inflation adjustment to the basic allotment would just put them where they were so proud of being in 2019-20.”
The basic allotment is the minimum amount allocated per student in Texas public schools. The state formula multiples that allotment by weights given to districts based on school size and student characteristics to determine how much state and local revenue they receive to operate schools.
State lawmakers increased the basic allotment to $6,160 in 2019. Taylor estimates the basic allotment should be increased by about $1,100 to keep up with inflation.
The House proposed adding $395 to the basic allotment. The Senate version only increases it by $55.
The teacher pay portion of Senate Committee Substitute for House Bill 2 is largely taken from Senate Bill 26, the Senate’s teacher pay bill. Lawmakers say the bill would give bigger pay increases to teachers in rural districts to, as Lt. Gov Dan Patrick put it “address the pay gap between urban and suburban teachers and rural teachers.”
But Taylor said urban districts are more likely to have a hard time attracting teachers.
“I've done a lot of work on regional differences in the cost of education,” Taylor said. “The basic bottom line is that there are differences in cost of living and differences in the amenities that make it more difficult for some districts to hire compared to others...Those challenged districts tend to be in metropolitan areas.”
“I think that the legislature's hearts in the right place,” she added. “(But) I'm not sure there's any evidence that pay in rural districts is somehow more out of whack than pay for teachers in urban districts. If anything, I would expect it to run the other direction.”
The bill uses enrollment as a proxy for rural, giving twice as much money to teachers in districts with up to 5,000 students. But Taylor said many districts that size are not rural.
“it's not the same thing at all,” Taylor said. “There are more districts that are small and mid-sized and not rural than there are districts that are small / mid-sized and rural.”
Taylor said very small districts of 300 or less don’t get enough money to make up for how much more it costs to run a district that small. But she said larger districts of 1,600 to 5,000 students are actually at an advantage.
The Senate proposal for House Bill 2 also directs those raises to teachers with at least three years of experience, with a bigger increase to teachers with at least five years of experience.
In smaller districts with up to 5,000 students, teachers with three or four years of experience in districts with up to 5,000 students would receive a $5,000 raise. Teachers with at least five years of experience in districts would receive a $10,000 raise.
In larger districts with more than 5,000 students, teachers with three or four years of experience would receive a $2,500 raise. Teachers with at least five years of experience would receive a $5,500 raise.
The bill summary says the idea is to “provide an incentive for teachers to make it to year five.”
But Taylor said she hasn’t seen any research to suggest that’s where the biggest need is.
“Clearly their pay hasn't kept up with inflation, but neither has the pay of the junior teachers, the beginning teachers,” Taylor said. “And I don't see an evidentiary support for raising the pay of senior teachers, but not junior teachers in the same in the same district.”
