Chapter 45: Texas

“The history of public school finance in Texas has been one of slow development marked by periodic neglect, intermittent crisis, and sporadic reform.”¹ Almost 200 years ago, Texas began providing support for schools in 1827 when the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas provided land grants and municipal funds for educational purposes.² After Texas gained its independence from Mexico, the Education Act of 1839 furthered land grants that today form the basis of County Permanent School Funds, and the Constitution of 1845 provided the first state funding of free schools with a minimum of 1/10 of the revenue from a state property tax to fund schools. The following year, several cities obtained the right to establish local taxes to support schools.³ The School Law of 1854 provided a permanent endowment fund distributed on a per-capita basis which operated as a voucher system, with funds following the student to whatever school parents chose.⁴ The Constitution of 1876 established the basic funding for schools: a flat, per capita amount from the Available School Fund consisting of income from the Permanent School Fund, a maximum of 1/4 general revenue and a poll tax of $1 on all males aged 21 to 60.⁵ The Texas constitution states “A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”⁶ Following the actions in the 1870s, funding issues were largely neglected until 1915. Between 1915 and 1949, funding for rural high schools, textbooks, and equity for rural schools were added. In 1949, the legislature adopted a minimum foundation program that used a complicated economic index to determine the local share, with the state providing 80% of funds.⁷