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Two questions about Texas school expenditure patterns are examined. First, "How progressive are spending patterns among high and low poverty schools?" Second, "How unequal are expenditures per pupil between schools with at least 70% of their students classified as economically disadvantaged, in different districts?" The data, for school year 2017-2018, are restricted to 3,453 elementary and middle schools in 90 large Texas districts. The schools in each district were divided into high and low poverty groups. The differences in the average per pupil spending for operations between the two groups ranged from plus $1,382 in one district to a negative $802 in another. The average expenditures in schools with at least 70% economically disadvantaged students were 75% greater in one district than in another. It is demonstrated that districts with less extreme average levels of low-income students have more opportunity to act as good Samaritans, generally exhibiting substantially greater spending in their high poverty schools. This finding supports arguments for student funding weights that increase with increasing proportions of economically disadvantaged students. An incidental finding is that a commonly used measure of funding progressivity is a direct function of district and school level variances in poverty averages, and is therefore biased by them.

U.S. charter schools are publicly funded through state school finance formulas that often mirror the traditional public school finance systems. While charter school advocates and critics disagree over whether charters receive an equitable share of funding, few discussions are based on rigorous analyses of funding and expenditures. Most prior analyses, especially those presented in policy briefs or white papers, examine average funding differences without exploring underlying cost factors between the two sectors. Our purpose is to demonstrate how careful analysis of charter school funding with appropriate methodological approaches can shed light on disagreements about charter school finance policy. Using detailed school finance data from Texas as a case study, we find that after accounting for differences in accounting structures and cost factors, charter schools receive significantly more state and local funding compared to traditional public schools with similar structural characteristics and student demographics. However, many small charter schools are actually underfunded relative to their traditional public school counterparts. Policy simulations demonstrate that on average, each student who transfers to a charter school increases the cost to the state by $1,500. We discuss the implications of these findings for both school finance policy in Texas and nationally.

A paper appearing in this journal by Klein, Hamilton, McCaffrey and Stecher (2000) attempted to raise serious questions about the validity of the gains in student performance as measured by Texas' standardized test, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). Part of their analysis was based on the results of three tests which they administered to 2,000 fifth grade students in 20 Texas schools. Although Klein et al. indicated that the 20 schools were not selected in a way which would insure that they were representative of the nearly 3,000 Texas schools that enrolled fifth graders, generalizations based upon the results for those schools were nonetheless offered. The purpose of this short paper is to demonstrate just how unrepresentative the 20 schools used by Klein et al. actually were, and in so doing to cast doubt on certain of their conclusions. (Contains 2 figures.)

Although considerable research examines the impact of grade retention on student academic achievement, various shortcomings exhibited across these studies make it difficult to derive any concrete generalizations about the effectiveness of requiring students to repeat a grade. By utilizing data based on a cohort of all low-achieving elementary students in the state of Texas over a number of years, one can overcome some of the weaknesses observed in previous studies on grade retention and social promotion. The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether holding low-achieving students back a year in grade contributes to enhancing academic performance. This analysis is based upon archival data supplied by the Texas Education Agency, consisting of anonymous student-level Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) records of every student in the tested grades between 1994 and 1999. The authors sought to determine the academic effects of retention in grade and social promotion on subsequent school performances, following initial failure on the Texas mandatory standardized reading test. The overall findings suggest that retaining low-performing third-grade students an additional year in grade was not harmful to their later academic performance. Analyses that attempted to control for initial differences between retained and socially promoted pupils revealed that retention appeared to help low-achieving students pass the state reading examination more quickly than students who were socially promoted. The authors conclude by outlining some conditions that they argue are essential for effective policy, effective interventions, and disaggregated accountability systems. Comments by Andrew Rotherham and Lorrie A. Shepard are presented. (Contains 1 figure, 8 tables, 52 notes.)

Used the same methodology and data used by W. Haney in his study of achievement gains on the Texas high school exit examination to demonstrate that his conclusion about the increased pass rate was not correct. None of the 20% improvement in the exit test pass rate was explained by combined increases in dropout rates or special education exemptions. (SLD)