The national nonprofit broke down the results of its , which describes trends in state funding to schools in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. in a recent .

“In order to be fair, school funding must be both adequate and equitable,” said Danielle Farrie, Education Law Center research director. “So this means that states provide an overall level of funding that’s sufficient to provide all students with the resources that they need to meet state standards, and that the funding should be distributed so that students in poverty receive more.”

One of the most concerning report findings is the decline in funding to schools with high rates of children from low-income families, compared to schools with more affluent populations, Farrie said. States are progressive if high-poverty schools receive at least 5% more funding in state money than those in more affluent areas. States that do the opposite are labeled regressive. States have a flat distribution of funding if the amount is similar on both sides.

In 2023, 17 states were labeled progressive, reversing a decade-long increase of progressive states that peaked at 28 in 2022. 

Utah was the most progressive state, funneling 60% more funding per-pupil to high-poverty districts than others The most regressive state was Connecticut, which provided 19% less money to high-poverty districts. 

The analysis, which focused on state dollars amid an influx of federal COVID-relief funding,  also found that most states maintained or at least slightly increased per-pupil funding levels from 2022 after adjusting for inflation.

“This is a dramatic departure from the previous year, when high inflation rates basically wiped out most of the nominal per-pupil funding increases in most states,” Farrie said.

Some states experienced significant funding boosts. From 2022 to 2023, California increased its per-pupil funding by 19%. Washington, D.C., and Hawaii jumped 15% while Michigan moved up by 13%. 

The Education Law Center credited California’s positive gains to its more than a decade ago. Even so, school districts have recently called for more state funding as teachers unions have demanded better pay and working conditions. Seven superintendents signed an in February to advocate for “more stable, adequate and predictable funding from the state.”

“Rising housing costs, inflation and everyday living costs are affecting educators and classified staff across California,” the letter says. “Many are making difficult personal choices simply to remain in the profession or continue serving their communities.”

The largest funding loss from 2022 to 2023 was in Louisiana, which declined by 8%, moving its ranking in how well schools are funded from 25th in the nation to 38th.

Overall, 22 states fund their schools above the national average of $17,853 per student. New York is the top state at $29,440, followed by Vermont, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Connecticut. The lowest state funding level comes in Idaho, which provides $11,085 per student.  North Carolina, Utah, Arizona and Nevada fund at similar levels. 

“In North Carolina, our funding is grossly inadequate, and it’s been the subject of lawsuits,” said Kris Nordstrom, senior policy analyst at the , in the webinar. “It’s inequitable for all student groups and it’s been that way, sadly, for a long time.”

North Carolina has been under fire for more than 30 years because of inadequate school funding. Lawsuits eventually led to the creation of a remedial plan in 2022 for the state to better fund public schools, but it was after appeals were filed to stop payments to districts. The case has since been under the advisement of the North Carolina Supreme Court, which has yet to issue a ruling.

“I think our anticipation is that if we ever do get a ruling that it won’t be a good one,” Nordstrom said. “Our school funding continues to be flat or decreasing once you account for the additional costs facing schools. So it’s pretty bleak.”

The Education Law Center also ranked states based on their funding efforts, which compares funding levels against each state’s gross domestic product. North Carolina is at the bottom of the ranking, providing $12,193 when its GDP per capita is $58,639. The top state is Vermont, which gives schools $27,067 per-pupil while its GDP per capita is $54,318. 

“Obviously in North Carolina, you’ve seen our school funding effort plummet,” Nordstrom said. “But in almost every state, school funding has decreased since before the Great Recession. So the money exists in our economy to provide much more robust funding for schools than we currently are.”

Two school districts have filed a lawsuit challenging the state of Alaska for failing to fulfill its constitutional duty to adequately fund public education.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District and the Kuspuk School District filed the in Anchorage Superior Court on Tuesday, naming the Alaska Department of Early Education and Development, Deena Bishop as its commissioner, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy as defendants.

Plaintiffs say the state’s funding is “woefully insufficient,” resulting in a loss of teachers, overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating schools, and loss of learning and opportunities for students. They’re asking the court for a declaration that the state is violating its obligations under the Alaska Constitution, and to remedy the violation by funding education.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law said education funding decisions should be determined by the Legislature, rather than the courts.

“The state has to be accountable for ensuring that they have established, and they have maintained a system of education within the state,” said Madeline Aguillard, superintendent of the Kuspuk School District. “Because by all evidence from Kuspuk, I believe it’s not being maintained.”

Aguillard spoke by phone Wednesday, as she was managing the evacuation of around 50 students from the Aniak Jr. Sr. High School due to a roof failure earlier this week.

It’s one of many severe school facilities issues facing the Kuspuk School District, and . The estimated cost of deferred maintenance is over $400 million in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, the other plaintiff in the case, said Luke Meinert, its superintendent. That is all while grappling with budget shortfalls, difficulty maintaining teachers and growing class sizes, he said.

“Fairbanks has experienced seven school closures within the last five years,” Meinert said. “With declining revenue from the state and drops in enrollment here locally, that was one of the levers that our Board of Education was forced to pull to balance our budgets in past years.”

“Those school closures have created a tremendous amount of instability within the community and within our families,” he said.

Spokespeople for the office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development declined to comment on the lawsuit, and referred questions to the Alaska Department of Law. Sam Curtis, a spokesperson for the department said education policy and funding decisions should be resolved by state lawmakers.

“Litigating this issue would primarily enrich counsel by asking the judiciary to referee budgetary judgments the Constitution assigns to the political branches. Again, the responsible path is legislation—not litigation,” Curtis said by email on Tuesday.

“Although we have not been served with this lawsuit and have not yet had an opportunity to review the claims, the Alaska Constitution does not prescribe a dollar amount for education funding,” he said. “To the contrary, it vests the power of the purse squarely in the Legislature and the Governor.”

Education funding has been an embattled political issue for years, and lawmakers approved an increase to per student funding, known as the base student allocation or BSA, last year — which was vetoed twice by the governor, and then restored in

But plaintiffs say state funding is at a level that fails to provide students with “a sound basic education and meaningful opportunity for proficiency,” and lags far behind operating costs. The BSA has increased by only 2.2% since 2015, according to the lawsuit, while estimated cost of inflation has risen by 37%.

“Every year, it’s based on, ‘Well, this is what we can afford,’ versus ‘We absolutely have to find the funds to deal with this,’” said Caroline Storm, executive director of the non-profit education advocacy group, Coalition for Education Equity which is helping organize the lawsuit.

In addition to the court order, plaintiffs are asking the court to require the state to conduct an adequacy study. The lawsuit alleges the state has never conducted a study of funding levels, calling it a “dereliction of constitutional obligation” because it hasn’t scientifically evaluated if the current funding levels are adequate.

The study they’re asking for would assess the actual cost of delivering education — including teachers, special education, transportation and maintaining school facilities — to compare to current funding levels and identify the gaps.

Plaintiffs cite low test scores as evidence of inadequate funding

The lawsuit asserts the current system is failing “a vast majority of the state’s school age children,” as evidenced by low proficiency in statewide assessments. The plaintiffs say that’s particularly true for rural, low-income and high-need communities.

Last year, just over 67% of Alaska students did not meet grade level requirements for English language arts, nearly 68% failed to meet requirements for math and 62% did not meet requirements for science, according to the lawsuit.

In the Kuspuk School District for the 2024 to 2025 school year, those numbers jumped to 93 to 97% of students who were not meeting grade level requirements in those core subjects. In the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, more than half of students were not meeting those grade level requirements last year.

“The state has failed and refused to fund education at a level that allows the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District and the Kuspuk School District to provide instruction in core subjects, much less provide instruction in those subjects to state-adopted standards,” the lawsuit said.

Districts grapple with teacher shortage, school building maintenance

The Fairbanks district has lost 300 teachers and staff since 2019, according to the lawsuit, and the Kuspuk School District’s teacher shortage has resulted in cuts to all after school programs, arts programs, career and technical education and social studies programs.

More and more students are having to take classes online in the Kuspuk district, Aguillard said. “They come to the physical building, and we facilitate and monitor, and we try our best to be able to do that. But it’s not the education our families and our students are desiring or deserve,” she said.

The Aniak community is now facing the total loss of a school building and gymnasium due to a roof failure.

This week, the roof of the gymnasium, also connected to classrooms and administrative offices was audibly heard cracking and breaking apart. Around 50 students are now displaced.

“Basically it’s opening like a flower,” Aguillard said, due to the foundation shifting. “The engineer immediately was like, ‘You have to get people out of here.’ It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when it’s going to finish collapsing.”

Students from pre-K to 12th grade are joining the community’s other elementary school while the district searches for alternative space to conduct classes and move administration offices, Aguillard said. She said the goal is to conduct a controlled demolition before the total collapse of the building. “It’s completely split, pulling off from the building, and then there’s a split where the buildings are connected together, the old and the new pieces,” she said.

Catastrophic school building failure is not new for the region. The district requested repairs to the school in Sleetmute , leading to continued deterioration and unsafe conditions for students.

Aguillard pointed out that as a rural district, a Regional Education Attendance Area, known as an REAA, Kuspuk has no local funding from municipalities so it relies entirely on state funding. “And so the BSA, the foundation formula, has to go to all operational needs to ensure that our students are receiving an adequate education,” she said.

The superintendents and Storm acknowledged that state budgets are constrained, and legislators are faced with many competing priorities and political battles around new state revenues.

But Storm said the hope is the lawsuit will also send a message to lawmakers to take bolder action to increase funding for Alaska education.

“I think some direction from a court saying ‘You are chronically underfunding our schools,’ gives enough legislators cover to address the revenue issue, among other things, and make some hard votes, because now there’s a court system saying you need to rectify this problem,” she said.

Meinert emphasized the importance of Alaska education among other state issues. “I can’t think of a better investment in our state than in the children,” he said. “They are our future, and they will dictate the success of the future of this state.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Claire Stremple for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.

Teachers are most likely to report a shortage of “people resources,” with two-thirds saying they don’t have enough teaching assistants, aides or paraprofessionals. 

This “has a huge impact in the classroom in what teachers are able to do,” said Andrea Malek Ash, a senior research consultant at Gallup who led the survey.

Ash stressed that even as teachers struggle to access fundamental resources, they still expressed a desire to improve their practices through professional growth opportunities.

“So it’s like this hierarchy of needs,” she said. “Teachers really have to come at it right now from both ways: They’re trying to improve themselves, and they’re still dealing with not having enough furniture. That’s something that really stood out to me.”

A dearth in resources has long plagued educators, with as many as having to reach into their own pockets to buy materials for their students and many relying on to solicit help from private donors. According to the amount teachers spent climbed during the pandemic, according to , though schools were also able to spend emergency COVID funding on supplies and furniture. And this year, a typical assortment of back-to-school supplies will cost an average of , at least partially due to the Trump administration’s tariff policies.

School staffing, too, has remained a persistent challenge for public schools: as of June 2025, an estimated positions were either unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for their assignments. Yet, the number of educators nationally saw a steady increase between potentially due to the emergency relief funding. With that money sunsetting just over a year ago, it’s not yet clear what impact that might have on combatting ongoing shortages.

Teachers reported that professional growth opportunities and materials are two of the most important factors when it comes to job satisfaction: 77% of teachers who have adequate resources report being satisfied at work, versus 44% of those who do not.

Gallup surveyed thousands of teachers from the RAND American Teacher Panel over the course of one school year: 1,989 teachers were surveyed between October and November 2024; 2,046 in January 2025; and 2,167 between April and May 2025. 

The report is part of a led by Gallup and the to study Gen Z and youth perspectives, especially as they relate to education. Since teachers play such a large role in a student’s engagement and success in the classroom, researchers said it was important to learn about their needs as well and will gather their views over the next few years.

Across the country, teachers overwhelmingly reported a shortage of school-based staff: almost two-thirds said their school didn’t have enough teaching assistants, aides, paraprofessionals or behavior intervention specialists and 62% said they didn’t have enough mental health resources or special educators.

Jessica Saum is a special education coordinator, former special education teacher and the In her current role, she works to ensure students’ receive the special education services they need and supports educators in various K-12 settings. Saum said she sees these shortages reflected in classrooms across her district — especially among paraprofessionals.

“The paras are typically doing some of the hardest parts of those jobs with the least amount of education and training,” she said, leading some to decide not to go into teaching or leave their jobs altogether. 

A shortage of paraprofessionals makes the general education teacher’s job “much harder,” Saum said. “As a special educator, I depended on my para educators to complete that classroom support. I needed them to be able to help me meet the needs of all the students.”

