Texans Know It’s Not ‘Mission Accomplished’

Overwhelming bipartisan majority supports more state funding for public schools and teacher pay; opposes incentive pay schemes; wants less emphasis on standardized testing

Statement of TSTA President Donna New Haschke, February 12, 2007: Last spring the legislature, facing a court order and the threat that Texas schools could shut down, adopted a school finance plan that was hailed by some as a solution. However, an overwhelming majority of Texans believe the school finance plan adopted last year was no more than a band-aid to keep our schools open.

TSTA commissioned a poll of 802 Texas voters that was conducted during the week of January 22-25, 2007 by two nationally known pollsters, Republican Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group and Democrat Paul Harstad of Harstad Strategic Research.  On issue after issue, the survey found that Republicans, Democrats and Independents shared the same priorities for our public schools.

An overwhelming majority — 81% of Texans — believes that the school finance plan passed last year by the legislature was at best a first step, and that there is more work to be done to fully fund public education. And a 71% majority agreed that “the school finance plan was only a temporary band-aid because all of the new state tax dollars were dedicated to property tax relief...” compared to only 21% who thought “the school finance plan passed in the special session accomplished its mission of fully funding public education, providing teachers with a pay raise….”

As it turns out, the majority of Texans know exactly what is going on. The proceeds from the new business tax were dedicated to property tax relief last year, but the new tax isn’t even paying for the tax cuts, much less generating revenue for education. Regardless, state leaders continue pushing budget proposals that emphasize property tax relief at the expense of important education priorities. 

In fact, the proposed Legislative Budget Board budget reduces funding for:

• the extended year program that helps students at risk of dropping out or who have failed the TAKS test already;

• the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs for our top students;

• the Texas Reading, Math and Science initiatives;

• Early Childhood Readiness programs;

• the Student Success Initiative;

• pre-kindergarten early start programs;

• and it repeals the $500 salary supplement (health care stipend) for education support professionals. 

Until we have a reliable, long-term funding source for our children’s schools, no one should say “mission accomplished”; there is still important unfinished business to do before public education is properly funded.

The specific poll findings are remarkable in another respect: Texans’ opinions about the importance of public education and what we must do to keep improving our schools have remained very consistent over the five years we have conducted similar polls.

•        Texans continue to identify public education as the top priority (out of six possible priorities) for state government. In fact, more than three times as many Texans (33%) consider public education our top priority, compared to only 10% who chose cutting property taxes, which is clearly the singular budget priority of the Governor and legislative leaders. Voters also chose public education by 10 points over health care (23%) and illegal immigration (22%).

•         Voters want more state money invested in public education and believe teacher pay falls short.  Two-thirds of voters would like to see state funding for public education increased, while 24% would like to see funding kept the same, and only 5% want state education funding decreased. Likewise, 67% believe teacher pay falls short and, by a 57%-34% margin, they say teacher pay increases should be given to all teachers instead of targeting them to teachers based on student performance on standardized test scores.

•         A 60% majority of voters believes too much emphasis is given to standardized testing, compared to 26% who say it’s the right amount of emphasis, and 10% who say there’s not enough emphasis. Although a majority (53%-41%) opposes eliminating state testing, 65% of public school parents say there is too much emphasis on state testing. 

•         Texans strongly believe changes should be made in the state testing system to let students spend more classroom time learning and let teachers spend less time teaching to the test; standardized tests should be used primarily to help diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of students instead of being a singular factor in graduation and advancement, voters believe. Texans favor a wide range of changes in the current testing system, but scaling back the importance of passing standardized tests to allow factors like classroom performance and grades to carry more weight in determining advancement and graduation received the highest favorable rating, with 82% supporting – and 60% strongly supporting – such a change.