Though the 2019 legislative session will not convene until January, legislators have already filed hundreds of bills for consideration. One of those bills was filed by Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and proposes a constitutional amendment requiring the state to fund at least 50 percent of the cost of government schools. The purported purpose of the proposal is to lower local property taxes, which currently fund about 65 percent of government schools.
While lowering taxes is certainly a laudable goal, this bill does nothing of the sort. The bill won’t lower the cost of government schools. It simply shifts some of the tax burden from local property owners to whomever the state decides to tax.
This is just another in the endless schemes that legislators dream up every two years to address the funding of government schools. They keep trying to appease the principals and never bother to address the principles.
No funding scheme for government schools will ever be just or satisfy every constituency. Government schools, and thus their funding, is politicized. They are a magnet for pressure groups of every political persuasion, each seeking to impose its views upon the government educational system. Geren’s proposal, like most of those put forth for decades, may provide temporary relief. But until Texans choose to challenge the very concept of government schools, temporary relief is the best that we can hope for.
How government schools are funded is a superficial issue. By their nature, they require that money be forcibly taken from citizens to support institutions and curriculums that they may or may not agree with. There is no fair way to do this. There is no fair way to take from some for the benefit of others.
If legislators are serious about reforming education in Texas, they would do well to question the concept of government’s educational monopoly. Only then can they even begin to consider principled reform. Only then can they begin to bring justice to Texas property owners, and more importantly, Texas school children.
To learn what the private sector can and does do in regard to education, download a free chapter from Individual Rights and Government Wrongs by clicking here.