Funding a Free and Appropriate Education for all Texas Children

The National Council of Jewish Women strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms. The National Council of Jewish Women believes that every child, no matter their zip code, deserves a quality, free public education.

NCJW urges you to ensure adequate funding by providing a school finance system that provides:

• taxpayer equity and the equitable distribution of funds
• equitable funding that provides safe and secure facilities
• funds the ability to hire and retain highly qualified teachers and staff
• funds to implement an early reading program that funds full-day, high quality prekindergarten for qualifying four-year-old children
• more money for dual language students
• increased support for students with dyslexia and related disorders
• additional resources to low income students that prioritizes those with the highest needs.

 NCJW urges you to keep public dollars in public schools. We oppose all vouchers, “tax credits”, “scholarships”, “grants”, “school choice”, “taxpayer savings” to fund private, for-profit, and religious schools.

• Vouchers drain our public schools of resources: Texas is ranked 43^rd nationally in the amount spent per student.
• Students who leave public schools will take funding with them, but public schools will have the same expenses, as they do not decrease proportionately to the classroom size. 

We urge the Legislature to:

Support HB 3 (Nelson). NCJW Texas supports Chairman Dan Huberty, Speaker Dennis Bonnen, and the members of the House for their efforts in developing a fair and comprehensive public school finance bill. This bill proposes meaningful investments in equitable funding, hiring, pre-K instruction, dual language and low income students. This bill also proposes much needed property tax relief, while committing to giving districts the flexibility and funding to provide increased teacher and staff pay. We also believe it is important that:

• the state’s share of funding to the Foundation School Program be increased to 50% – because of the state’s lack of support of the Foundation Program, local property taxes have had to cover the majority of public school costs;
• flexibility be provided for teachers and principals to appropriately manage disruptive students;
• formula-funded be provided for voluntary full day prekindergarten;
• adequate principal and teacher training be provided to address the needs of the most challenging populations;
• the state preserves the defined benefits plan for retired educators and ensures financial stability of the active and retiree health care systems, and that
• state funding be increased to assist with swelling healthcare costs associated with TRS-ActiveCare and TRS-Care.

Support HB 403 (Thompson) and SB 458 (Huffman) Texas has made efforts to combat the ballooning of human trafficking: 35,000 Texas children attend public schools that are within 1000 feet of illegal massage businesses. As everyday caregivers and mentors, teachers and school staff may represent the best – and for some – the only chance that the victimization of vulnerable youth be properly reported. HB 403 supports a mandated human trafficking training for school board trustees and superintendents. As a result, additional training can be implemented to the other school employees, without sacrificing local control. 

Oppose SB 2 (Bettencourt). SB 2 would cap revenue growth at the local level at 2.5% above the previous year’s revenue. Triggering a roll back election, if revenue growth exceeded that rate, would limit local officials’ ability to improve or expand local services.

• SB2 would not lower property taxes;
• SB2 would not address increases in property appraisals;
• SB2 would reduce local control;
• Texas ranks 43rd out of 50 states in per-pupil spending;
• Texas spends $4041 less per student each year than the national average;
• Texas would have to invest $21.8 billion dollars more each year just to be “average;”
• Texas has 5.4 million public school students, more than 10% of all US students.