For the last 10 years, Texas elected officials have been gradually cutting funding to public schools. As a result, local school costs have been rising--and local property taxes have been rising with them.
The state Legislature has now shifted over $2 billion a year worth of funding that would have gone to public schools to other programs.
According to The Texas Tribune,if the state had kept its share of school funding constant for the past decade, “voters might not be griping about rising property taxes” in 2018.
While it is true that Texas is spending more on education than it did 10 years ago, education funding isn’t keeping up with how rapidly the public school population is rising.
The number of students in Texas public schools has risen by almost 17 percent since 2007. But state funding has only risen by eight percent in that same period.