While 72% of teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that they had the equipment needed to teach effectively, 24% said they didn’t have enough classroom furniture, 25% didn’t have enough laptops or classroom computers and 35% didn’t have adequate printing supplies. Funding is likely one barrier to access, said Ash, but bureaucracy appears to be another: 1 in 3 teachers said the process they need to go through to order materials is “very” or “somewhat difficult.”

Even if school leaders don’t immediately have the budget to buy requested materials, Ash said, just being aware of teachers’ needs and making the acquisition process easier creates a better experience for educators.

Some of these trends held true across schools, regardless of family income. For example, teachers who work in wealthier schools — where less than a quarter of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch — were just about as likely (23%) to report not having enough classroom furniture as those who work in a school where up to 100% of students qualify (25%).

And teachers in these wealthier schools were actually more likely (68% vs. 64%) to report a shortage of teaching assistants or paraprofessionals, according to additional data from the study provided to Âé¶čŸ«Æ· by Gallup.

Yet, when it came to technology, that flipped. Teachers in low-income schools were significantly more likely to report not having enough laptops (34% vs. 18%) or printing resources (43% vs. 28%).

The survey also found that about half of teachers say their professional development is not grounded in students’ needs or learning. They cite collaborative planning as the most valuable kind of development and 43% report observing other teachers as the most worthwhile activity — though just 1 in 3 teachers say they get that opportunity.

“So the most beneficial ones were the ones that we’re also missing,” said Ash.

The Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to Âé¶čŸ«Æ·.

Trump wants to put money for homeless kids into a block grant. School staff are wary.

Federal funding for homeless students has helped Metro Nashville Public Schools meet kids’ evolving needs for decades.

It has sent tutors to family shelters to help children with their school work. It has paid for transportation when families got priced out of their homes and suddenly had to move cross-county.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

And it pays for liaisons like Catherine Knowles, who for 28 years has listened to what homeless families say they really need and tried to respond. That’s why the district has a hotel-friendly food pantry filled with items like shelf-stable milk, microwaveable mac and cheese cups, and just-add-water cereal bowls.

“We’re giving that recognition of: We really do see what you’re going through,” Knowles said, “and we then have the flexibility to be responsive to that because we have funding and we have dedicated resources.”

The Trump administration has proposed doing away with this dedicated funding. into a single, much smaller K-12 block grant.

, down from the roughly $6.5 billion the federal government spends now. Schools could keep spending that money on the students and activities envisioned in federal law, or on a range of other activities, such as “promoting patriotic education,” or improving instruction in math, reading, science, and history.

In the current federal budget, Congress allocated $129 million to support homeless students with McKinney-Vento funding, . That’s a tiny fraction of the roughly $18 billion the federal government spends specifically on high-poverty schools. Liaisons like Knowles worry homeless students will fall down the priority list if schools no longer get funding specifically to serve them.

“There is such increasing need among students in public education, in general,” Knowles said. “Without McKinney-Vento dedicated funding specifically spelling out our responsibilities and the rights of students experiencing homelessness, I’m just afraid it could kind of all get lost in the shuffle.”

Why Congress set aside money for homeless students

The Education Department has said the block grant would give states and schools the ability to spend federal funds more in line with their needs, “without the unnecessary administrative burdens imposed under current law.”

have said they’d welcome education block grants. And some states, , that are seeking in how they spend their federal education dollars have said they would continue to meet the needs of unique student groups, including homeless students.

Right now, the federal government gives each state money for homeless students based on their share of Title I funds, which support students in poverty. Then the state awards the money to districts on a competitive basis, because the sum is too small to divide among all of them. get McKinney-Vento funding, which means many districts are required to hire homeless liaisons and meet homeless students’ needs without dedicated funding.

But school liaisons and advocates for homeless youth are calling on Congress to maintain funding for students experiencing homelessness as a standalone program.

In the early days of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Congress tasked states and schools with rewriting policies and collecting data about students experiencing homelessness. That work exposed gaps in support, and prompted Congress to set aside money specifically for these students in 1990.

“The dedicated funding was about responding to those barriers,” said Barbara Duffield, the executive director of the nonprofit SchoolHouse Connection. In addition to legal protections, “you also have to have somebody who goes out looking for you, makes sure you have a ride, actually makes sure you can get enrolled.”

Since then, McKinney-Vento funding has played an outsized role in under-resourced communities that lack shelters, and “where the school literally might be the source of services for these families,” Duffield said.

Researchers and school staff also point out that students experiencing homelessness have specific needs and greater academic challenges than even other children from low-income families. Homeless students have , even when compared with other kids living in poverty.

“Just imagine: If you go to a school that has high poverty, you’ve already been in poverty your whole life, and now you’re also unhoused,” said Jessica Smith, a social worker who is the McKinney-Vento coordinator for Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools. “It looks completely different than a student who just is low-income. Those babies need assistance, too, but our babies need just a little bit more of a focus.”

Smith, for example, uses part of her district’s McKinney-Vento funding to take high schoolers who live on their own without help from a parent to visit colleges and trade schools.

In Tennessee’s Robertson County Schools, McKinney-Vento funding provides students experiencing homelessness with clothing that meets the district’s dress code. And recently, it allowed the district to hire a translator to work specifically with Spanish-speaking homeless families, said Jennifer Dusky, a social worker who also serves as the district’s homeless liaison.

The rural community 30 miles north of Nashville is a major tobacco producer and attracts many migrant families. As that population has grown, the translator who handles requests from across the district couldn’t meet all the needs of homeless families and still get her other duties done, Dusky said.

“It was a need, for sure, to have a dedicated translator,” Dusky said. “Homelessness is not a comfortable thing for anyone to talk about, it’s very vulnerable and very scary. And then, of course, you add in the fact that you’re in a new country, you don’t speak the language. There’s all these fears and they’re very hesitant to talk with us. I totally get that.”

When the district hired a Spanish-speaking translator who had experienced homelessness herself, she helped identify, and provide support to, more homeless children.

“You can almost see the comfort just come over their face whenever they see her and talk to her,” Dusky said.

But when the district got half as much McKinney-Vento funding from the state this year as it has in years past, Dusky got a preview of the tough trade-offs schools nationwide would face if standalone funding went away. Her district had to decide if it could afford to keep the translator and the person who maintains McKinney-Vento records. For at least the next year, the district will dip into its own pocket to do so, but Dusky isn’t sure how long that will last.

“What can our program realistically withstand?” she said. “What can our community support?”

Congress will decide if block grant proposal advances

It is unclear whether Congress will approve the block grant proposal for homeless students and other programs.

The Senate Appropriations committee in the bipartisan education budget bill they approved Thursday, and . The House Appropriations committee won’t consider the education portion of the president’s budget until it returns from recess in September.

Some worry that Congress could repeal all or part of the law that authorizes McKinney-Vento funding to make the block grant legal, potentially leaving homeless students with fewer protections. Just a handful of states guarantee homeless students the same main educational rights outlined in federal law; most do not have any spelled out in state law, .

Smith in Kansas City, Kansas, worries what that could mean for her students, many of whom stay over the state line in Kansas City, Missouri, because there are no shelters in her community. When that happens, both districts share the cost of transporting the child to school, Smith said, but she’s not sure what would happen if Missouri and Kansas decided to spend their block grants differently.

“If we don’t have something that focuses on this particular population they’ll get overlooked — as they often do already,” Smith said.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Victoria Gomez de la Torre doesn’t know when — or if — the migrant children she serves are going to get the education help they’ve come to rely on.

Gomez de la Torre oversees the migrant education program for 12 central Florida counties. The federally funded service helps the children of migrant agricultural workers, who move within and between states based on planting and harvesting seasons.

Her staff identifies agricultural workers who’ve migrated to the area and helps them enroll their children in school. It also helps connect them with tutoring and medical care.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

Earlier this summer, the Trump administration more than $6 billion in education funding, including money for migrant education, after-school programs, English-language programs for non-native speakers and other grants. Congress had already approved the money, but the administration said it wanted to conduct a review of the programs.

The administration announced last Friday it would the remaining $5.5 billion of the money, after unfreezing $1.3 billion earlier this month.

But for Gomez de la Torre’s program, the damage had already been done: Without the money, it had to shut down this summer.

“We didn’t have enough money left over to carry the program,” said Joram Rejouis, the director of program development for the public schools in Alachua County, which includes Gainesville and is the largest of the 12 counties. “Definitely, stopping the program caused damage.”

The program came to a complete halt when Gomez de la Torre’s 11 staff members were offered other positions in the school district. Throughout July, about five dozen migrant children across the 12 counties were without summer services. The were supposed to go out before the start of the month.

“It’s going horrendously,” said Gomez de la Torre. “Migrant families depend on us, rely on our system and our help.”

The Alachua County program serves about 1,000 to 1,200 children of migrant workers throughout the year, many in rural farming communities. Each year, roughly 17,000 migrant children are served by programs across Florida.

“It is a very valuable program for a very vulnerable population,” Rejouis said. “Definitely, stopping the program caused damage, period — for the families, for the program and for the district.”

Migrant children are less likely to have regular primary care and are to face health conditions such as anemia and high blood pressure. Many migrant families who harvest food in the fields themselves.

The program also helps with communication and translation among parents, teachers and guidance counselors. “We were their go-to for whenever they needed something,” Gomez de la Torre said. “Now, they don’t have us.”

The freeze in funds added to the uncertainty and fear created by the Trump administration’s broader moves to target benefits for immigrants. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently it had added Head Start to the list of public programs that would be closed to immigrants who are here illegally. After the funding announcement earlier this month, a senior official the administration had established “guardrails” to ensure the funds are not used “in violation of Executive Orders.”

“It’s anybody’s guess when we’ll come back,” Gomez de la Torre said. “If we’ll come back. If people who chose to retire will return, if their retirement can be rescinded. 
 Nobody knows exactly how it’s going to play out.”

A similar story is unfolding in California.

The statewide Mini Corps program, run by the Butte County Office of Education, north of Sacramento, connects migrant children at schools and labor camps with bilingual tutors who help them during the school day. Many of the tutors are former migrant children themselves, said Yvette Medina, who oversees the program.

The funding freeze forced the office to lay off around 400 workers statewide, according to spokesperson Travis Souders. Despite Friday’s announcement, the organization is waiting for official word — in writing — before reversing layoffs.

“There’s going to be many students out there who are just going to have another disadvantage to the disadvantages that we already have,” Medina said.

In Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose, the program was forced to shut down altogether, according to Medina.

Medina grew up in migrant labor camps, following her parents to the fields at 4 a.m. as they picked cherries and grapes before she went to school. Her parents worked throughout the Central Valley, back in Mexico and up and down the West Coast, all the way to Oregon.

“It is devastating,” she said. “If it wasn’t for the migrant program, I know for a fact there’s no way I would have graduated high school.”

Migrant families already are gripped with fear as the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids and arrests, which President Donald Trump insists are focused on those with criminal histories.

“They are terrified,” Gomez de la Torre said. “We had families stop sending kids to school and others who fled the country.”

Ruby Luis, a consultant who helps school districts across Florida identify and enroll migrant students in school, also was a migrant child. Her parents worked in orange groves, at strawberry and Christmas tree farms and produce-packing houses.

Program tutors read books with her and gave her school supplies. The program took her on college tours and she enrolled via a scholarship for migrant children — a first-generation college student. She eventually graduated with a degree in biology.

“Just having even somebody to talk to you about going to college — because you don’t have anybody to talk to about [that],” she said. “Having that support was really impactful.

“To take that away, and then now they just have to navigate it themselves, it creates these barriers,” Luis said. “And it can ultimately leave these children not having access to education.”

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which argued that districts were spending the money to advance a “radical left-wing agenda,” has completed its review of five different programs totaling $5.5 billion, said Madison Beidermann, spokeswoman for the department. 

The funds support education for English learners and migrant students and pay for staff training and extra instructional positions. The news came a week after the administration released over $1.3 billion for summer and afterschool programs, which was also held up for review.

The department alerted states June 30, one day before they expected to receive the money, that the review was in process, forcing programs to cut staff and end summer programs early. Congress appropriated the funds for this coming school year, and President Donald Trump signed the budget in March. 

The release of the funds, announced just hours before Education Secretary Linda McMahon was scheduled to meet with the nation’s governors in Colorado Springs, Colorado, comes as superintendents nationwide were preparing to eliminate services like literacy and math coaches, according to conducted by AASA, the School Superintendents Association. Half of the 628 chiefs who responded from 43 states said they would have to lay off staff who work with special education students if the funds weren’t released. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten brought the message to attendees at the union’s annual TEACH conference in Washington, D.C. 

