Are we Next? Will our school districts have to cut teachers?

School financing should be an uncomplicated formula. Article 7 of the Texas Constitution says,

“SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE OF SYSTEM OF PUBLIC FREE SCHOOLS. A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”

This does NOT mean dumping the responsibility off on local governments.

And now a San Antonio school district is eliminating 100 teaching positions because they don’t have the money. https://bit.ly/2Gl0TwV Some Oklahoma school districts have already cut their instruction week back to only four days a week!

Here’s the formula for failure that happened to San Antonio’s second largest school district and is in danger of happening in our school districts:

·       Rising property values = more $$ going to the state for other school districts

·       Charter schools decrease public school enrollment

·       Schools turn to increasing local taxes to compensate for less $$ from the state

·       Vouchers, if passed, would subtract $$ from public schools

The youngest of my five children graduated from high school last year, so I have watched and anguished for almost 30 years as the majority in our legislature found a myriad of ways to violate our state constitution. They have ducked their responsibility and dumped excess costs on local governments, at the same time jeopardizing education quality.

As your Representative, I pledge to use my budgeting expertise to stop sucking funds from our FREE public schools and increase the per student funding from the state.