Who Really Funds Public Schools?

Our new explainer video shows how we fund Texas schools and how the current system is not serving students or taxpayers. Understanding how public schools are funded is the first step to strengthening our investment in Texas students.

There’s been a lot of talk about how the Texas public school finance system needs to be fixed. But what’s wrong the current system?

The school finance system uses a mixture of local and state sources to fund public schools. Local funds come primarily from one source—school district property taxes. State funds include a complex combination of sources including general revenue, recapture or “Robin Hood” payments, and lottery proceeds.

In our school funding system, just because local property values increase does not mean overall school funding increases. In fact, as local property values increase, the state share of funding declines, saving the state billions of dollars over time. There is no mechanism to automatically reinvest these savings back into our public schools.

The bottom line is this: Money intended for schools should stay in our schools. And now is the time for the state to invest more in our programs, teachers, and students.

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Additional state money for education needs to go to improve and expanding programs and pay our teachers more. This video shows how current practices impact students and taxpayers. #TxEd #TxLege #ActNowForOurFuture #FundTheFuture

Hear that loud sound from the state capitol? It’s the sound of our state government slurping up your local school taxes for other things. #TxEd #TxLege #ActNowForOurFuture #FundTheFuture