Money matters in education. Even amid unprecedented challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, learning disruptions, teacher shortages, and record-breaking inflation, public schools continue to be the bedrock of our communities. Our students benefited from the substantial state and federal investments over the last three years, but tremendous funding obstacles lie ahead. Raise Your Hand Texas adamantly supports increasing investments in public schools to curb learning disruptions, expand mental health programs, improve school safety, update technology needs, and retain teachers. The $19 billion Texas public schools received in federal stimulus funds expire in 2024, and our current school finance formulas are not flexible enough to meet the ongoing instructional demands or inflationary cost pressures. Texas lawmakers will have a substantial amount of funding this legislative session – over $27 billion in additional general revenue and over $13.6 billion in our state’s Rainy Day Fund. Investing in public school students should be a priority every session, because the future of Texas depends on well-funded public schools.

Policy Recommendations

• Increase the state’s overall investment in our public school students and in public education programs
• Create an automatic annual adjustment to the basic allotment – the building block for per-student funding – to address inflation and growing needs of our schools