Texas Budget Update: Public & Higher Education in Focus
This week, both chambers of the Texas Legislature advanced major budget proposals, with public and higher education taking center stage.
The Texas Senate unanimously passed a $336 billion budget for the 2026–27 biennium. The proposal includes $71 billion for the Foundation School Program, the main source of pre-K-12 public education funding, and $4.3 billion earmarked for targeted teacher pay raises. However, those raises are tied to years of experience and test-based student performance —something Texas AFT opposes, as it ignores the role of paraprofessionals and broader support staff in student success.
The Senate’s budget proposal also allocates approximately $33.3 billion to higher education.
Additionally, there are discussions about expanding homestead exemptions as part of $32 billion in property tax relief — measures that may affect school district funding depending on how they’re structured.
Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee has moved forward with its own version of the state budget (despite theatrics from noted public school “supporter” Rep. Brian Harrison).
In addition to these budget proposals, several legislative measures have been introduced that could impact higher education funding, including:
- HJR 5 and 85 by Rep. Stan Lambert: Proposes a constitutional amendment to create funds supporting the capital needs of educational programs offered by the Texas State Technical College System. Like HJR 5, HJR 85 aims to establish funds for the capital needs of educational programs within the Texas State Technical College System and certain components of the Texas State University System.
Both chambers will soon reconcile differences in a conference committee. With a historic surplus on the table, Texas AFT urges lawmakers to prioritize sustainable, equitable funding for public schools, teacher pay, student mental health services, and support for higher education institutions statewide.
School Funding in Focus: A Deep Dive by the Texas Tribune
Recent claims by Texas officials that public education funding has reached an all-time high overlook critical factors impacting our schools, a new report from The Texas Tribune confirms. While state leaders like to report that school districts receive over $15,000 per student in state funding, they tend to omit that this figure includes temporary federal pandemic relief funds that have largely expired (and that they figure doesn’t account for inflation).
In reality, when adjusted for inflation, per-student funding has declined in recent years.
As Texas AFT and Every Texan wrote about in our ‘The Lost Decade (and a Half)’ update on funding and educator salaries last year:
“Per-student spending has decreased by $590 in inflation-adjusted dollars over the past 10 years according to the state’s Legislative Budget Board (LBB). Rather than growing the state share, which dropped to 43.8% in 2023 (40.8% if you include facilities funding), state spending has been supplanted by growth in local spending (and recapture) and artificially bolstered by temporary federal COVID-19 relief funding set to expire this fall ($6 billion total or roughly $1,400 per student more than usual in 2022). While the governor and other pro-privatization officials would like to push a narrative that public schools are flush with cash, the salary data doesn’t bear out this claim. Two years after the release of the report, an updated analysis using the latest salary data available shows the situation has only worsened, pushing educators’ and school employees’ compensation further behind inflation and exacerbating a growing retention crisis in our public schools.”
Moreover, the state’s contribution to education funding has significantly decreased over the past decade. The basic allotment — the foundational funding per student — has remained stagnant at $6,160 since 2019, failing to keep pace with rising costs. This underfunding has forced districts to make difficult decisions, such as operating with budget deficits, hiring uncertified teachers, and even closing schools.
House Public Education Committee Votes Out Substitutes for Funding, Voucher Bills
The Committee Substitute for school finance bill HB 2 added money to the basic allotment, getting it up to $6,555 per pupil (far short of the amount needed to keep up with inflation) but found a way to give more money to charter schools than traditional ISDs (for some odd reason in that Texas’ charter school experiment has failed miserably). In a press release from charter accountability and transparency watchdog Our Schools Our Democracy:
“The Moak Casey runs reveal that charter schools see an average increase in state revenue per average daily attendance (ADA) of $896, significantly more than the statewide average for all school districts of $698. For example, the IDEA charter network will receive a $957 increase…above current law, despite years and years of financial mismanagement and misconduct.
In other words, HB 2 would hand over substantially more base funding to IDEA charter schools, rewarding it for years of corruption and graft. Just to name a couple of examples, IDEA was caught signing a $15 million lease for a private jet and it was caught purchasing a $1 million boutique hotel, which came the same month it promised to reform its financial practices in a settlement with TEA following an investigation into allegations of improper spending and conflicts of interest.
HB 2’s massive transfer of public school resources to unaccountable charter schools, which have a long history of real estate scandals and fraud, provides a clear illustration of how public school resources have been and are continuing to be diverted to a second school system that does not serve all students. This is what can be expected if the legislature passes a billion-dollar voucher entitlement this session to create yet another system that won’t serve all students.
