Controversy Over School Finances

Texas school districts are going to lose $9 billion in state funding. The Austin area will lose 1153 employees. 571 of these are teachers. Governor Rick Perry blamed the impending loss of jobs on local school administrators and school boards. "The lieutenant governor, the speaker, their colleagues aren't going to hire or fire one teacher, as best I can tell. That is a local decision that will be made at the local districts." School Board president Mark Williams in response, "It is easy to deflect responsibility and put the blame on school districts. We are the ones that have to make the tough calls. Someone has to balance the budget." The State Senate is trying to blunt the effect of budget cuts. Reducing the cut to $6 billion over 2 years. The House of Representatives is still targeting $9.8 reduction. Conservative lawmakers feel, "Texas classrooms are under assault...from school administrators. Facing wise and necessary budget cuts, administrators are threatening to fire teachers, claiming the Legislature is making them do it — when administrative bloat is the real problem," according to Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, which last month launched the Protect the Classroom campaign. Perry states over the course of the last decade there has been an extraordinary amount of non-classroom employees added to the school roles. He feels the school system is padded with too many administrators. Data from the Texas Education Agency does not show an increase in staff hires other than teacher in the past decade. A recent analysis from school finance consultants found that even if school districts could eliminate half of all nonteaching staff members including counselors, librarians, and cafeteria workers, they would still be unable to meet the $9 billion budget cut. Unless the Conservatives can work with the School Districts, Texas is in danger of falling behind even further behind the national standards in education.

Source: http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/perry-dont-blame-state-for-teacher-layoffs-1310392.html