(Not enough) school funding
Bare minimum
Regarding “School funding just passes muster” (Page A1, Saturday), I am disappointed that the Texas Supreme Court ruled that our school finance system “satisfies minimal constitutional requirements” despite going on to say that the system is imperfect with immense room for improvement. I don’t think Texas residents are satisfied with an education that provides students with the bare minimum.
I have served on the Alief ISD board for 19 years, the Gulf Coast Area Association of School Boards for more than 10 years and as a past president of the Texas Association of School Boards. My colleagues and I have advocated for our students, and we have never made progress on school funding without a court order in place.
Legislators want school districts to work together and agree on a funding solution. Asking school officials to agree on a solution is unrealistic when the current funding system is so arbitrary and capricious. Neighboring districts with similar student populations may have different funding levels. With this court decision, our Texas school finance system is again mired in partisan politics.
All students deserve a first-class education that allows them to compete with children from other states and countries.
Sarah Winkler, Houston
Interventions
Regarding “School funding” editorial (Page A17, Saturday), the percentage of students in poverty has increased to approximately 60 percent of the total student population. Those students are far more expensive to educate and demand more experienced teachers to overcome the deficits in language needed to be successful in reading.
In the ’80s, the psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley spent years cataloging the number of words spoken to young children in dozens of families from different socioeconomic groups, and what they found was not only a disparity in the complexity of words used, but also astonishing differences in sheer number. Children of professionals were, on average, exposed to approximately 1,500 more words daily than children growing up in poverty. This resulted in a gap of more than a million words by the time the children reached the age of 4.
Preschool education, beginning at age 3, if possible, needs to be a component of our intervention. Parent education should also be a strong component as well, so that parents know how important and how lowcost their interventions can be.
These interventions can’t be funded with our current budget, especially one in which legislators propose using state monies to fund private/ parochial schools through “school choice.” This funding will lessen monies for public education.
Janet Epresi, Houston