“The administration backed down and we are getting the money,” she said to a cheering audience. “Those of you who lobbied yesterday, thank you. Those of you who brought the lawsuit, thank you.”

Attorney generals from 24 blue states and the District of Columbia over the freeze, arguing that the administration’s actions were harming schools. School districts, parents, unions and nonprofits filed a on July 21, saying that OMB has never stood in the way of the department’s practice of releasing the funds in two steps, first on July 1 and the rest on Oct. 1. joined their Democratic colleagues in pressuring the administration to free up the money.

Friday’s announcement doesn’t mean the legal fight is over. In a statement, Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is handling the second case, said the legal team would “continue to monitor the situation and work in court to ensure the administration fully complies with the law and that these resources reach the schools and students who need them most.” 

Districts can now start the school year without the shortfall, but that doesn’t mean advocates’ worries are over about future disruptions to funding. The July 1 distribution date is a longstanding practice, not something written into the law. 

Tara Thomas, government affairs manager for AASA, said her organization wants to “have additional conversations” with Congress or the administration to “ensure that this type of uncertainty at the last minute doesn’t happen again. Districts need to continue to rely on stable, timely, reliable federal funding.”

Another fight over education funds could also be ahead. The White House is reportedly preparing another that would target education funding. Thomas said she didn’t know what might be included, but it could be cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency made to grant programs. 

On Friday, Trump signed a , pulling back $9 billion in funds from public television and foreign aid.

One of New Mexico’s representatives in Congress says the Trump administration’s refusal to release education funding is harming both children and adult students, especially those who are falling behind in reading and mathematics.

All three of New Mexico’s representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 10 joined approximately 145 other federal lawmakers in a asking the Trump administration to immediately lift a freeze on $7 billion meant for student learning and achievement; after-school programs; teacher training; and adult education and literacy.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

“There is no legitimate reason why any review of these programs should prevent the Administration from fulfilling its responsibility to the American people on time,” they wrote. “No more excuses — follow the law and release the funding meant for our schools, teachers and families.”

Vasquez told Source NM the administration is withholding $44 million from K-12 schools and adult education programs in New Mexico.

That includes $21.6 million in his congressional district; $12 million for Albuquerque Public Schools; and approximately $3 million Las Cruces Public Schools, he said.

“I was an English learner in the public schools system in this country, and I got to where I was because these programs existed,” Vasquez said in an interview. “We are selling our kids short by eliminating these programs, and most importantly all of those kids who are falling behind in math and reading.”

He said school administrators are digging into their budget reserves in an attempt to find solutions. Withholding the money could result in dropped programs, hiring freezes and the loss of essential student supports, Stateline .

“What I got from the Las Cruces superintendent was, if they want to continue these programs, which are extremely valuable to the community, to the families and students alike, that they’re going to essentially have to figure out where to make cuts elsewhere within the total budget,” Vasquez said in an interview. “So they’re in a rough place right now.”

Melanie Blea, executive director of federal and state programs at Albuquerque Public Schools,  told Source that while district leaders have been planning various scenarios for funding cuts, the timing of the administration’s funding freeze is a challenge given school starts in one month. The district started planning its budget in December; received approval from their school board in March and April; and received approval from the state in June, she said.

“We’re doing everything possible to make sure that schools are safe from these cuts, that they don’t necessarily feel them,” Blea said. “We’re trying to fill holes. We’re trying to cover as much as we possibly can with other funds.”

The funding freeze affects continuing education for teachers at all 143 APS schools, Blea said, and ancillary staff like nurses and counselors.

“We probably can’t do this for much longer, as far as insulating schools,” she added.

Martin Salazar, communications director for APS, told Source NM that the district is committed to keeping all of its 55 staff who are paid out of the frozen funds employed for the rest of the school year.

“If this goes on, and it’s the same situation next school year or the following school year, that’s going to pose a problem for us,” he said.

A voicemail for a spokesperson at Las Cruces Public Schools was not returned as of Monday morning.

The Trump administration state governments it would hold back the funds on June 30, to ensure that public money is “spent in accordance with the President’s priorities and the Department’s statutory responsibilities.”

The lawmakers’ letter is addressed to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought

New Mexico and 15 other states this month McMahon’s agency over its decision in April to also freeze $1 billion in grant funding, including school-based mental health programs.

A spokesperson for Vought’s office the Rhode Island Current that federal school funds were withheld after officials found some districts across the country had allegedly misused the money “to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda,” including English language instruction for immigrant students, scholarships for undocumented students and a seminar about “queer resistance in the arts.”

Vasquez told Source that Trump and other Republicans have been saying their goal in withholding the funding has been to “end free education to undocumented children,” which Vasquez called xenophobic and “a blatant lie” after reviewing the Las Cruces Public Schools budget with Superintendent Ignacio Ruiz.

“These funding cuts are going to have impacts that will be felt by everybody, by all the students,” Vasquez said. “Squeezing every dollar from programs that benefit the public good to pay for these tax cuts for the rich is the real reason this administration is doing this.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Source New Mexico maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Goldberg for questions: info@sourcenm.com.

The Texas House gave initial approval early Thursday to a bill that would create a $1 billion private school voucher program, crossing a historic milestone and bringing Gov. ’s top legislative priority closer than ever to reaching his desk.

The lower chamber signed off on its voucher proposal, , on an 85-63 vote. Every present Democrat voted against the bill. They were joined by two Republicans — far short of the bipartisan coalitions that in previous legislative sessions consistently blocked proposals to let Texans use taxpayer money to pay for their children’s private schooling.

“This is an extraordinary victory for the thousands of parents who have advocated for more choices when it comes to the education of their children,” Abbott said in a statement, vowing that he would “swiftly sign this bill into law” when it reached his desk.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

The vote came more than 10 hours after the chamber gave preliminary approval to its sweeping $7.7 billion school funding package, which would give local districts more money per student and raise teacher salaries., which passed on a 144-4 vote, also aims to improve the quality of special education services by allocating funding based on the of children with disabilities.

Democrats argued the funding boost barely scratches the surface of what districts need to come back from budget deficits or to cover growing costs after years of inflation, but they ultimately supported the bill after a few hours of debate.

The more dramatic showdown came over the voucher bill, which Democrats tried to thwart with an amendment that would have put school vouchers up for a statewide vote in November. But the last-ditch maneuver attracted support from only one Republican — Rep. of Beaumont, the former House speaker — spelling the demise of Democrats’ one major play to derail the bill.

The landmark voucher vote marks the first time since 1957 that the Texas House has approved legislation making state money available for families to use on their children’s private schooling. The outcome validated Abbott’s crusade to build a pro-voucher House majority during last year’s primary by targeting Republicans who tanked his previous proposal in 2023. Now, all that is left is for Republicans in both chambers to iron out the differences between their voucher plans, leaving Abbott and his allies on the brink of victory.

The House’s plan would put $1 billion to create education savings accounts, a form of vouchers that families could use to pay for private school tuition and other school-related expenses, like textbooks, transportation and therapy. The bill would tie the voucher program’s per-student dollars to public education funding so the amount available to each participating student would increase when public schools receive more money and dip when public education funding declines.

If public demand exceeds the program’s capacity, students with disabilities and families defined by House lawmakers as low income would be prioritized — though they would not be guaranteed admission to any private school.

Democrats expressed disappointment over the House’s approval of vouchers, saying the outcome represented big money interests prevailing over those of everyday Texans.

“This bill is everything that is wrong with politics,” said Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin.

After Thursday’s vote, the House will still need to cast a final vote to approve both the voucher and school spending bills, largely a formality. The measures would then head to the Senate. At that point, members from both chambers would work to reconcile the differences in their voucher proposals in a closed-door conference committee. The biggest differences center on how much money participating students should receive, which applicants should take priority and how the program should accommodate students with disabilities.

The House debate on vouchers started Wednesday afternoon and ended early Thursday. Lawmakers changed a provision in the bill that would have limited funding for people without disabilities or from wealthier households — defined as a family of four making about $156,000 or greater — to only 20% of the program’s total budget until after the 2026-27 school year. The 20% cap would now apply to each year of the potential voucher program.

The bill now also requires private schools to have existed for at least two years before joining the program; grants the state auditor more power to review the activities of organizations contracted to administer the program; and requires the state’s annual report on the program to include dropout, expulsion and graduation data on participating students with disabilities — broken down by grade, age, sex and race or ethnicity.

Wednesday’s debate over SB 2 covered many of the talking points for and against vouchers echoed throughout the legislative session.

Republicans sought to assure their colleagues that the bill would prioritize low-income children and students with disabilities. Democrats noted that the legislation imposes no admission requirements on private schools, meaning they can deny any student, even those the state wants first in line for the program.

whose children were have primarily benefited from the large-scale voucher programs enacted in other states.

Democrats filed dozens of amendments they believed would make the Texas legislation more equitable for underserved students, but they were all dismissed. One of the rejected proposals came from Rep. Harold V. Dutton Jr., D-Houston, who sought to offer higher voucher amounts to students on the lower rungs of the income ladder. He argued that some families could not afford to send their children to a private school even with $10,000 in state support.

The average Texas private school costs , according to Private School Review.

“If you’re in a 12-foot hole and somebody sends you a 10-foot rope,” Dutton said, “that’s not much of an option.”

Rep. , the Republican chair of the House Public Education Committee, also received questions Wednesday over a provision recently added to SB 2 that would bar undocumented Texans from participating in the proposed voucher program.

SB 2 would prevent any student whose parent cannot prove that the child is a U.S. citizen or that the child lawfully resides in the country from participating in the program. Several lawmakers raised questions about what state entity would be responsible for checking the children’s citizenship, how the legislation would protect the privacy of applicants and whether it would accommodate students who may find it difficult to access certain documents.

Buckley clarified that organizations helping the state administer the voucher program would oversee applications and that the process would include protections “for all personal information.” If applicants are unable to provide proper documentation, Buckley said, they would not participate in the program. The legislation does not specify exactly which documents families would need to provide.

The Texas Senate also previously considered barring undocumented Texans from participating in the voucher program if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns those students’ constitutional right to a public education, but the change never made it into that chamber’s legislation.

Legal questions remain about the citizenship restriction in SB 2. Every student in the U.S. is entitled to a public education regardless of their immigration status, and the potential voucher program would rely on public dollars.

​The House also gave initial approval to its priority school funding legislation. Two years ago, public schools missed out on nearly $8 billion, which Abbott had made conditional on the approval of vouchers.

This year’s public education spending bill would increase schools’ base funding by $395 — from $6,160 to $6,555. That amount, known as the basic allotment, would automatically go up every two years by tying it to property value growth. Forty percent of the allotment would go to non-administrative staff salaries, with higher pay increases reserved for teachers with more than a decade of classroom experience.

In addition, the bill would limit schools’ use of educators who lack formal classroom training, core classes. It would change the current settings-based model for by providing schools money based on the individual needs of students with disabilities. Two students placed in the same classroom but who require different levels of support receive the same dollars under the current settings-based model.

Republicans, during hours of debate, celebrated the bill as a worthwhile investment in public education. Democrats also voiced support for the legislation but argued that it barely scratches the surface of what districts need. Many school districts are currently grappling with challenges ranging from budget deficits and teacher shortages to campus closures.

Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, pressed Buckley, the bill’s author, on whether the measure’s $8 billion would be enough to solve Texas schools’ struggles, which have been fueled by stagnant funding and inflation.

Buckley did not directly acknowledge that his bill would fall short of addressing all the financial pressures facing districts. He instead focused on the multibillion-dollar funding boost the Legislature hopes to provide this session, which includes money through HB 2 and other legislation under consideration.

“I just want to emphasize, members, you have an opportunity today to cast a vote for the largest investment in public education in the history of our state, and so we will continue this process as this body returns session after session to make sure the resources are there for our schools,” Buckley said.

Members of the public viewing the debate from the House gallery erupted in laughter and applause in support of Talarico’s questioning. Talarico and those in the gallery did not appear content with Buckley’s answers.

“I’m going to take that as a no until I get a yes,” Talarico said.

The House eliminated an earlier provision of the bill that would have gotten rid of a 2023 “hold harmless” provision, which provides financial relief to school districts that lose funding due to cuts to state property taxes, a major source of revenue for public schools.

Lawmakers sparred over other aspects of the legislation — from whether the Legislature should continue to invest heavily in, which offers support to underserved students at risk of dropping out of school, to how the state should hold charter schools accountable for mismanagement.

Upon final passage, HB 2 will go to the Senate for further consideration. That chamber has already passed a number of similar proposals — though top lawmakers there have expressed opposition to increasing schools’ base funding this session.

