Analyzing+Contrasts+in+Two+Texas+Schools

Week Three Assignment Part 3 Nancy Gonzalez Tim Harkrider The intent of WADA was to provide more state funds to districts that have students who are economically disadvantaged and who are in specialized programs – SPED, BIL/ESL, CATE, and GT. Also, if you look at the Tier I funding calculations, you can see a trail of differences in the type of student each district has to educate. District 1 is a Chapter 42 school district because in Function 11, they get more of the Title I funds as compared to District 2. The differences are in the High School Allotment for District 2 – which I feel they received because, their attendance and possible graduation rates did not meet state and federal standards. The “recapture” aspect of state funding came into play in order to help property poor districts deliver an equal education to their students as property rich districts. Weighted Average Daily Attendance was put into place to give more money to schools that had economically disadvantaged students as well as students in specialized programs. District 1 and District 2 are a classic case of a property poor district (#1) and a property wealthy district (#2). District 1 has 93.3% economically disadvantaged students compared to District 2 with 20.7%. District 1 also has a higher percentage of students in every specialized program. The formula works like it should with District 1 having a WADA of $5,555.815 and District 2 having a WADA of $4,794.076. However, the total Target Revenue for Maintenance and Operations Fund is District 1 with approximately $28.5 million and District 2 with $34.5 million. The difference is in the property taxes. District 1 collected $1,464,211 in taxes and District 2 collected $44,715,365. This is a difference that the state cannot make up with its current system. The Maintenance and Operations fund account of the largest percentage of teacher salaries, staff salaries, facility operations, professional travel, and other basic expenditures. District 1 and District 2 are almost identical in student populations, but District 2 (property wealthy district) employs 26 more professional staff members (teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors) than District 1. The problem with this scenario is District 1 has the higher need for more teachers with an ED population of 93.3%. The number of teachers employed by District 1 is negatively impacted in this case. The discrepancy in funding affects District 1 in all facets of their M&O budget. There is less money available for salaries, travel, and other expenditures. Which in turn will ultimately affected student achievement in a negative fashion. District 1 also receives just about all of its money from the state because of its low property values. District 2 receives very little funding from the state (actually has money recaptured) because of its high property values. District 2 has the option to raise taxes to generate more income if needed. Parents in property wealthy district are generally more involved in their child’s education and are willing to pay more in taxes if they know it will help their children’s schools. Generating more revenue by increasing taxes is pretty much non-existent with property poor districts. Getting the necessary votes would be almost impossible. The idea behind all students having an equal education is very noble. We are not sure that it is realistic. The idea that richer districts have to give up their own money to help other districts is really unfair in its own right. The burden to create an equal education for our students should fall on the State of Texas and not property wealthy districts. This is a lot easier said than done. Property poor districts seem to be fighting a losing battle trying to educate their kids. They have more challenging students to educate with less funds despite WADA. The state continues to raise the standards for state testing, and these schools and students continue to fall further behind. Until we get people down in Austin who truly care about educating all of our kids, we will continue to fight a losing battle with our state funding program.
 * District 1 has 3,903 students and District 2 has 3,890 students – very similar in size.
 * SPED population: District 1- 9% and District 2- 7%
 * CATE: District 1 – 24% and District 2 – 14%
 * BIL/ESL: District 1 – 41% and District 2 - 2%
 * GT: District 1 – 5% and District 2 – 4%
 * Economically Disadvantaged: District 1 – 93.3% and District 2 – 20.7%
 * **// The ADA in District 1 was better than District 2 which meant that District 1 received more funding. //**
 * When this happens, the WADA that the district receives from the state will be larger for the better ADA District.
 * The Property Taxes for District 2 is a lot larger. However, it is quite obvious that they are sending more back to the state in order to fund Districts like District 1