Dear Abbott: If you want to fix HISD, fix Texas first By Kaitlin Barnes
The problems facing public schools begin in the Legislature
The Houston Independent School District has been in the news recently, and most of the coverage has been negative. Sadly, our school board is better known for infighting than for tackling the serious problems facing our district. Things have gotten so bad that earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott took to Twitter to suggest the Texas Education Agency take over HISD. While it’s no secret that the HISD board could use improvement, I believe that to truly fix HISD, we must fix the state first. Putting the blame on HISD will do nothing to solve the bigger issue, which stems from a refusal to prioritize education at the state level.
The main reason HISD schools are suffering is because the Texas Legislature neglects public education. As a public school teacher, I can attest to the fact that, for years, public school teachers have been asked to do more with less. Teachers have been told to get higher test scores with smaller budgets, fewer support staff and fewer resources in the classroom.
Test scores have become the priority. If a school’s STAAR scores aren’t high enough for a certain number of years, they can trigger the campus to be taken over by a private organization or the entire board to be replaced the state.
Many of HISD’s recent problems can be linked back to our state’s Chapter 41 law, also known as “Robin Hood” or “recapture.” This law attempts to redistribute wealth among Texas school districts by redirecting money from property-rich districts and sending it to property-poor districts. While it may be a good idea in theory, its outdated funding formulas do not provide for the fact that many property-rich districts, located in cities, are the same ones that serve an enormous percentage of low-income students, who require more money to educate.
Let’s look at HISD specifically. About 75 percent of the students in HISD are classified as economically disadvantaged, yet our district is defined as “property-rich” and required to send an estimated $274 million back to Austin this year.
Teaching in HISD, I experienced the results of this deficit firsthand.
Instructional positions were cut and campus budgets shrunk. Additionally, because of the way Texas education is funded, the schools with the highest amount of need often get the least amount of money. The Texas Legislature still uses an antiquated and complicated system to fund its public schools, relying heavily on local property taxes and student enrollment. As a result, schools in wealthy neighborhoods often receive more money than those in poor neighborhoods — even with recapture. In addition, the property tax system allows the state to contribute less in sales tax dollars to public education while local property taxes rise. The Legislature started cutting its share of funding to schools in 2011, and spending levels are now lower than what they were in 2008. As a result, the state’s contribution to HISD is about $88 million lower this school year.
The numbers don’t lie, and our students are the ones who suffer.
Whenever I see tweets like Abbott’s, I am reminded that too many people outside of education don’t understand how closely budgets and economics are tied to student achievement. When students come to school with fewer resources in their homes and communities, schools must do more to fill in the gaps. We need nurses and on-site clinics to make sure that students can see the board and hear their teachers. We need counselors and social workers to make sure that students have the social-emotional skills to cope with challenges outside of school, which might range from a messy divorce to an incarcerated parent to concerns over deportation. We need library books, textbooks and technology so students can learn using up-todate materials that will prepare them for the real world. We need instructional support staff to serve different populations of students, from those with special needs to those who are English-language learners. And guess what? All these resources cost money — money that the Legislature has denied for far too long.
Instead of starving our schools and blaming our districts, Abbott and the Legislature should look in the mirror and ask themselves what they can do to ensure that all students in our state receive a quality education.