Inside Look: School Funding
by An inside look at School Funding and where most of it comes from.
The three main sources of School funding comes from the trio of Federal, State
and Local funding. Federal funding which are also known as federal grants are designed
and made to benefit children nutrition and special needs, military and low income
students. State funding comes from many different sources including the permanent
school Fund. The permanent school fund invests receipts of rentals, sales, and mineral
royalties from Texas public lands. Another source includes the Available school fund,
which is used for textbooks with the remainder being distributed to local districts which
is usually based on students average daily attendance. Local Sources of school funding
comes mostly ad valorem property taxes. Usually the market value property is determined
by the county appraisal authority. Local school districts trustees usually sets property tax
rates for maintenance and operations between $1 per $100 valuation. Property taxes also
used to pay for school funding.
One case of heavy dependence of local funding happened when several parents of
students of the Edgewood ISD, charged that funding inequalities violated the the
fourteenth amendment which guarantees no state shall deny any person the equal
protection of the laws. The solution of this problem came about when the US Supreme
Court declined to strike down Texas’s system of school finance since it failed to find a
fundamental US Constitutional right to equally fund public education. Over the next few
years, the battle over inequalities would reach the state level. In 1987, a district court
decided a different challenge to the funding system, Edgewod vs. Kirby, under the
provisions in the Texas constitution guaranteeing a suitable school system. This included
that the wealthiest school district had property wealth per student 700 times greater than
the poorest. In 1989, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision in the
edgewood vs. Kirby case and agreed that the funding system was unconstitutional. After
many aborted attempts and adverse court rulings, the legislature enacted todays system,
which is its best effort at School Finance reform.
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