Search Result for: Texas


Additional texas Funding Lawsuits Filed

...ay require registration or expire over time. As predicted in last month’s RSFN, the state of texas now faces a second school funding lawsuit, and a third lawsuit was also recently filed. The challenges focus on the school finance plan that was passed in 2006. (See background in RSFN here and here.) The first lawsuit was filed by the texas Taxpayer & Student Fairness Coalition, which now represents more than one million students statewide from over 250 districts ranging from large and...
Date: 2011-11-29

Groundbreaking texas Report Finds Harsh Discipline Is the Rule, Not the Exception

...ter of the Council of State Governments in partnership with the Public Policy Research Institute of texas A&M University has found that nearly 60% of texas middle and high school students have been suspended or expelled at least once. A shocking 15% of those students were suspended or expelled 11 times or more between 7th and 12th grades. The report confirms that exclusionary discipline often leads to worse outcomes for students: half of the students with 11 or more suspensions or expulsions...
Date: 2011-07-29

Massive School Funding Trial Begins in texas

...ay require registration or expire over time. Six lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the texas school finance system have been combined in a court case that began earlier this month. The six groups include four different coalitions of school districts. Three of the lawsuits charge that the current finance formula is inadequate and/or inequitable. The fourth, brought by wealthy school districts, charges that the state funding is inadequate. Those districts benefitted when the state cu...
Date: 2012-10-29

Six Finance Lawsuits in texas

...e over time. Two different organizations, each representing charter schools have filed lawsuits in texas. Four other finance lawsuits have already been filed and are scheduled to go to trial in October. The charter lawsuits could be rolled into one or more of these cases. The texas Charter School Association, along with five parents, is asking the state for facilities funding for charters and to lift the cap on the number of charters, which currently stands at 215. The second charter lawsuit, ...
Date: 2012-07-27

Teachers and Teaching Conditions in Rural texas

... By Lorna Jimerson Almost half a million children attend schools in rural texas. Though this population is large, more than 80% of Texans live in urban and suburban areas, making it easy for rural students to be lost in educational policy discussions. This report investigates the extent to which the educational needs of rural students are being met in one crucial area of education in texas: the quality of the teaching corps and the conditions under which they teach. ...
Date: 2004-06-01

texas Faces New School Finance Litigation

...t was filed in Travis County Court, supported by over 250 districts in the state. Plaintiffs in the texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition (TTSFC) include rural, suburban, and city districts. The lawsuit has been anticipated for some time. (See last year’s RSFN coverage here: www.ruraledu.org/articles.php?id=2586.) Although the districts were poised to bring this action last year, they delayed to give the texas Legislature another chance to overhaul the system, which did not happen...
Date: 2011-10-27

texas Legislators Grapple with Fixing the School-to-Prison Pipeline

...inary action. (Editor’s note: See previous RPM coverage of that report here.) Members of the texas Senate Criminal Justice and Education Committees heard from teacher leadership organizations about how discipline issues contribute to high rates of teacher attrition, from law enforcement officials who say some superintendents push them to give students tickets for typical misbehavior, and from parents whose children faced harsh discipline in school. The two committees plan to examine how ...
Date: 2012-11-27

texas Preparing for Funding Challenge

...ks are free and current at time of posting, but may require registration or expire over time. Some texas state senators want the state to adopt a statewide property tax to try to avoid more school finance litigation, and school leadership organizations are putting forth their own recommendations about how to fix the funding system. In texas, the Foundation School Program mandates that “excess” local property tax revenues be redistributed in one of several ways to benefit poorer dis...
Date: 2010-10-27

texas Proposal Rewards District Cost-Sharing

...rvices and other costs. Under the proposal, districts would receive a percentage of what they save. texas’s rural districts have long histories of sharing services like human resources, accounting, and transportation and of and utilizing regional service centers to meet federal and state requirements. But cost-sharing arrangements have been less common among the state’s larger urban and suburban districts. One state senator says she may file legislation to force all districts to make...
Date: 2010-09-28

RSFN Special Series: Financing Rural Schools: Characteristics of Strong Rural School Finance Systems

...harmless measures. For example, Oregon and Vermont provide supplemental grants for rural districts. texas and Kansas use fixed student weights (extra per pupil funding) for schools below a certain enrollment. And, Colorado has a variable cost factor that recognizes the different expenses of small schools. Additional research is needed to determine the real effect of these funding mechanisms and whether they are a meaningful benefit for small and rural schools. Often the legislative history of ...
Date: 2010-08-26

ACE Act Would Ease Title I Inequities

...en (D-Oklahoma), G.K. Butterfield (D-North Carolina), Richard Hanna (R-New York), Ruben Hinajosa (D-texas), Mike Kelly (R-Pennsylvania), Tom Petri (R-Wisconsin), Todd Russell Platts (R-Pennsylvania), Mike Ross (D-Arkansas), Louise Slaughter (D-New York), and GT Thompson (R-Pennsylvania). The Rural Trust has led the effort to bring Title I inequities to the attention of Congress through its coordination of the Formula Fairness Campaign. The Campaign is co-sponsored by a 26 organizations and...
Date: 2011-07-29

All Children are Equal Act (H.R. 2485) to be Considered by the House Education and the Workforce Committee

...ert C. Scott, Virginia Lynn C. Woolsey, California Rubén Hinojosa, texas Carolyn McCarthy, New York John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Susan A. Davis, California Raúl M. Grijalva, Arizona Timothy H. Bishop, New York Dave Loebsack, Iowa Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania...
Date: 2011-11-29

Anything But Research-based: State Initiatives to Consolidate Schools and Districts

...er 2006: Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, texas, and West Virginia Breaking the Mold: Policies that Support Rural Education Rural Trust's Rural School District Reorganization Standards Introduction Policymakers are giving unprecedented lip service to the importance of data-based decision-making and research-based education reforms. But many are not heeding their own admonitions and are instead exploring or actively promo...
Date: 2006-03-06

Calls for Consolidation in Michigan Reveal Many Issues

...outh Dakota back away from mandatory consolidation for small rural districts in that state. And, in texas, proposals for budget-cutting incentives are primarily focused on trying to get school districts, especially large districts, to enter cost-sharing agreements. Michigan also has a proposal out to provide grant funds to districts to offset some of the costs of developing shared-service arrangements or consolidating. Those seem noteworthy shifts in state policy emphases. The situation in Mich...
Date: 2010-09-28

Consolidation Watch: State Policies on an Important Rural Issue

... promoting it. The following group of articles examines current consolidation news in South Dakota, texas, Iowa, and Michigan. South Dakota Candidates Speak Out Against Consolidation Candidates for governor of South Dakota have spoken out against a state law that forces small districts to consolidate.... texas Proposal Rewards District Cost-Sharing texas districts could receive a portion of their savings if they agree to share services.... Iowa Losing Rural School Districts In the face of ...
Date: 2010-09-29