Reflections on Part I, Week II

Texas School finance is nothing if not intriguing. It is extremely interesting to see how the state formula attempts to even the playing field between two extremely different districts. In this instance, the district with a lower regular ADA and a higher WADA received a great deal more funding from the state. It is easy to see that the community that supports district one is less affluent that the community supporting district two. First, the taxable value of property in district two is almost twice that of district one and second, the percentage of students considered economically disadvantaged in district one is more than four times that of district two. Finally, district one was able to collect $1.2 million dollars at the compressed rate while district two was able to collect over $33 million. It is obvious that district one requires a great deal more state aide in order to meet the needs of its students and attempt to offer an education of the same caliber as district 2. One lesson for district leaders is that state aide to the district can be maximized through accurate identification and coding of students in PEIMS, the source of the data used by the state to designate students into the “weighted” categories. This process remains a fundamental part of the funding puzzle.