Consensus on the concepts to school finance

A Group Consensus on the Concepts to School Finance by: Group #6 Tom Wales, Jesus Uranga, Bart Walters, & Anthony Watson

Equality: All Students have access to the same educational program.

1) Schools must offer basic core classes.

2) All public schools must have the same minimal number of school days.

Equity: Being fair, impartial, and responding to the educational needs of individual students.

1) Funding for ESL/Bilingual programs.

2) Funding for other special programs such as Special Ed and At-Risk students.

Adequacy: Receiving of sufficient funds in to assist in meting accredidation standards.

1) Minimum teacher salaries

2) Funding for resources such as technology and textbooks.

Consensus on 3 historical events in Texas school finance

Top 3 Historical Events in School Finance from Jesus Uranga, Tom Wales, Bart Walters and Anthony Watson:


1. The Constitution of 1845 provided for the establishment of free schools and called for state taxes to support education with 1/10 of revenue to support education. This became the basis of the Permanent School Fund.

2. The Constitution of 1876 established the Permanent and Available School Funds. . This document contained important language which stated the legislature must establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.

3. The Gilmer-Aiken Laws impacted several different aspects of education. These laws made changes or creation in areas such as taxes for education, teacher salaries, State Board of Ed structure, formalized the school year, and most importantly it moved the responsibility of public education to the State. This was also the first true organized approach to the state supplementing local taxes in an attempt to adequately fund public education.

Equality, Equity, Adequacy

Equality, equity, adequacy from Jesus Uranga

1.Equality:The state of being equal.Every student has access to the same educational program.

a.Examples of Equality: Every child has access to reading, math, and other basic courses.The other example is that every district in the state must offer the same number of instructional days within a school year.

Equity: Being fair and impartial and being able to respond to the different needs of the different individuals.

a.Examples of Equity:Special allotments for different subgroups in order to meet the individual needs of the students.Bilingual education receives monies for students whose first language is not English.Compensatory funds are provided to in order to meet the needs of students that are in at-risk situations.

Adequacy: Sufficiency for a particular purpose.The purpose in school districts is to meet state accreditation standards.

a.Examples of Adequacy: Special allotments for the replacement of textbooks with either new textbooks or technology.The second example is providing for a minimum salary schedule for teachers.

Impacts of state funding

Impacting state formula from Jesus Uranga

1. Property value decline and ADA decline. Both of these characteristics help limit the loss of funding by districts.

2. Adjustments for Special Instructional programs. These programs generally require a bit more funding than your regular programs, therefore adding a weight to them only seems like a natural thing to do in order to help offset the cost.

3. Allotments for specific purposes. I believe this is an area that now requires more emphasis. With many of our high school graduates not going on to continue a higher education, being able to provide them with the necessary tools and education through these courses is becoming more common.

Top 3 Historical Events in Texas School Finance

1. 1824 Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States provided for the establishment of elementary schools in Texas. Even though the schools were never established, it was the first attempt at putting some type of education system in place.

2. 1845 New Texas Constitution provided for the establishment of free schools and called for state taxes to support education. Also provided the basis for the Permanent School Fund.

3. 1949 Gilmer-Aiken Laws came into effect. These laws helped formalized the school year and brought structure to how the State Board of Education and Commissioner of Education were selected.

Comparison of District Improvement Plans AISD v. SISD

Austin ISD v. Seguin ISD

The comparison of these two district improvement plans was a pretty big task but in the end I will say that I am very thankful for the format that we use in Seguin ISD.  In my opinion, the AISD plan was more difficult to read and follow and did not provide as much detail in what was going to be done to reach certain goals as the SISD one.  The information in each was pretty close to the same and you can see evidence of a budget driven plan, but the format arrangement is what made AISD’s harder to follow. 

Both plans use the board goals and priorities as their basis for improvement.  In the Seguin plan, each goal is listed separately and all the activities that will help the district reach that goal are listed on that page.  The page also includes timelines, funding sources, and persons responsible for monitoring that the goals are being met.  The only thing similar to that in the AISD plan is the PBMAS section which is in a separate appendix.  AISD’s plan goes into much greater detail about different meetings that are held throughout the year but this also makes for a plan that is cumbersome to meddle through and could easily frustrate readers. 

I like that the SISD plan lists funding sources directly on the page where the goal is listed rather than in a separate appendix.  Using a separate appendix provides for disconnect between the goal and the resources that will be utilized to reach that goal. Both plans show evidence of many outside funding sources such as grants, but as stated before, SISD embeds those in the plan where AISD places them in a separate appendix.

The one thing that I would like to see included in the SISD plan is a plan alignment such as the one in the AISD plan.  I believe that in order for every person in the district to take responsibility for implementing the plan, it needs to be outlined and communicated to all the stakeholders.

Why leaders make poor decisions

1. Failure to check their facts, take the initiative to confirm assumptions, or gather additional input. Basically people were sloppy in their work and a bit lazy. This is a easy mistake to make because people go from their past experience and expect consistent results. As we all know, the pace of change is increasing and something that was true yesterday may not be true today.
2. Failure to plan for unexpected events. Most people tend to be fairly optimistic. It is difficult to consider the possibility of negative events in our lives and so most people assume the worst will not happen. Unfortunately, it happens fairly often. People die, get divorced, have accidents, markets crash, house prices go down, friends are unreliable, etc. etc. It often makes good sense to ask those “what if” questions and consider the impact of an unexpected event.
3. Indecisiveness. Today’s decisions are often very complex with a large body of data that is constantly changing. It is fairly easy to continue to study the data, to ask for one more report or perform yet one more analysis before a decision gets made. The reports and the analysis take much longer than expected, the decision gets delayed and the opportunity is missed. It takes courage to look at the data, consider the consequences and then move forward, but oftentimes indecision is much worse than making the wrong decision. Those who make the wrong decision can quickly turn the decision around and admit their mistake. Usually, it is the fear of being wrong that makes leaders indecisive.
4. Using the same old data or process they have always used. People get used to processes and approaches that work and tend not to look for newer improved approaches that work better.  Better the devil they know. Too often the old process is based on old assumptions that are no longer true.
5. Don’t challenge the facts or the people that provide them information. Many times people accept some facts without challenging them and going to other sources especially if they seem to support a preferred direction. Often when people gather facts, they bias the information by telling people what they want to hear and asking others to confirm their assumptions. When a stock analyst was forced to defend his position on a purchase of assets, he began to worry that by being pushed to defend his position he would become less objective, which is often the case.
6. Failure to connect the problem to the overall strategy. This is a classic case of winning the battle but losing the war. Too often, people get so deep into a problem that they lose sight of the overall objective they are trying to accomplish. Keeping a broad perspective can help leaders to see a problem differently.
7. Over-Dependent on others. When decisions don’t get made the problem often reveals one person waiting for another person, who is waiting for another person. Effective decision makers find a way to act independently when necessary.
8. Failure to gather input from others on their decisions. All our research on effective decision-making recognizes the fact that involving others with knowledge, experience and expertise will improve the quality of the decision. Many times people do not involve others because they want to take credit for a decision and unfortunately they get to take the blame for a bad decision also.
9. Lack of technical depth and failure to involve those who have expertise. When we lack even the basic knowledge and expertise we have no way to tell if a decision is brilliant or terrible. Leaders need enough technical depth to understand the implications of the decisions that they make. A leader is responsible to find the talent needed to make difficult decisions.
10. Failure to communicate the what, where, when and how associated with their decisions. Some good decisions become bad decisions because people do not understand or know about the decision. Communicating a decision, its implications and changes are critical to the successful implementation of a decision.