Despite boasts from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that Texas school funding has grown under his watch and is at an “all-time high,” state spending per pupil has fallen by more than 11% since the 2010-2011 school year when accounting for inflation, according to a new analysis from the Austin American-Statesman.
For years, school districts across the state have complained that they do not have sufficient money to teach kids, fund programs and pay competitive salaries. After the 2010-2011 school year, the Texas Legislature approved roughly $5.4 billion in cuts to public school funding, but Abbott has argued that the state since has increased spending to make up for it.
It’s true that overall public school funding has increased since then, according to data from the Texas Education Agency, the same data forming the basis for Abbott’s claims. Between the 2010-2011 school year and the 2022-23 school year — the most recent year for which federal funding is available — the raw per-student allocation rose by 48%, according to the TEA’s 2024 annual report.
But those TEA numbers also factor in other costs that are not controlled by the state, including federal funding and local “I&S” funding, which refers to money that is raised by local school districts through bond proposals or similar measures for capital improvements.
Because the I&S money doesn’t go toward teacher salaries or maintenance and operation costs, numerous fiscal policy analysts told the Statesman that those figures should be excluded from the accounting.
The data cited in Abbott’s comments also don’t account for inflation, which exploded at the start of the pandemic but has been falling since. In the economy of 2010, the dollar was worth more than it is now, so more state spending on education today doesn’t necessarily mean that districts and teachers have the same spending power as they did back then.
After making both of those adjustments, the Statesman found that inflation-adjusted spending from the state and local school districts combined has fallen by more than $420 per student, from $10,951 in the 2010-11 school year to $10,522 in the 2024-25 school year. (Local and state spending amounts are available for the current school year, but federal spending is not.)
But inflation-adjusted local tax revenue for Texas schools actually grew by 4% over the past 15 years, or more than $200, from $5,329 to $5,553.
That means the state is responsible for the lowered spending. With those same controls, compared to fifteen years ago, state spending per student is more than 11% lower, effectively a third of a billion dollars behind the spending power that funding allowed in the 2010-2011 school year.
That still leaves the state down on spending per pupil compared to the nation as a whole. The most recent federal data on total spending per student, which include federal, state and local dollars, estimated that Texas spent $11,803 per student in the 2022 fiscal year, compared to the national average of $15,633.
More students go to school in the Lone Star State now than did in 2010. Enrollment in Texas grew by about half a million students in those 15 years.
And school districts still are bracing for the end of federal Covid-19 relief money, which helped pay for health screening programs and remote learning tools and to maintain existing school programs and curricula.
An education policy analyst quoted by the Statesman expected that pandemic relief shortfall to total $17 billion.
Compounding those factors, since 2010, Texas has created new mandates for schools to administer tests, add safety features to buses and hire security guards at school campuses. Though funding often is provided for schools to provide those services, in practice that money may not be enough to shoulder the cost without districts spending their own money to meet state expectations.
Consider the state’s mandate that schools install armed security guards at each campus. Only about 45% of school districts have been able to comply with that so far, according to an interim report from the Senate Committee on Education. Many districts complained that the $10 per student and $15,000 per campus awarded by the state “is insufficient to fully cover the costs of a commissioner peace officer,” per the report — effectively, an unfunded mandate.
Abbott has made similar claims about his support for public education in the past. Two years ago, the San Antonio Express News similarly pointed out that education funding had fallen under Abbott’s tenure when accounting for inflation.
In this year’s state of the state address, Abbott vowed to increase teacher pay, which also lags the national average. In 2021, the average U.S. teacher made about $65,000, while in Texas teachers were making about $57,600.
