Eyes on Education

No doubt when Texas public schools went back into session last week there were several relevant trends.  First, we continue to have a majority-minority enrollment—meaning ethnic minorities and racial groups are the majority within the student population. The largest population growth for those under 18 years old was among Hispanics. Of 979,000 students added to the census rolls since 2000, 931,000 were Latino/Latina.  Second, the sustained sluggishness of the economy has an impact on public schools and can strain the system.  Students who are economically disadvantaged and those whose families have low SES scores are at greater risk for not doing well in school.  SES stands for “socio-economic status”, and it measures three variables—income, education, and occupation.   About 60% of public school enrollments in Texas classrooms include students with low SES scores.  Students with limited English skills are about 16% of those students—and Hispanic students are the vast majority.

The last trend is shrinking resources.  Despite an increase of almost one million students in the last decade, funding for public education has not kept pace. In the 2011 biennium (the Texas legislative session that meets for 140 days in odd numbered years), the legislature cut over 4 billion dollars. Texas has struggled in recent decades to finance public education, and the governor has had to call the legislature into special session to sort out financing. The Texas constitution allows the governor to call special sessions as necessary—it cannot exceed 30 days and only issues set forth by the governor can be considered. Indeed current education cuts were a result of a special session called by Governor Perry.

Doing the math, the educational forecast for Texas schools shows that by 2050 our enrollments will increase from five to nine million students. When it comes to doing their homework, if the state legislature does what it did this season and refuses to increase funding to keep pace with enrollments, hard to tell how Texas will rank either short- or long-term.  We are usually in the bottom 20% for school finance, and currently Texas ranks 40^th nationally for financing education.

These challenges have an effect not just on primary and secondary school systems, but also on success beyond compulsory education (mandated school attendance) because of college readiness scores.  Only 38% of low-income students do well enough on their college entrance exams to be “college ready”, and only five percent of those with limited English language skills are ready for college.   Maybe that’s why 30% of Texans said that education was the most important issue facing Texas today.  And maybe legislators themselves may need to go back-to-school when they go back into session in 2013 to figure out a way to deal our shifting demographics.