The basic allotment offers districts flexibility to address their campuses’ unique needs, including staff salaries, utilities and maintenance. The Senate has instead advocated for more targeted funding in areas like teacher pay, school security and special education.​

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at .

A coalition of tribal nations and students is suing the federal government over major cuts to a pair of colleges and a federal agency serving Native American students.

The staffing cuts, part of President Donald Trump’s effort to reduce the federal workforce, have slashed basic services on the campuses of ​​Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, known as SIPI, in New Mexico. The lawsuit says the feds failed to notify or consult with tribal nations prior to making the cuts.

notes that those schools — as well as the federal Bureau of Indian Education — are part of a system that fulfills the federal government’s legal obligation to provide education for Native people. Tribal nations secured that right in a series of treaties in exchange for conceding land.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

“The United States government has legal obligations to Tribal Nations that they agreed to in treaties and have been written into federal law,” Jacqueline De León, staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, the legal group leading the lawsuit, said in a announcing the case. “The abrupt and drastic changes that happened since February, without consultation or even pre-notification, are completely illegal.”

Three tribal nations and five Native students have joined the lawsuit. Asked about the case, federal officials told media outlets they do not comment on pending litigation.

According to Haskell student Ella Bowen, cuts to custodial staff have left bathrooms with overflowing trash cans and no toilet paper. SIPI student Kaiya Jade Brown said that school’s campus has suffered from power outages because of a lack of maintenance workers.

Both schools lost roughly a quarter of their staff last month after Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency task force ordered major cuts across a slew of federal agencies. While the schools have since been able to hire back some instructional staff, “[i]t is not even close to enough,” Native American Rights Fund Deputy Director Matthew Campbell said in the statement.

Thirty-four courses at Haskell lost their instructors in February, according to the statement.

Some students have reported delays in their financial aid, and SIPI students are dealing with brown, unsafe tap water, with repairs put on hold due to the cuts, the statement said. And the school did not have enough faculty to administer midterm exams.

The Pueblo of Isleta; the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation; and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes are suing the feds.

“Despite having a treaty obligation to provide educational opportunities to Tribal students, the federal government has long failed to offer adequate services,” Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Lieutenant Governor Hershel Gorham said in the statement. “Just when the Bureau of Indian Education was taking steps to fix the situation, these cuts undermined all those efforts. These institutions are precious to our communities, we won’t sit by and watch them fail.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

LINCOLN – Soon after beginning her studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, McKenzie Murphy, then 19, applied for a part-time job.

She had graduated from high school only a few months earlier, but Murphy’s application also read “graduate, associates degree, Northeast Community College.”

Her interviewer didn’t believe that someone so young could have a two-year college degree.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

“Oh my gosh, when did you graduate?” Murphy was asked.

In May of 2023, Murphy received her diploma from Bancroft-Rosalie High School. But because she had participated in a state dual enrollment program, she also earned a college degree by taking college-level classes while in high school — classes that came with both college and high school credits.

During her last semester of high school, Murphy took 21 credit hours of such dual enrollment classes, completing a lot of general education courses normally taken at colleges or universities, but also learning about investing.

“I like to stay busy,” she said.

A strong head start

This year, more than 20,000 Nebraska high school students at more than 200 schools across the state are taking dual enrollment classes, with hundreds each year, like Murphy, graduating with two diplomas when they finish high school.

Students, including those home-schooled or in private schools, get discounted tuition when taking the classes. In two areas of the state, tuition and books are free, those served by Omaha-based Metropolitan Community College and Norfolk-centered Northeast Community College.

But the future affordability of the program for families statewide is being threatened by a reduction in funding.

The $5 million a year from the federal pandemic-related American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) is going away, leaving only $3 million a year in state funding remaining.

On Thursday, several administrators of community colleges and Nebraska high schools joined a student and a representative of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry in testifying in favor of state legislation to keep the program affordable for high school students and their families. It would provide an additional $21 million over the next two years to continue.

Supporters of the additional funding praised the program as jump-starting student higher education, which they said leads to higher rates of college enrollment and earlier graduation. It also gets students into the workforce sooner, in high-need jobs like welding, teaching and health care, and is a proven way to reverse the “brain drain” exodus of educated young people from Nebraska.

“This maybe has been the most successful higher education partnership with K-12 education and business in all my years in education,” said Randy Schmailzl, the long-time president of Metropolitan Community College, which had nearly 9,000 dual enrollment students this year.

Students, schools embrace program

Mark Shepard, the superintendent of Fremont Public Schools, said the program had helped boost a local career and technical education program that has trained 200 student welders over the past nine years. Seventy of those trained are now working in well-paying, high-demand jobs in the state, he said.

“We view these programs as a true game changer for our state,” Shepard said of the technical training offered in Fremont through dual enrollment.

Murphy, whose family lives in Walthill, said she could not have taken the classes she did if she had been required to pay full tuition, which is $108 per credit hour at Northeast Community College.

At her high school, students have taken 790 credit hours of tuition-free dual enrollment classes this year with eight of the 18 members of the senior class on track to graduate with community college associate degrees, according to Jon Cerny, superintendent at Bancroft-Rosalie.

At Millard Public Schools, 2,200 students took dual enrollment classes last year, earning 26,000 credits. Superintendent John Schwartz said that added up to just short of $2 million in tuition that families didn’t have to pay.

The result, the two educators told members of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, is that students complete college sooner and with less debt, and are able to graduate earlier and join the Nebraska workforce.

“It’s hard to find a better program that supports young people and our economy,” said Michael Johnson of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, who called the state’s shortage of workers “the number-one barrier to economic growth in the state.”

“This program presents a win-win-win opportunity for all of us,” said State Sen. Jason Prokop of Lincoln.

Bill offers replacement funding

His proposal, Legislative Bill 173, would provide $10 million for the dual enrollment program in 2025-26 and $11 million the following year.

Prokop said it exceeds the $5 million a year in ARPA funds that are going away because that money hasn’t covered all costs of the program, which are nearing $20 million a year. He said funding also hasn’t kept up with the 65% increase in students taking the courses.

“This program produces a pipeline of skilled labor that Nebraska employers desperately need,” the senator told the committee.

LB 173 wasn’t included in the preliminary budget recommendations of the Appropriations Committee, which is now taking testimony on its proposed budget. Senators are seeking to close a budget gap, leaving little funding for new spending.

Omaha State Sen. Christy Armendariz, a member of the committee, praised the program. But more than once, she asked whether other funds — rather than state taxpayer money — might be found to finance the dual enrollment program, or whether it could be more focused on families who could not afford to pay the tuition.

An official with Northeast Community College said that institution doesn’t have the funds to continue to offer free tuition on its own, and would have to start charging students. Schmailzl said that when Metro used to offer the classes at 50% of full tuition, it “cut a lot of people out.”

Shepard, the Fremont superintendent, said that 40 some businesses have contributed to the vocational programs in his district, but that ending free tuition, or having students fill out a waiver to get a tuition break, would present barriers.

No immediate action

The Appropriations Committee took no action on the bill after the public hearing on Thursday. It received 70 online comments in support of the bill and no opposition.

Murphy, the UNO student, wasn’t able to attend the public hearing. She’s working three part-time jobs as she pursues her pre-medicine degree in hopes of eventually becoming an ophthalmologist.

Besides saving money and getting a jump start on her university studies, she said dual enrollment and the rigors of college classes forced her to get more organized. She made a daily list of what she needed to get done each day.

It also helped her get hired.

“When you see someone who graduates with an associate degree, they realize that’s a hard-working person, Murphy said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Aaron Sanderford for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com.

According to a survey of more than 3,000 teachers conducted by AdoptAClassroom.org, a nonprofit crowdfunding platform, teachers received a median classroom school supply budget of $200 last school year – an amount that 93% of the respondents said was not enough to cover their in-class needs.

Many teachers choose to subsidize the remainder of the costs, but it comes at a steep price. Out-of-pocket spending among teachers has increased by 44% since 2015, the survey found, with teachers reporting that they spent an average of $860 of their own money on supplies and other expenses during the 2022-2023 school year.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

“Teachers spend their classroom supply budget fast,” Melissa Hruza, Vice President, Marketing & Development at AdoptAClassroom.org, told Âé¶čŸ«Æ·. “Even though they are willing to provide basic items like food and supplies for their students, their ability to pay for it is decreasing.”

One big reason: teacher pay has failed to keep up with the sky high rate of inflation in recent years. Adjusted for inflation, teachers are making $3,644 less than they did a decade ago, according to the National Education Association.

Communities and parents appear to be recognizing the challenges teachers face. AdoptAClassroom.org said its site has received more donations to teachers for the 2024-2025 back-to-school season than last year.

“Comparing July and August 2024 to the same period in 2023, the number of contributions to educators on AdoptAClassroom.org is currently up 13% from 2023 to 2024 so far this year,” Hruza said. “There’s also been a 9% increase in the number of both new fundraisers and total number of teachers with active campaigns.”

GoFundMe has seen a similar bump. So far this year, more than $12 million has been raised for K-12 education on the crowdfunding platform. In 2023, total funds raised for educators reached over $24 million — a 7% increase from the previous year.

“[P]eople don’t always see the hidden costs that end up on teachers’ hands, like providing additional resources for students who can’t afford small items like pencils,” Shawn An, a first-year earth and environmental science teacher at Julius L. Chambers High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, told Âé¶čŸ«Æ·.

To ensure he and his students were fully prepared for this school year, An launched a GoFundMe campaign called A Classroom for Future Scientists, with a goal to raise $1,000. He ended up receiving $1,045 in donations.

“What this funding created is the opportunity for me to bring the basic necessities into the classroom I need to succeed, like organizers and writing utensils to grade with,” An said. “It’s helped me create a space where I can be efficient and to find resources for students to engage in the work we’re asking them to do.”

Lightening the load

To help teachers afford the supplies they need, GoFundMe launched its own fundraising initiative called the Education Opportunity Fund. Since the fund’s launch in 2020, GoFundMe has raised more than $240,000 and has distributed more than 550 grants to teachers in order to help them afford classroom supplies and other educational resources, Leigh Lehman, GoFundMe director of communications, told Âé¶čŸ«Æ·.

“The grants were an additional step to offer help to educators and lighten their load a bit, and there are still grants available for teachers who are in need,” Lehman said.

Grants of can be put toward common classroom items like school supplies, books and class decorations. Funds can also be used for other educational resources or items like field trips, playground equipment, updated technology and extracurricular activities.

Similar to GoFundMe’s grant initiative, AdoptAClassroom.org provides funding through their Spotlight Fund Grants program. This program targets classroom initiatives that address things like social-emotional wellness, Indigenous language, arts, STEM education and racial equity. Eligible teachers can apply for grants of $750 or more on AdoptAClassroom.org.

“People all around the country want to find ways to help more teachers,” GoFundMe’s Lehman said. “They understand there is a gap in funding and that teachers are incredibly stressed.”

Keeping kids engaged

Hana Syed Khan, a fourth grade teacher in New Jersey’s South River Public Schools district, started her own GoFundMe campaign, A Classroom Built on Kindness, in August to support her efforts to make her classroom “as useful, accessible and hands-on as possible.”

Entering her fifth year of teaching at a new school in a new district, Syed Khan knew she had to be more creative with the amount of classroom space she has, materials needed and the resources available.

Her campaign raised $1,920 in funds, which she used to purchase a spin-the-wheel device, a carpet for reading time, books for the classroom library and the classroom staple Better Than Paper.

“The [kids] want to touch everything, and they should be able to. It’s their room,” Syed Khan told Âé¶čŸ«Æ·.

Through sharing via family group chats, her husband’s LinkedIn account, word-of-mouth and other social media platforms, like and , Syed Khan said she “feels fortunate to have set up the fundraiser and leverage community support for her classroom.”

She plans to keep her fundraiser open to donations so she can continue to afford classroom activities and incentives with hopes to keep students engaged through the year.

“Students in this district suffer from chronic absenteeism, which may stem from lack of transportation, parents’ schedule or a lack of motivation for themselves,” Syed Khan said. “Classroom incentives, like parties at the end of the month, are a really big part of what I want to use the funds for next.”

Drawing from his own school experience, An said he understands that many of his students face challenges outside of the classroom. Bringing smaller tools and supplies like writing utensils and paper to class is not the first thing on their mind.

“That can be a real barrier for students to access what teachers are asking them to do,” An said. “Using the donations to directly address those barriers helps students stay engaged to do their best in the classroom.”

