Texas schools got billions in federal pandemic relief. It is coming to an end as the school year starts.

[SARose]

The $43 million infusion the Port Arthur Independent School District received in federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds accomplished more than Phyllis Geans could have ever imagined.

The money allowed the district to upgrade antiquated heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. Teachers earned retention stipends at a time when many were leaving the profession. Students received new band instruments. An ambitious summer program taught them about photography, robots and skydiving.

“We were excited, really excited, because we started thinking about things that we knew were almost impossible,” said Geans, Port Arthur ISD’s assistant superintendent of operations. “It was unreal.”

Districts like Port Arthur ISD, where roughly 85% of students are economically disadvantaged, received a level of financial support they likely wouldn’t have received otherwise — and they took advantage of it by investing in community health, learning, infrastructure and safety.

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The money will go away at a time when Texas schools are already struggling to keep the lights on. A number of districts are planning to enter the next school year with multimillion-dollar holes in their budgets as inflation has sent costs soaring. The Texas Legislature failed last year to approve a significant boost to the base amount of money every school receives per student — an amount that hasn’t changed since 2019 — as lawmakers fought over whether to fund private education with taxpayer dollars. Emphasis mine.

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Just wait until the Dept of Education goes by by per Project 2025. Title One funds are essential to Texas school funding.

But nah we’ll just raise the ceiling for property taxes, institute school vouchers, and give Elon Musk, Chevron and Amazon property tax abatement for 50 years. What could go wrong?

[flying_wahini]

1. Pretty wild that my school taxes went DOWN $200 dollars this last year.

I think Abbott is trying to squeeze the schools dry so he can take credit for all the Federal fund works.

[SARose]

2. Oh yes

He wants to push school vouchers so wealthy people don’t have to pay too much for private schools.

School Vouchers Were Supposed to Save Taxpayer Money. Instead They Blew a Massive Hole in Arizona’s Budget.

In 2022, Arizona pioneered the largest school voucher program in the history of education. Under a new law, any parent in the state, no matter how affluent, could get a taxpayer-funded voucher worth up to tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private school tuition, extracurricular programs or homeschooling supplies.

In just the past two years, nearly a dozen states have enacted sweeping voucher programs similar to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account system, with many using it as a model.

Yet in a lesson for these other states, Arizona’s voucher experiment has since precipitated a budget meltdown. The state this year faced a $1.4 billion budget shortfall, much of which was a result of the new voucher spending, according to the Grand Canyon Institute, a local nonpartisan fiscal and economic policy think tank. Last fiscal year alone, the price tag of universal vouchers in Arizona skyrocketed from an original official estimate of just under $65 million to roughly $332 million, the Grand Canyon analysis found; another $429 million in costs is expected this year. Emphasis mine.

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Soooo Texas parents we don’t care says the govenator and Patrick.

Same old same old. When they are both kicked out on their tushes and Democrats are in power, we will do what we always do - fix their mess.