Afton Partners

As classrooms and textbooks crumble from neglect and resources run thin, teachers from both parties are running for office in unprecedented numbers this year in hopes of gaining a political voice in Washington and in statehouses across the country. More than 300 educators are on ballots, more than double the 2014 and 2016 numbers, in a grassroots movement following strikes that shuttered schools in such states as West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona and Colorado.

In its most recent ruling on the Texas school finance system, the Texas Supreme Court wrote that the system needed “transformational, top-to-bottom reforms that amount to more than Band-Aid on top of Band-Aid.” That’s why Governor Abbot urged the Legislature to create the Texas Commission on Public School Finance. It’s clear to the Supreme Court, and to most Texans, that just throwing more money at a flawed system isn’t going to fix anything. Instead, the focus must be on strategies that are most likely to help students achieve academic growth. “We need to pay our best teachers more, reward teachers and districts for student growth, prioritize spending in the classroom and reduce the burden of skyrocketing property taxes. I’ll add up front that I believe the state will have to provide more funding,” said Abbott.

Education advocates have insisted the state has skimped on funding its schools. But New York State already has the highest per-student funding rate of any in the country — could moving that number up make a difference? The answer is yes, according to a new study of over 600 districts across the state. The researchers found that increased per-student spending led to higher math and reading scores on state tests. “The fact that we find positive effects of increased spending even in New York State, which boasts the highest per-pupil spending in the country, suggests that resources are important even above some adequacy threshold,” wrote co-authors Philip Gigliotti and Lucy Sorensen, both affiliated with the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany.

Legislators in at least 26 states poured at least $950 million into school safety programs this year in the wake of the Parkland shooting and additional shootings in Maryland, Texas, and elsewhere. The amounts ranged widely by state, from $300,000 in Missouri to $400 million in Florida. They include only what’s being spent this year, though some states allocated a larger amount over a few years. Most of the money was spent on security upgrades and school resource officers, but the tally also includes funding allocated for mental health programs, violence prevention, emergency planning, and anonymous phone and texting tip lines.

Texas is facing a huge problem of its own creation: how to find, evaluate and properly teach as many as 200,000 students wrongly denied special education or overlooked as it sought to limit spending for the nation’s fastest-growing school population. And then there’s the question of how Texas, under orders from the U.S. government, will pay for it all. The federal mandate, intended to make up for a de facto cap put in place by the Texas Education Agency in 2004, may amount to the biggest single expansion of special education services ever.

Some students have needs so severe that districts struggle to afford what it takes to provide them with a free and appropriate education, a right guaranteed by federal law. Seattle Public Schools, for example, enrolled a handful of students last year who required services that cost between $300,000 and $500,000 each. Now, a legislative work group is asking the public to weigh in on a draft list of recommendations that could make it easier for school districts to collect additional state and federal funds to help cover some of those costs.