The latest version of HB 2 also strikes librarians, counselors, and nurses from the list of employees that are entitled to a raise when the basic allotment is increased. The bill does still include the pay-for-performance Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) as the mechanism to provide teacher raises, which means raises would be linked to test scores, not all teachers would be eligible to receive it, and these raises would come at the end of the school year.
HB 2 was voted out of the committee, with Reps. Alma Allen and James Bryant opposing.
SB 2, the voucher bill substituted for HB 3, would divert billions in taxpayer dollars to pay for private school tuition — with no academic accountability and no protections against discrimination. Not only would this scheme defund our neighborhood public schools, but it puts the Teacher Retirement System’s solvency in peril.
Throughout the process, the voucher scam has been sold by the governor as a way to help low-income families and their children. But as Rep. James Talarico pointed out, if this bill is intended to help the low-income families, why would it allow the very wealthy to qualify for taxpayer-funded private school vouchers? Talarico even noted that Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, would qualify to receive a voucher to send his children to private schools.
Ultimately, the committee voted out SB 2, 9-6. The next fight against this giveaway for the wealthy comes as it makes its way to the House floor. If you have not called your state representative, now is the time. Tell them to vote NO on private school vouchers.
The committee also voted out a bill that Texas AFT strongly opposes, HB 2196, a vendor bill for virtual charter schools. The bill eliminates all the safeguards in current law that ensure only high-quality virtual providers with a Texas track record can serve Texas students. Shockingly, virtual charter schools receive the same maintenance and operating funding as brick-and-mortar schools without having to provide the services provided in traditional brick and mortar schools. This funding scheme came from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is sponsored by the charter industry among other privateers.
Eliminating safeguards only means more profits. Naturally, this is a bill that the very profitable virtual charter industry has been trying to pass for years. The bill would also allow for students to be sent to full-time virtual Disciplinary Alterative Education Programs instead of ensuring they receive the in-school resources that can address the root of behavioral issues.
Senate Committee Ponders Taking Away (More) Freedom from School Employees
The Senate Business and Commerce Committee heard SB 2330 this week, another bad bill modeled after American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) legislation, which is a direct attack on public school employees and public servants across Texas. The bill would ban teachers, correctional officers, Child Protective Services workers, and other public employees from using payroll deduction to pay their union or professional dues — a secure, voluntary, and cost-free system widely used for decades.
Texas AFT strongly opposes this bill because it strips educators of the right to choose how they spend their paychecks and places unnecessary obstacles in the path of public employees exercising their voice on the job.
The bill also creates unfair distinctions among public employees. It explicitly exempts police, firefighters, and EMS personnel from its restrictions, while targeting teachers and other frontline state workers. When asked why, supporters of the bill offer no clear justification; that’s because this is only a political attempt to weaken educator advocacy.
A recent poll shows that 81% of Texans agree: educators and public workers should be free to choose how they spend their own money. Teachers need a raise and respect — not new barriers to union membership.
This Week in the Senate Education K-16 Committee
The Senate Education K-16 Committee met Tuesday to hear several impactful bills on school safety, early literacy and math, teacher certification, and accountability.
SB 1262 by Sen. Robert Nichols proposes clean-up measures from last session’s HB 3, including rules around armed security guards on campuses. We’re concerned that districts can invoke a “good cause” exception to place untrained, armed employees on campuses for an entire year.
SB 2252 by Sen. Brandon Creighton mirrors HB 123 by Rep. Harold Dutton and focuses on early literacy and math. While we support strong foundational instruction, we oppose mandatory math academies modeled after the deeply flawed reading academies. The bill also allows the commissioner to use state resources to promote the controversial Bluebonnet Learning curriculum.
SB 2253, also by Creighton, would overhaul teacher certification. While the bill removes harmful District of Innovation exemptions for uncertified teachers, it grants broad rulemaking authority to the commissioner of education rather than the State Board for Educator Certification, which we strongly oppose.
SB 1962 by Sen. Paul Bettencourt addresses accountability reforms and improves upon HB 4 by limiting excessive benchmarks. However, the bill still centralizes power with the commissioner of education and curtails district appeals on A–F ratings —even allowing the Texas Education Agency to appoint conservators while litigation is pending. Tellingly, Mike Miles, TEA-appointed superintendent of Houston ISD, was called to testify on the bill in this hearing. Our public schools can’t survive more Mike Miles-inspired takeovers.