He used a portion of the donations he has raised to purchase a rolling cart that allows for easy access to classroom supplies.

An and Syed Khan hope their efforts inspire other teachers to overcome the fear of asking for help. For Syed Khan, it was difficult to find the right words for the campaign and the video she included to go along with it. She wanted to ensure her classroom needs were as clear as possible to potential donors.

“Trying to figure out what to say to grab people’s attention was the most challenging part,” Syed Khan said.

“It definitely wasn’t easy,” she said. “But when people see someone speaking and explaining what the funds will be used for, it can attract many people because they see a real human.”

An experienced similar doubts about asking for help. He credits his family for providing feedback on his campaign narrative and helping him to frame his message.

“My family and I went through a co-writing process to get the point across that this was me, just as a person, asking a personal favor of people who were available,” An said.

GoFundMe currently hosts webinars for educators and education-related organizations to help them learn how to effectively fundraise. They’ve also updated their with tips for teachers to share their campaign and keep communities engaged.

“Seeing more teachers turn to external sources of funding to help support their students’ needs is definitely eye-opening,” An said. “It highlights the fact that not as much care is funneled into education as I think it should be.”

With more than $680,000 in grant funding available this year for Arkansas schools and the launch of a volunteer program to help students complete new graduation requirements, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has brightened its spotlight on conservation education.

Both efforts help to build long-term support for conservation, which is one of the parameters the commission uses to measure its success, spokesperson Randy Zellers said.

“Right now there are boys and girls who want to know more about the outdoors, but their schools may not have the resources available to truly devote toward anything outside of core curriculum,” Zellers said. “These grants and volunteer opportunities give them the means to expand their educational offerings and capture the interest of some of those students.”

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

The $682,472 in available funding comes from boating and wildlife fines collected in fiscal year 2024 and any unspent money from schools in previous years. The funds stay within the county where the fines were collected and the .

The variance tends to correlate to the public recreation opportunities offered in each county, Zellers said.

Arkansas County, which includes Stuttgart, a renowned duck hunting destination, accrued the most fines at $36,170, according to the Game and Fish Commission. The next highest amount, $26,563, was collected in White County where bass, crappie, bream and catfish are popular catches in Bald Knob Lake.

“However, increased opportunity doesn’t always lead to an increase in wildlife violations or fine money collected,” Zellers said. “One egregious incident with a poacher being caught with multiple violations at once may result in thousands of dollars in fines on its own.”

In the coming weeks, applications for grants will be available through the , which is part of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development. Grants can be used to fund programs such as and .

The money can also be spent on projects like butterfly habitats and field trips to nature centers, hatcheries or wildlife management areas.

“The experience may vary from student to student, but teamwork, leadership and long-term commitment are all traits developed through conservation education opportunities,” Zellers said.

Approximately $537,000 was . Approved items included bee houses and hummingbird feeders for a pollinator garden at Dewitt Elementary school, construction materials for an outdoor classroom at a Bradley County school and animal skins, track and skull replicas in Franklin County.

Current applications are open through Oct. 3.

Volunteer program

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission also recently announced a new volunteer program aimed at helping high schools students complete 75 hours of community service hours, which is now a graduation requirement under the .

Along with many other changes the sweeping education law brought upon Arkansas schools last year, the LEARNS Act implemented a community service requirement for all students, unless they secure a waiver. Reasons for obtaining a waiver could include major illness, homelessness or if the student is a primary contributor to their household income.

, Arkansas Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Stacy Smith said the new graduation requirement would help students build pride in and connection to their communities.

Each district is allowed to define what community service can include, though the policy must be posted to the district website, require an adult to sign off on the student’s community service hours and include preparation, action and reflection components required for a student to receive credit.

The Arkansas Game and Fish program opens the door to students who are “interested in giving back to conservation as well as their community,” according to a press release. School district officials will need to to register for opportunities before students can participate.

“We’re trying to offer a variety of experiences so students can find something they can enjoy doing and feel like they contributed once the work is done,” said Leah Hughes, the commission’s volunteer program coordinator. “Having worked at many of our events myself, I can tell you that it can be so fun and fulfilling that you might have a hard time stopping at those minimum hours required.”

Volunteer opportunities will give students a peek into the everyday tasks of those who work for the commission with activities such as trail cleanups, fishing derbies and archery tournaments.

“Conservation education is paramount to the [commission’s] mission of conserving and enhancing wildlife and their habitats while promoting sustainable use, public understanding and support,” Zellers said. “It’s not just about hunting and fishing, but about all aspects of conservation, responsible water usage, understanding our role in the world around us and how what we do affects everything downstream from us.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

As school districts across Texas – including El Paso – prepare to set their budgets for the 2024-25 school year, many are expecting their expenses to outweigh their revenue, leaving them with a deficit.

Despite the state’s multi-billion dollar surplus, lawmakers failed to increase school funding during the 2023 legislative session after Gov. Greg Abbott tied public education dollars to a controversial voucher program that would have allowed parents to pay for private school using state funds.

Now with pandemic-era relief set to expire in September, districts are scrambling to address a budget crisis by cutting staff, closing schools and eliminating programs.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

Some like the have opted to ask voters to increase taxes through a bond measure, in the hopes of increasing enrollment and bringing in more revenue.

Others like the and independent school districts are tightening their belts by eliminating vacant positions and exploring ways to save money. The is looking into closing schools to avoid any future budgetary woes.

Most are unlikely to give raises to teachers or staff in the coming school year.

Most El Paso school districts are expected to approve their budgets for the 2024-25 school year in mid- to late June.

To find out more about how Texas school districts got into this situation, El Paso Matters spoke to two school finance experts: Tiffany Dunne-Oldfield, deputy executive director of the Texas Association of School Boards, and Bob Popinski, senior director of policy for Raise Your Hand Texas.

TASB is a nonprofit organization that provides assistance and training to school boards, and Raise Your Hand Texas is a statewide nonprofit focused on policy reform to improve public education.

El Paso Matters: Why are so many Texas schools expecting a budget deficit next school year?

Dunne-Oldfield: “Several factors are contributing to the rise in school district budget shortfalls as districts are preparing their budgets for next year. The Texas Legislature has not increased the basic allotment — the main component of student funding — since 2019, despite inflationary double-digit price increases.

In fact, legislators left almost $4 billion in additional funding on the table because they could not agree on a school voucher bill. That stagnant per-pupil funding coupled with new mandates, such as the requirement to have a commissioned peace officer on every campus, and ongoing funding shortages, like the statewide $2.3 billion gap in special education funding, are exacerbating school district budget woes.”

Popinski: “The legislature had the ability to change the funding structure of how much flowed to school districts last legislative session. They had $33 billion in surplus funds and another $24 billion in the rainy day fund. The legislature did not act on funding our schools up to the level that it needs to be.

Currently, we are ranked in the bottom 10 in the country in per student funding. That’s about $4,000 below the national average. We pay our teachers about $8,500 below the national average. 
 So all of that wrapped up is really the perfect storm for districts facing these big budget shortfalls. They’re having to adopt deficit budgets. They’re having to cut programs and in some cases, they’re having to shutter schools. While it’s different in every district it’s reaching almost everyone in the state.”

El Paso Matters: Why might a district with declining enrollment be expecting a deficit?

Dunne-Oldfield: “The state funds schools based on student average daily attendance. Fewer students means less funding. Districts seeing a decline in enrollment will be hit particularly hard by the state’s failure to help schools keep up with inflation, improve student safety measures, or adequately provide for students receiving special education services.

“Consider that school districts still need to keep the lights on, buses running, and their buildings clean and safe. There are certain operational and instructional expenses that don’t simply decrease because a district has fewer students.”

Popinski: “When districts are shaping their budgets like they are right now they have to staff their teachers and paraprofessionals based on how many students they think are going to attend. So they’re going to try to project what that enrollment is going to be and if that enrollment is off, they get less funding.

On average, it’s about $10,000 per student that our foundation school program funds. So if you lose 10 kids, if you’re a small district that’s $100,000 that your school district isn’t receiving in funding. That can be one or two teachers that you won’t be able to afford.”

El Paso Matters: How is the COVID-19 funding cliff affecting school district budgets?

Dunne-Oldfield: “Budget planning generally has been more difficult for school districts because of pandemic-related data anomalies connected to enrollment, attendance and the availability of time-limited (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding. The state also passed costly mandates for accelerated instruction as we came out of the pandemic, which has led to recurring costs even as the federal support for that instruction is expiring.”

Popinski: “School districts knew they needed to use (COVID-19) money for one-time expenses. A lot used it on HVAC upgrades or staffing for accelerated instruction. That funding goes away at the end of the school year, but it doesn’t mean the problems from the pandemic era go away as well.”

El Paso Matters: What can school districts do to reduce their deficits?

Dunne-Oldfield: “Because staff account for up to 85% of a district’s budget, it’s nearly impossible to navigate a challenging budget situation without reviewing staffing levels. They will likely balance staffing needs with instructional needs and generally work first to eliminate positions that have not been filled or will soon be vacant.”

Popinski: “There’s only a handful of ways that a school district can earn additional revenue through our funding system: that is to increase enrollment and average daily attendance, or it’s to increase the tax rate. To increase your tax rate you have to go out for an election, and some school districts don’t have any of that tax rate available to them. So there are very limited ways a school district can fix this budget shortfall issue.

“Some school districts are adopting that deficit budget and cutting programs at the same time. What impact is that going to have on academics and instruction for our kids as we go into next school year remains to be seen.”

El Paso Matters: What should lawmakers be doing to help?

Dunne-Oldfield: “It would be helpful for legislators to study how much it costs to educate a student, set the basic allotment at that number, and then set funding to increase automatically as inflation rises.”

Popinski: “The legislature can do a handful of things, including what they were called on to do last legislative session and increase the basic allotment. That basic allotment of $6,160 (per student) has not been increased since 2019. It would need to be a little north of $7,500 to keep up with that 22% inflationary increase since 2019.

“In addition to that, you can make sure that inflationary pressures never really get back to school districts by adding automatic inflationary adjustments so that when inflation does go up, that basic allotment goes up automatically as well.”

El Paso Matters: Can citizens do anything to help?

Dunne-Oldfield: “We’d encourage parents and families to talk with their elected officials about why fully funding our Texas public schools is so important to their local community and to the state as well.

Popinski: “Community members need to stay informed on why they are having to do these budget cuts at the school district level. Make sure that you understand what’s going on in the Texas Capitol come January 2025 because that’s where the funding will flow for our kids. Until that point, school districts are constrained.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A six-week bench trial over Wyoming’s school funding formula is underway in a Cheyenne courtroom. 

The heart of the case — whether the state is meeting its constitutional obligation to fund education — is dense and complicated. A parade of witnesses is anticipated to testify on topics ranging from major maintenance projects to school lunches, campus security and staffing. 

The outcome could have a bearing on the mechanisms by which Wyoming funds everything from teacher salaries to deferred maintenance in its 48 school districts. With nearly two years elapsed since the lawsuit was filed, WyoFile offers this refresher on Wyoming’s school funding model and what’s in the current lawsuit.

How we got here

The Wyoming Education Association, an educator advocacy group with 6,000 members, filed the 71-page lawsuit in August 2022. Eight school districts joined the lawsuit as intervenors to challenge the state. 

The suit claims the state of Wyoming has violated its constitution by failing to adequately fund public schools and has withheld appropriate funding at the expense of educational excellence, safety and security. That has left districts to fend for themselves and divert funds from other crucial educational activities, which causes further systemic erosion, the suit contends. 

Article 7 of the Wyoming Constitution states that the Legislature “shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction.” Landmark court cases further delineated the state’s obligations in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The more recent of those, the Campbell cases, set the stage for Wyoming’s current school funding obligations. Those cases culminated in 1995 when the  to determine the cost of a high-quality education, fund public schools, adjust funding at least every two years for inflation and review the components of the school funding model every five years to ensure resources are keeping pace with needs and costs. 

The court required the Legislature “to consider education as a paramount priority over all other considerations.” Its determination gave rise to a funding framework defined by two key ideas: the “basket of goods” — the skills and subjects students are required to learn, as well as “recalibration” — the process by which the Legislature reviews and adjusts its funding model. 

The Wyoming Education Association was an intervening party to that suit. 

What’s in the current suit

The 2022 complaint essentially contends that in the years following the Campbell cases, the state has failed to meet its school funding obligations. It’s done so by not granting periodic external cost adjustments and allocating insufficient funds to match necessary funding levels, the suit alleges. 

That includes teacher, administrator and support personnel salaries.

