When a Texas A&M University professor recommended to Kansas lawmakers that they increase school by 44 percent, it got some Texas public education advocates wondering how her study would play out in the Lone Star State.
As The Texas Tribune reports, earlier this month, Lori Taylor, who has a reputation for being fiscally conservative when it comes to school finance, said Kansas would need to invest as much as $2 billion more over the next five years to ensure a 95 percent graduation rate and highest test scores.
That got education advocates thinking Texas might get similar results with an infusion of funding, but Taylor warned against using her Kansas study to argue for it because student needs and costs – among other things - are different between the two states.
Texas school leaders, however, would likely argue that they’re now in a similar financial position as Kansas – due, in part, to a growing number of students who need expensive programs like special education and bilingual education.
