Here's
a secret that you shouldn't tell anyone
who wants to become a legislator. The next
ten years will be extremely difficult. Its
fun being a legislator when revenues increase
and you can build wonderful pyramids. I
mean new programs. The nineties were such
a euphoric period. The next decade will
be a parsimonious period.
The
problem with school finance isn't school
finance. Our aging population is rapidly
becoming more concerned about health care
finance and retirement finance.
Most
educators and their supporters are living
in the past when a growing economy guaranteed
additional revenue that almost always went
into education. Our economy will continue
to grow. But the additional revenues generated
will mostly go into health care and retirement
funding. State funding in Texas
for higher education has already been hit
much harder than for public schools.
Texas' General State Revenue accounted for
only 23.7% of the 2002 U T System's budget,
down from about 70% forty years ago.
The
only real solution to Robin Hood is a Constitutional
Amendment that removes the current Constitutional
language that mandated Robin Hood.
The legislature believes such an Amendment
would either not pass or unacceptably polarize
our citizens. So its Plan B for ending Robin
Hood is to increase state funding enough
to make sure 95% of Texas' students attend
ISDs that have the ability to achieve similar
revenue levels. Then declare Robin Hood
dead, even though it isn't.
The
legislature is faced with a situation where
every alternative they may choose is bad.
There are no easy or even difficult solutions.
I personally believe some sort of business
activity tax, such as proposed by then Governor
George Bush is the only viable substitute
for local property taxes. I also believe
that sales taxes should be as broad
based as possible, with no exemptions, in
order to lower the tax rate, and include
items such as food and health care. If
we apply the current high sales tax rate
to service industries we make it more difficult
for them to compete with the firms of other
states.
Increasing
the number of home schooled students and
providing vouchers for use at private schools
will actually increase the funding available
for each public school student. Teacher
unions that oppose vouchers are acting against
the best interests of students .
Any
future increase in expenditures per student
will need to go to comprehensive programs
that get results, such as increasing the
days in our school year from 175 to 195
and implementing merit pay for teachers
in part based on the measurement of classroom
performance.
The
days of ad hoc politically driven new pilot
programs are dead. The days of School Superintendents,
who see their main jobs as being lobbyists,
are over. They need to get results in their
schools, not in Austin .
Education
is a valuable investment for our future.
Most school bond issues pass. Texas needs
good public schools. One political cloud
on the horizon is the fact that in the 1996-97
school years, only six years ago, 46% of
all students were Anglo and 37% were Hispanic.
In the 2002-2003 school year 40% of all
students were Anglo and 43% were Hispanic.
The number of Anglo students in public schools
is dropping, meaning almost all of the increases
are Hispanic students.
The
needs of the future are changing. We need
good health care. We need fully funded retirements.
We need better transportation. We also need
a fiscal environment that encourages the
creation of new jobs.
Teachers
are important. So are nurses, police and
firemen. In Austin our local firefighters,
on their own initiative, took a pay cut
rather than see two fire stations closed.
They weren't protecting jobs as new stations
are always being constructed here. But as
conscientious human being and real professionals
they hated the idea of not fully protecting
citizens from fire hazards. Somehow it is
difficult for me to envision teacher unions
fighting to serve students first, if that
meant allowing vouchers or taking pay cuts
like the firemen did.
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