“In 2010, that teacher salary advantage was approximately 25% above the average of surrounding states and Wyoming districts competed well for the best teachers,” the suit reads. “Due to the failure to keep the model adjusted for inflation, that advantage has disappeared, and Wyoming districts not only cannot compete for high-quality teachers, but in a number of instances, Wyoming districts cannot compete to hire anyone for some positions.”

Wyoming districts have also been unable to “provide necessary support services for students; have delayed purchase of new textbooks, equipment, technology and other essentials; have cut back on activities and opportunities for students; and, in some cases, even eliminated programs,” the suit reads. 

Along with impacting the state’s stable of teachers, the underfunding has led to deteriorating levels of safety and security as well as the continued use of unsuitable facilities with unmet maintenance needs, according to the suit.

Moreover, the suit alleges, the failure to fund schools is not based on inability — “rather, it is ultimately a result of the lack of political will to follow the clear constitutional mandate.”

The suit also alleged that Wyoming has used several consultants to conduct its “recalibration” studies, but “ in turn when the consultants’ recommendations included increased funding.

“The level of funding for the model currently being provided is actually far below the funding level recommendations of the Legislature’s own consultants when the model was studied as part of ‘recalibration,’” the suit reads. “In reality, even those studies seriously understated the actual cost of education.”

Intervening school districts in the current case include Albany County School District No. 1; Campbell County School District No. 1; Carbon County School District No. 1; Laramie County School District No. 1; Lincoln County School District No. 1; Sweetwater County School District No. 1; Sweetwater County School District No. 2; and Uinta County School District No. 1.

Current spending

State education spending has increased from $443 million, or $4,372 per student in 1985, to $1.5 billion, or $16,751 per student, in 2022, according to the Legislative Service Office. 

Increases can be tied to many factors, including a growing number of students requiring special education services, increasing technology needs and rising inflation. 

Wyoming’s low population and rural nature also contribute to it having some of the highest per-pupil spending in the nation. 

Legal moves 

In December 2022, the Laramie County District Court denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.  

Then in 2023, Wyoming asked the Wyoming Supreme Court to intervene in the case regarding the level of scrutiny appropriate for determining the outcome. The Supreme Court upheld the district court’s decision that “strict scrutiny” shall be applied, denying the state’s petition for a lesser standard. 

On May 1, Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Froelicher denied the state’s motion for partial summary, sending the case to trial. 

Six weeks 

The trial kicked off Monday in Laramie County District Court with opening arguments and plaintiff testimony. Over the first two days, plaintiffs’ witnesses provided testimony regarding unfilled district positions, salary adjustments, how schools qualify for major construction projects and curricula. Witnesses included WEA President Grady Hutcherson, who spent 24 years teaching in a classroom, as well as district employees like superintendents and human resource managers. 

One of the outcomes plaintiffs seek is that the court grant “retroactive relief” to districts for “a reasonable amount of the funding that should have been delivered to them to date.”

The court is broadcasting the trial live, find the stream 

The was originally published on .

With one legislative session finished and the next about eight months away, Alabama legislators will spend the time in-between deciding whether to develop an entirely new school funding formula.

The House and Senate committees that oversee the Education Trust Fund (ETF), the state’s education budget, held a joint meeting Tuesday to begin discussions about potential changes to the current public K-12 education funding formula.

“It has been 30 years since we changed our funding formula for education, and a lot has changed in the past 30 years,” said Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, the chair of the House Ways and Means Education Committee, in an interview after the meeting. “We are one of six states out of 50 that continues to fund the way we are funding, on a resource-model basis, so we are looking at what other options we have that would be better suited to that.”

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

It is the first in a series of meetings aimed at providing members an education on the workings of Alabama’s Foundation Program, the in the ETF which provides funding for schools around the state.

Many states fund their schools using a student-based model, one that takes into greater account not only the number of students within a given school system, but also the students’ composition, such as whether they are English Language learners or someone with special needs.

Under Alabama’s current formula, in place since 1995, the number of students creates a certain number of teacher units. That number of teacher units then becomes the basis of much of the funding.

At a recent State Board of Education work session, State Superintendent Eric Mackey had defined the school as a “hybrid program” rather than a true foundation program because those units are the basis of funding.

“You get what you get based on the number of units,” he said.

Connecticut, Kansas, California, Tennessee, Maryland and Texas have all moved to a weighted student funding formula in the last decade.

Members discussed not only the funding formula, but also underfunding of schools in lower-income communities with significant minority populations; the role of economic development incentives and their effect on school funding, and the lack of funding for special needs students.

Kirk Fulford, deputy director of the Legislative Services Agency, provided lawmakers with an overview of the Foundation Program.

The amount that schools receive is based on a unit count. The state takes the average number of students enrolled in the school or school system for the 20 days following Labor Day. The number is then divided by the divisor, set by the Legislature for the number of students within a set of grade levels.

If a school has 100 students, and the divisor for K-3 grades is 14.25, the school or school district has a unit count for K-3 grade teachers of 7.01. That is then converted to dollars based on the salary schedule that is set.

The number of principals, assistant principals and counselors for a school is also calculated based on units, and the amount of Foundation Program funding for the school is converted by multiplying that unit count by the money per unit decided by legislators.

Other types of funding are added to the Foundation Program allocation for schools, from transportation expenses to additional money specifically for math and science teachers along with special education.

Money to fund the cost determined for each district is shared between municipalities and the state. The formula is designed so that more affluent locations pay a greater share of the cost than those whose residents are lower income.

Local governments must set property taxes at a minimum of 10 mills in order to receive money from the Foundation Program.

For the coming year, the state portion of the ETF for K-12 schools, including the Foundation Program; transportation, and programs run through the Alabama State Department of Education, is about $5.5 billion. The local fund portion is about $831.5 million.

The amount in local property taxes collected for the school system will vary by the assessed value of the properties within the school system’s boundaries. Poorer areas will generate less tax revenues than more prosperous ones.

Lowndes County, for example, an area with a significantly lower-income population, paid roughly $1.3 million into the Foundation program. Mountain Brook, a wealthy suburb of Birmingham, paid about $7.3 million to the Foundation Program.

School districts with wealthier populations tend to record higher scores on standardized tests, according to an analysis based on FY21-22 spending and School Year 2022-23 scores

The local allocation has irritated some lawmakers who work to increase their economic development to increase school funding, only to have their state allocation reduced, leaving them net neutral.

“We always were under the impression that, ‘Wow, we bring in industry, and they pay $200,000 of property taxes to our schools,’” said Rep. Troy Stubbs, R-Wetumpka, who used to be on the Elmore County Commission. “We felt like we were improving our local schools because we were bringing in more money. However, Elmore County is only a participant in our Foundation Program with our 10 mills. We do not have any local funding. Because of that, all we were really doing was lowering the amount that the state contributed to Elmore County.”

In Tennessee, which moved to a weighted student funding formula in recent years, school districts were required to keep funding at previous levels, The state provided overall more funding to the education budget so that districts received more money by numbers, even if the share they received from the state lowered.

Garrett that the Educational Opportunities Reserve Fund, created in the 2022 regular legislative session, could be used in shifting the funding formula.

Schools receive additional funding for specific students, such as those with special needs, from the Foundation Program. The formula automatically factors in the number of students who have special needs at 5%. The unit count is then weighted up to 2.5 for those students to give schools additional dollars for more resources.

Currently, the sole adaptation in the formula is headcount, and doesn’t incorporate the specific needs of some in schools, one that is based on each student, might.

“We know the cost to educate a special needs child is, far and away, more than the average child,” said Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, the chair of the Senate’s education budget committee. “The cost to educate an English Language Learner is much more than an average Alabama child. Following the trend, or at least looking at the other states who have gone down this road, seeing if we want to consider changing our funding model, how we fund based on a type of student instead of just a student.”

The committees plan to resume the discussions at an August meeting.

Reporter Jemma Stephenson contributed to this story.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

Families who use Alaska’s homeschool program will soon have clarity on how they may spend their allotments of state education money.

Lawmakers directed Alaska’s Board of Education and Early Development to write temporary regulations for the state’s correspondence school program that comply with the state’s constitution on Wednesday night. The law also requires that the education department begin to for the first time in a decade. It was approved unanimously by both the House and Senate.

The move comes after a Superior Court ruling found two components of the laws that govern the state’s correspondence program to be in April, which left the families of more than 22,000 students for curriculum, tutoring and physical education. The state has appealed the decision; the Supreme Court scheduled the hearing for June 25.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

Lon Garrison, director of Alaska Association of School Boards, said the advocacy group supports the new law. “It is simple and similar to what existed prior to 2014,” he said by text on Wednesday. He referred to the year then-Sen. Mike Dunleavy changed state law to allow families to spend homeschool allotments on materials from private and religious institutions — the pieces of statute a judge found to violate constitutional prohibitions against spending state money on private education.

House Education Committee Co-Chair Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, initially proposed the language in and said his office worked into the wee hours of the morning to get approval between the bodies without drama and contention. “I think it’s a good fix,” Ruffridge said after the Senate approved it. “I think it’ll be important to come back next time around and continue to take up the question,” he added.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the education department signaled support for the bill.

Its language was rolled into a widely supported bill to require in schools in a late-session amendment.

Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Löki Tobin said she supports the change “cautiously” with the recognition that lawmakers have more work to do to make the programs viable after a Supreme Court decision.

The law does not include some changes in the Senate’s proposal.

Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, told lawmakers that unspent homeschool allotment money would rollover to the next year and that students would not be required to take standardized tests. Those items generated pushback from families that use the program.

“I would hope that homeschool students would like to show off and showcase what they know and how much they know,” he said. State data shows less than 20% of correspondence school students choose to take standardized tests, which has led to questions about how well the programs work.

Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, underlined two popular effects of the fix that led to the compromise: “It is important to have stability and the removal of the disruption and anxiety for the families. But I also selfishly appreciate the fact that this will avoid a special session.”

Alaska Beacon reporter James Brooks contributed reporting to this story.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com. Follow Alaska Beacon on and .

Democratic lawmakers in Harrisburg took the first steps last week to provide $5.1 billion in new funding for Pennsylvania public schools to close a gap between the wealthiest and poorest districts that a court last year declared unconstitutional.

The legislation in the state House, proposed by Rep. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster), follows the recommendation of a bipartisan commission on education funding to comply with a Commonwealth Court judge’s order to fix the education funding system.

The General Assembly has a constitutional imperative to end the funding disparity starting with the 2024-25 budget, Democratic lawmakers say.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

“The judiciary has spoken and we have a responsibility to address the unconstitutional nature of our education system,” House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) told the Capital-Star on Monday. “For me, I don’t know how we can deal with anything else without dealing with that.”

But Harris’ Republican counterpart on the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), criticized the proposed legislation for not including revenue to pay for the plan. Grove said he also believes resetting the system through zero-based budgeting is the answer.

“Nothing in the Commonwealth Court ruling says we need more money,” Grove said.

House Democrats have a narrow one-vote majority and are likely to pass a budget that reflects their legislative priorities. But Republicans who control the state Senate fired an opening shot in budget negotiations last week clearly signaling their intention to slash Gov. Josh Shapiro’s $48.8 billion spending plan.

On May 7, the upper chamber passed a bipartisan reduction in the personal income tax and eliminated the tax on electricity that would add up to an estimated in revenue.

The Senate also took steps to to provide tax dollars of up to $10,000 for private school tuition. An impasse over the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) program stalled budget negotiations for nearly six months last year.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) in a statement Monday noted that the General Assembly has provided record increases in funding in the last two budgets. In 2022, the Legislature approved a $525 million increase, but less than the $1.25 billion Gov. Tom Wolf proposed in his final budget. Last year, lawmakers agreed on a $567 million increase; Shapiro had proposed a $900 million in his first budget.

“There are 500 school districts across the commonwealth, and each have their own definition of what fair funding means. Both the majority and minority Basic Education Funding Commission reports did reach agreement on formula modifications to provide predictability and stability to school districts,” Pittman said, adding, “we will continue to look for ways to reach common ground and respect taxpayers as part of this year’s budget.”

The fair funding proposal in Sturla’s forthcoming legislation is the product of more than a decade of litigation and days of hearings by the Basic Education Funding Commission, which include lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate and members of Shapiro’s cabinet.

“Nothing in this piece of legislation should come as a surprise to anybody,” House Education Committee Chairperson Peter Schweyer (D-Lehigh) said. “It is the work that the legislature has been doing ever since the fair funding decision came down.”

Commonwealth Court President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer said in a that the General Assembly has not fulfilled its legal mandate and has deprived students in school districts with low property values and incomes of the same resources and opportunities as children in wealthier ones.

