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By Lonnie Hollingsworth, Jr.

Director of Legal Services/ Governmental Relations

February 22, 2010

On behalf of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, I would like to offer some preliminary comments on the items under consideration today, particularly Charge 4. We have been following, as you no doubt have as well, projections for the upcoming legislative session and the anticipated revenue shortfall, and we recognize that it is unlikely that there will be significant new revenue available to spend on the public schools in the next biennium.

However, we would ask that, as you review and hear testimony regarding cost drivers and school district budgets in the months ahead, you keep in mind several key points.

From our perspective, the primary cost driver in the Texas public schools is the student population. Not only is the number of students in our schools growing rapidly, but many of these new students are expensive to educate as a higher percentage are impoverished, are non-English speaking, or have special needs.  Couple that growth in the student population with the rising expectations of our accountability system, and it is obvious that districts will not be able to continue to meet standards without new resources indefinitely.

Texas educators and schools have done a remarkable job of producing strong results with limited resources for years.  Despite the fact that the state of Texas ranks between 44th and 48th in the nation in per pupil funding, depending upon whose data you use, and that Texas ranks 3rd in the nation for the percentage of students living in poverty, the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show the following:

  • Texas’ 8th grade African American students tied with those in Massachusetts for first place nationally; our 4th grade African American students were third in the nation.

  • Texas’ 8th grade Hispanic students ranked fourth in the nation in math, while our 4th grade Hispanic students ranked eighth.

  • Texas’ 8th grade Anglo students ranked fourth in math, with our 4th grade Anglo students tied for fifth place nationally.

A report released earlier this month by the College Board commends Texas for being among the twenty states with the highest percentages of students earning a score of 3 or better on the Advanced Placement exams. A higher percentage of Texas students (28.7%) participated in AP exams than the national average of 26.5% in accomplishing these results.

In short, the national data confirm that Texas educators and students are producing better than average results (in the top 10 among states) with lower than average resources (in the bottom 10 among states).

We ask that you continue to honor the hard work that is being done by Texas students and educators by not retreating from the current limitations on class-size caps in grades K-4 and the minimum teacher salary schedule for teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians.

In support of that request, I have attached a copy of a chart that I hope will be a point of reference throughout your conversations.  Although it doesn’t tell you where the money is going in the public schools, to some extent it tells you where it isn’t going.  Teacher salaries have not risen proportionately with increases in public school funding over the past decade. 

Further, by adjusting for both the increases in the number of students over the years reported and the number of teachers, the chart also indicates that it is not the class-size caps that have existed since 1984 for grades K-4 that are driving costs.  Given the easy availability of waivers, weakening or eliminating class-size caps is not going to meaningfully address the school finance issues.

We urge you to hold the line for students and for teachers by resisting any efforts to raise class-size caps while student expectations are rising, or to retreat from the only mechanism in law that ensures that the funding you provide or allow local districts to collect reaches those who are providing instruction.

We are asking our members to help us identify ways in which dollars currently available to public school districts could be better spent, though we do not anticipate that any potential savings identified are likely to be significant enough to avoid the need for enhanced funding in the upcoming biennium.  We look forward to working with you in the months ahead as you address the challenges of school finance, and appreciate this opportunity to encourage you to build on the progress we have made through continuing to require that class sizes be limited and teachers be appropriately compensated.

Updated: 03/15/10