The funding commission found that 371 of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts have an adequacy gap, meaning they spend less than $13,704 per pupil. That’s the median per pupil spending by the districts that meet the state’s academic performance standards.

The decision, which lawmakers chose not to appeal, followed a four-month trial in a lawsuit filed in 2014 by a group of parents and school districts who claimed the state had failed the state Constitution’s mandate to provide a thorough and efficient system of public education.

Cohn Jubelirer, a conservative judge, did not instruct the General Assembly on how to fix the system, leaving the solution for the Legislature and executive branch to determine.

Last year, the Basic Education Funding Commission held dozens of hearings across the state where students, parents, educators, and administrators spoke about the challenges and deprivation they faced in the state’s neediest districts, both urban and rural.

In January, the commission voted 8-7, largely along party lines, to adopt a report that determined there is a $5.4 billion gap between what schools receive now and adequate funding as determined by the spending of the state’s most academically successful schools.

The $5.4 billion figure includes $291 million that is the responsibility of school districts that have lower taxes despite less-than-adequate funding. The remaining $5.1 billion is the state’s responsibility.

Sturla’s bill would also include $1 billion in tax relief over the next seven years for districts that have hiked taxes in an effort to generate adequate funding, money to reset the baseline funding that all school districts receive, and it would reform to provide several hundred million in savings for school districts.

“This is a very comprehensive piece of legislation,” Schweyer said.

Republican budget maven Grove said the proposal doesn’t include the property tax increase and fails to provide a revenue source other than the state’s reserves. Shapiro’s office has projected that the state’s surplus and rainy day fund will total $14 billion at the end of this fiscal year on June 30.

“I’d actually like to thank them for being honest 
 on how much they want to spend over the next seven years,” Grove said of the Democratic plan. “If they want to spend the money over the next seven years it needs to come with a tax increase.”

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Education Law Center, said Grove’s assertion that the Commonwealth Court order doesn’t require the state to spend more is incorrect.

“What they’re hanging that on is this line [from the decision] that the remedy doesn’t need to be entirely financial,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said, adding that the ruling identified deficiencies in funding that affected the ability of districts to provide sufficient staff, instruments of learning and safe and modern schools.

Harris, the House Democrats’ chief budget negotiator, said he is open to proposals from House and Senate Republicans.

“If there is another proposal that they have to address the Commonwealth Court ruling, we would love to see it. We can talk about that,” he said.

But faced with an obligation to Pennsylvania’s students and the possibility of additional litigation if the Legislature fails to act, Harris said doing nothing is not an option.

“This is not a nice-to-have. This is a must-do,” Harris said.

(This article was updated at 2:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 14, 2024, to include a statement from Sen. Majority Leader Joe Pittman.)

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

The extra money changed her life. She enrolled in the to begin the process of purchasing her own home in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, where she lives now in an apartment with her partner and three boys. She can now pay her rent and her bills on time. One of her children has an autism diagnosis, and she has been able to purchase therapy aids for him, such as noise-canceling headphones and a weighted blanket, and she enrolled him in swim classes. She can afford gas for her car without any stress – which matters since she travels an hour each way for work.

Ashley Ross also saw a drastic pay bump. She has worked in child care for over 15 years and has seen a number of small salary bumps, including a several thousand increase after she received her associate degree through a specialized program, which allowed her to work and go to school simultaneously. But even after a decade of teaching and the extra credentials, Ross made a salary of $51,000, which made it hard for her to support herself and three children. When the D.C. Pay Equity Fund bumped up her salary, she made $63,000 a year, with her bimonthly take-home pay moving from $1,500 to more than $2,000 per pay period.

“Once this started, everything changed for me,” Ross said. She can easily pay her water bill and electricity bill, and she no longer receives threatening notices to have either turned off. She can pay the internet bill, so her 10-year-old can do homework. She no longer has to rely on her fiancĂ©e to pay an extra portion of the bills. She has more money for groceries, and can buy fresh food, such as whole grain pasta and organic yogurt instead of the cheapest options, like white noodles and mac and cheese. The healthier food is especially important for her 4-year-old daughter who has been diagnosed as pre-diabetic.  When Ross’s daughter wants to go to a bounce house or out for ice cream, she has enough discretionary income to say yes. “I don’t have to tell her to wait until next week when Mommy gets paid.”

For child care workers all over the District of Columbia, the D.C. Pay Equity Fund, the $75 million program that allows early-child care educators to be paid similar salaries to their D.C. public school counterparts, has been “life-changing” and “shocking” and “gave me room to breathe” as described by educators when explaining what the salary difference did for themselves and their families.

At the time of its inception, the D.C. Pay Equity program was and supporting in this role, . Washington, D.C. was in the child care landscape, investing tens of millions of dollars into a child care system, including direct payments to providers and child care centers so that staff could be paid a livable wage. But Mayor Muriel Bowser’s would zero-out the Pay Equity Fund. (Washington, D.C. is one of the rare jurisdictions in the country to offer pre-K3 and pre-K4, ). If the budget goes through with those existing cuts in place, teachers who received a pay bump through the D.C. Pay Equity Fund will now see a drastic pay cut in its place.

Note:

Noah Hichenberg runs the Gan HaYeled Preschool at Adas Israel Congregation, where Briyana Holloway and Ashley Ross work. The D.C. Pay Equity funds have been “a total game changer” for his staff, allowing the school to recruit and retain teachers and show a level of respect for the profession and difficulty of the job, which has long been seen as separate from traditional public school teachers. Hichenberg says that 90-95% of the tuition revenue he gets from families goes to paying his staff, and even though the Gan doesn’t pay rent or mortgage for the building space they use in the Adas Israel Synagogue, they still cannot afford to pay their teachers the higher wages without the D.C. Pay Equity funds.

Without the funds, Hichenberg would have offered a new employee applying for a job a starting salary in the high 30,000s or low 40,000s. “It really diminishes anyone wanting to apply for these jobs,” he said. But the D.C. Pay Equity Fund came with mandatory levels of which to pay early childhood educators, aligning with their education level and role as a lead or assistant teacher. The fund was able to lift salaries for both new hires and existing employees, and Hinchenberg said many of his teachers were motivated to receive additional accreditation to reach that higher salary level.

For an employee like Holloway, with a bachelor’s degree and as a lead teacher, she now makes over $75,000. “Everyone has been in awe of this program,” Hichenberg said, referring to the other preschool directors and members of the early education field who have been aware of the innovative and transformative nature of the D.C. Pay Equity Fund program. “No one else pays their teachers $75,000.” Hichenberg says he has the most stable workforce he’s ever had this past school year, along with happier teachers since they have less financial stress at home.

But if the Fund goes away, as the budget is slated to zero out? Hichenberg doesn’t know how he can afford to keep the teachers, or how he can expect them to weather such a pay cut.

“To take this away now is cruel and callous,” said Hichenberg. “It’s far worse than not having attempted it in the first place.”

***

The D.C. Pay Equity Fund came out of the D.C. Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force, which was in 2021 during the pandemic with the goal of finding ways to disburse funds from the District’s . This was one of many programs that state and local governments to the stress on child care providers that the pandemic had exacerbated. Hichenberg explained that when D.C.’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education first unveiled the program to educators, they reiterated multiple times to educators that “there is no sunset on this legislation” and it would exist in perpetuity. But it’s a piece of legislation, so politicians can still kill it, he explained. The goal had been to make early childhood educators’ compensation more equitable with people who worked in D.C. public school early childhood — including DCPS pre-K3 and pre-K4 teachers — the same job that Ross has, though she works at a private child care center. But the DCPS contracts are union-negotiated, so not eligible for cuts in the Mayor’s budget.

Neidia Ramsay-Swann has been working at the Gan for 8 years, and the salary bump under the D.C. Pay Equity Fund meant she no longer had to take on a second job to pay her bills. Under her previous salary, Ramsay-Swan picked up jobs over the weekends babysitting or caring for the elderly. When the synagogue needed weekend or holiday coverage, she volunteered to work to make the extra money. “But that took time away from my own family just to fill in that gap,” she said.

Ramsay-Swan had enrolled in the same associate degree program that Ashley Ross attended, and got a small bump to $47,000 per year after earning her degree. But after the D.C. Pay Equity raises, her income jumped to $63,000. For the first time that she can remember, she had money to put in her savings account. She could cover her own expenses without relying on her husband. “Now I can do it by myself. Which is like freedom. Who needs a man?” she asks, laughing.

The extra money meant Ramsay-Swan could help her daughter, who was pregnant and out of a job, pay her rent. And she’s saved enough to take a trip of her own this July, to Jamaica to visit her mother.  Her face brightens when she explains that she hasn’t been to Jamaica in 30 years, and hasn’t seen her mother since 2007. “It’s been a really long time,” she said.

But if the program is cut, “It’s going to be sad,” she says. “You hear in life that you aren’t supposed to go backwards, only forwards. If the money stops, it’s going to be a lot of going backwards, a lot of planning, things you shouldn’t have to worry about again.”

LaVonda Butler-Means has worked at the Gan for six years, and the D.C. Pay Equity salary bump took her from $43,000 per year to the $50,000s. She no longer chooses between groceries and gas to get to work — though Butler-Means says it was never a real choice, gas won because “of course I am going to come to work.” The extra money has allowed her to breathe, she explains, and enroll her two kids in extracurricular activities — gymnastics and swimming for her daughter and football and basketball for her son – though she is looking into soccer options for him as well.

The extra money allowed her to get caught up on her bills. “I had to play catch up from a long time ago, but I’m caught up,” she said. She can pay for school activities, for the book fair, for the small things her kids need and ask for. This year, when the Gan is closed for its spring break, Butler-Means and her family are going to Williamsburg, Virginia, for their first vacation in over a year. But her kids have gotten used to their activities, and Butler-Means recognizes she may have to pull them if the funds get cut. “I don’t like to tell them no, but if I don’t have it, I don’t have it,” she said.

Hichenberg says there is no winning path for his child care center if the D.C. Pay Equity funds go away. “I don’t have a waiting list of potential employees,” he says. “[These teachers] are going to walk away from the job because they can’t afford their lifestyles, and they aren’t flashy.” He doesn’t know if he can find someone to teach who can make $38,000 a year, and without the adequate number of staff, they can’t serve the families unless they raise tuition further. Yet D.C. has some of the in the country, and the Gan charges families $34,000 a year for full day, year-round child care, with a discount to $30,000 for members of the synagogue. “I don’t see how the whole operation sustains itself through this,” he said.

For the teachers, the uncertainty itself is harrowing. LaVonda Butler-Means tries to keep her kids from worrying about it. “Your kids are not supposed to know that you are actually struggling,” she said. But if the funds go away, “it will be a downward spiral for us.” Briyana Holloway is worried that she may no longer qualify for the home ownership program. She has the documentation now to prove she can provide the monthly mortgage payment, “but I can only prove this up until the program is taken away. I don’t know where I stand after that, honestly,” she said. Neidia Ramsay-Swan feels she’s already gotten “two strokes of good luck” – the associate degree program and then the pay bump. “But now it’s about to change,” she said.

Ashley Ross knows she may need to consider other options if the D.C. Pay Equity Funds cuts happen, but she doesn’t want to. She has worked in early childhood education her entire adult life. She loves the work but feels the role is chronically under-appreciated, especially when programs like the D.C. Pay Equity Fund cuts threaten to take away the financial cushion her family has been given. “We don’t give teachers enough credit,” Ross said. “Parents love us of course. They need us to be able to work, and they trust that their children are safe with us. But we work really, really hard and we should be paid,” she said. “We are due for more shine.”

A good old game of one-upmanship could break out between the House and Senate over which chamber is going to commit to more education funding. That would be welcome news for educators, who, like everyone else, have been beset with inflation and higher costs for their schools.

The House wants to rewrite the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which is the objective formula that determines the amount of state funds needed to provide the basics to operate an adequate school district. The House plan has many features supported by public education advocates but many of those advocates are concerned that the rewrite does not include an objective formula, but instead depends on a committee of education professionals to make recommendations to the Legislature on the amount of money needed.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

The House has passed an appropriations bill to pump an additional $250 million into K-12 education — perhaps in an effort to garner support for the rewrite.

The Senate wants to make changes to the Adequate Education Program, but maintain the objective formula. With the Senate changes to MAEP, it will take about $210 million more than appropriated by the 2023 Legislature to fully fund the formula, and Senate leaders have committed to doing that.

If MAEP is fully funded this session, it would be the first time since 2007 and only the second time since it was fully enacted in 2003.

The bottom line is that under the worst case scenario, K-12 education should receive an additional $210 million under the early Senate plan. It should be pointed out that the Senate has not actually taken up its budget for education like the House has. So presumably, the Senate could opt to make additional “tweaks” to the MAEP and increase the amount of money needed to fully fund it.

Actually, there is a scenario that could be worse for education. Many members of the House leadership are so opposed to continuing the MAEP that there could be a scenario where they would refuse to put any additional money into education if the Senate does not agree to scrap the current school funding formula.

The House and Senate have a history of trying to outdo the other in terms of education funding. In 2000, newly-elected Gov. Ronnie Musgrove was advocating increasing teacher pay to the Southeastern average over a multi-year period. It looked as though Musgrove’s key campaign promise was going down in flames during his opening legislative session as governor.

Both presiding officers, Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck in the Senate and House Speaker Tim Ford, said the state could not afford the massive pay increase. But late in the process, Tuck held a news conference without informing Ford and announced her support for a teacher pay raise.

Ford, who was traveling back from Alabama, was blindsided by Tuck’s reversal. But not to be outdone by Tuck, Ford met with the media upon returning to the Capitol to announce that moving teacher pay to the Southeastern average might not be enough. He said it was time to consider reaching the national average.

The pay raise passed that session did not reach Ford’s stated goal, but it remains the state’s largest percentage increase in teacher pay.

In 2000, as that pay raise was being considered and ultimately passed, revenue was tight because of a national recession. It was difficult to make that commitment.

This year, the state’s fiscal condition is much stronger thanks to a number of factors, primarily the unprecedented amount of federal funds that were pumped into the state to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, in recent months, state revenue has significantly slowed. That slowdown continued during the most recent revenue report for the month of February.

But the state’s fiscal condition still appears strong enough to achieve the stated goals of legislators to increase education funding — and perhaps even to try to outdo each other.

But there are some other headwinds. Besides the continuing slowdown in collections, many legislators, including Lt. Gov. Hosemann, have indicated that the Legislature might need to pump additional funds into the Public Employees Retirement System that provides a pension or retirement benefits to about 350,000 current and former state and local government workers and school employees. The governing board of PERS has said the additional funds are needed from the Legislature to ensure the financial stability of the pension program.

There have been estimates that an additional $350 million on an annual basis is needed.

Additional funds for PERS could make it difficult to provide more money for education.

Plus, if Gov. Tate Reeves prevails on eliminating the income tax, which accounts for about one-third of state general fund revenue, increasing funding for education would get much tougher.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

In the four years since New Hampshire legalized sports betting and teamed up with DraftKings, the partnership has contributed $100 million to public education, according to the New Hampshire Lottery. It’s one of several games run by the Lottery that contributes to the Education Trust Fund.

“We are extremely proud of the work we have done to establish New Hampshire as the premier destination for sports betting in the Northeast,” said Charlie McIntyre, executive director of New Hampshire Lottery, in a statement. “We encourage our New Hampshire players to continue placing responsible bets and we are excited for many more years of winning big!”

State revenues across all games, including instant scratch tickets, keno, and historic horse racing, generated an increase of $43 million, or 29.3 percent, last year to the Education Trust Fund, according to Lottery’s .

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

Sports betting is among the Lottery’s newest games, opening its first retail sports book at The Brook in Seabrook, followed by Filotimo in Manchester and Dover, and the Gate City Casino in Nashua.

In the four years since the launch of sports betting, New Hampshire players have wagered more than $2.71 billion, according to the Lottery.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on and .

A bill requiring public schools to raise teacher pay with no promise of new state funding passed a legislative committee Wednesday in Pierre.

Nobody testified against , but several lobbyists representing the education community called it a work in progress.

“It is not a perfect bill, but a compromise that will hopefully help us attract new teachers and retain the current, experienced teachers, and bring quality education to the students in the state of South Dakota,” said Dianna Miller, a lobbyist for the Large School Group.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

The legislation would set a statewide minimum teacher salary of $45,000, beginning July 1, 2026. That minimum standard would increase each year by a percentage equal to the annual increase in state education funding approved by the Legislature and governor.

The bill would also require schools to raise their average teacher compensation — including pay and benefits — by percentages equal to annual increases in state funding. That requirement would begin with the 2025 fiscal year.

Gov. Kristi Noem, for not matching teacher pay increases with state aid increases, a 4% increase in education funding for the next state budget.

School districts that fail to meet the bill’s requirements could suffer a $500-per-teacher deduction in state education funding. But they could also request a waiver and work with the state School Finance Accountability Board to come into compliance.

Because the bill depends on future legislative decisions to increase state funding, a lobbyist for schools said it will spread the responsibility for teacher salaries beyond local school boards. Schools rely not only on state funding, but also on federal funding and local property tax revenue.

“Let’s make no mistake: This does create some shared responsibility now with the Legislature, because as we move forward, it’s going to be the responsibility of the Legislature to help fund education,” said Mitch Richter, lobbyist for the South Dakota United Schools Association.

Richter said some small, rural schools with stagnant or declining enrollment might be unable to meet the bill’s requirements. State funding for individual schools is tied to enrollment, so schools with declining enrollment may not receive the full benefit of annual increases in state aid. He said some of those rural schools might be forced to consolidate.

“We’ll have to come up with a plan for that, because those districts are going to need some help,” Richter said.

Miller said the bill could also cause difficulties for larger schools with declining enrollment, possibly causing them to use reserve funds to raise teacher pay.

According to the National Education Association, South Dakota ranks (out of 51, due to the inclusion of Washington, D.C.).

That’s despite the passage of a half-percentage-point increase in the state sales tax rate to raise teacher salaries. The legislation sent an infusion of money to schools that pushed South Dakota up a few places in national teacher pay rankings, but the state has slipped in the rankings since then. Last year, legislators and Gov. Noem from 4.5% to 4.2%.

Joe Graves, head of the state Department of Education, said this year’s bill is a continuation of the work that started in 2016. He called the bill a “rock solid step forward in ensuring enhanced compensation for our state’s teachers.”

Graves said the bill includes some provisions to help schools meet the requirements. For example, a provision that was amended into the bill Wednesday would allow school boards to roll some of their excess average compensation forward to future years.

“Districts, in other words, can exceed one year’s increase, in order to have already made progress on future increases,” Graves said.

The House Education Committee voted to send the bill to the House of Representatives. Rep. Phil Jensen, R-Rapid City, and Rep. Stephanie Sauder, R-Bryant, cast the two no votes.

Jensen referenced Rapid City school officials’ inability to win voter approval of bond financing for construction projects, which has made it difficult for the district to maintain its facilities.

“I’m afraid that this would just be disastrous for the Rapid City schools along with all the smaller schools,” Jensen said.

Sauder said the legislation would cause some schools to eliminate teaching positions and combine classrooms.

“It just doesn’t iron out the wrinkles that need to be taken care of before we move forward,” she said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been altered since its original publication with language to clarify the effect of 2016 legislation on teacher pay.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on and .

Washington House lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill to increase special education funding by another $185 million in the coming years.

While the funding is in line with a request from Gov. Jay Inslee, critics say it does not go far enough.

But legislative leaders, including majority Democrats, have concerns about how further increases could strain the state budget and whether removing limits on funding could open the door for some schools to claim more money than they need.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

will allow up to 17.25% of a district’s population to receive funding for support services like speech therapy and instructional aides. The Legislature increased that cap from 13.5% to 15% last year. In other words, if 20% of a district’s population requires special education services, the district cannot get additional money for the remaining 5%.

According to the , the state will spend about $28.6 million more on special education in the 2023-2025 budget, $76.5 million from 2025-2027 and $80 million from 2027-2029.

Even if the bill is approved, lawmakers would separately need to provide money in the budget for the proposed increase and if they don’t, the policy would not take effect.

Democratic Rep. Gerry Pollet of Seattle, chief sponsor of HB 2180, said “it’s unconscionable and probably unconstitutional” that Washington does not fund special education for every child who needs it.

Chris Reykdal, Washington’s chief education official, that the cap on funding breaks federal law. The cap is particularly burdensome on rural districts with smaller budgets, like Ocean Beach, would qualify for special education funding should the cap be removed.

Lawmakers from both parties have repeatedly called on the Legislature to end the cap entirely. But during the House floor debate, it was Republican lawmakers who forcefully decried it, including Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, who introduced an amendment to remove the cap.

Couture, who has children with disabilities, said removing the cap would be “mere pennies” for the Legislature.

“I have to go home tonight and look my kids in the eyes and talk to families just like mine who go through the hell of IEP meetings and trying to get services and supports that are so desperately under-resourced,” said Couture, referring to individualized education plan meetings for special education students.

“At least I think I can go back tonight and look at them and say I tried everything that I could,” Couture said. “To me, it just seems like the reason that this did not occur is because it was my idea.”

Although Pollet has led the effort to remove the cap on special education in past years, he asked fellow lawmakers to vote against Couture’s amendment, saying his original bill would provide funding faster.

“Let’s do the best we can right away,” he said.

Last year, Pollet’s to gradually lift the cap before fully removing it by 2027-2028 was amended before passage to set the 15% limit that’s now in place.

Democratic leadership said they plan to support school funding in other ways, such as increasing compensation for paraeducators.

Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, said removing the cap would require reductions elsewhere in the state budget, and he welcomes Republican input on what should be cut.

“[Republicans] think they can fund everything without cutting anything,” Billig said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .

Several national organizations tied to higher education have asked colleges and universities to delay their usual May enrollment deadlines to accommodate students who will not begin to receive their financial aid packages until March as a result of FAFSA delays.

The nine organizations, which include the National College Attainment Network and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, or NASFAA, sent their  Wednesday to give students and their families more time to consider financial aid offers and decide where – or if – to attend college.

The news that application information, the data institutions use to determine the amount of financial aid a student will receive, would not be available for another four weeks – at least – concerned these groups. During a normal cycle, colleges and universities would begin to receive that information in October. This year, the information initially was expected in January.

In their joint statement, the groups encouraged schools to give some latitude to students and families as they consider their offers of admission and financial aid due to the continued delays with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, applicant data.

“During the pandemic, many institutions extended their enrollment, scholarship, and financial aid deadlines beyond the traditional May 1 date, and we urge institutions to make similar accommodations this year,” the statement read. “We all want students and families to have the time they need to consider their financial options before making enrollment decisions.”

El Paso Community College, like all higher education institutions around the country, awaits guidance and information from the Department of Education, said Keri Moe, EPCC’s associate vice president of External Relations Communications & Development.

“While these delays are beyond the institution’s control, EPCC is committed to working with students and will revise deadlines, if possible and as allowed, to ensure as many students who are eligible for financial aid can receive it,” Moe said.  

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso has a series of “priority dates” because its programs in nursing, medicine, dental science and biomedical science start throughout the year.

“Students who submit their FAFSA to us on or before these priority dates are considered for all grants, scholarships and available aid until funds are exhausted,” a center spokesman said. “The university’s Office of Financial Aid will adjust its priority awarding dates based on dates provided by the Department of Education.”

A University of Texas at El Paso spokesman said UTEP does not have a decision deadline.

Justin Draeger, president of the NASFAA, said the current timeline will severely delay award letters and limit the choices of college-going students.

“Our nation’s colleges are once again left scrambling as they determine how best to work within these new timelines to issue aid offers as soon as possible — so the students who can least afford higher education aren’t the ones who ultimately pay the price for these missteps,” Draeger said in a prepared statement.

Andres Orozco, an accounting, business and economics major at EPCC, said he had submitted his FAFSA for the 2024-25 academic year and hoped to receive the same $1,900 the college awarded him last year.

Orozco, a 2023 Irvin High School graduate, sighed when he learned about the latest delay, but was adamant that nothing would keep him from his academic journey. He said that he would divert more of the money he earns working at the Northeast Albertsons supermarket to his college fund if necessary.  

“This is not the best news,” Orozco said. “This will affect a lot of students who need that money to go to school. I will go to school no matter what. I want to finish. I will find a way.”

Angel Waters, a senior at Transmountain Early College High School, said he plans to complete his FAFSA soon. He said he wants to study computer science at UTEP or New Mexico State University, and be part of NMSU’s Air Force ROTC program.

Waters, a first-generation college student, said that while he is not concerned about the delays now, he will be if it takes longer than early March to receive his financial aid letters.

Kayla Carter, a 17-year-old senior who is homeschooled, said that she has yet to fill out her FAFSA, but hopes that she will get enough financial aid to enroll in Heartland Baptist Bible College in Oklahoma City, Okla., to study ministry. If that does not work out, she wants to enroll at EPCC or UTEP as a nursing major.

“Being away from home will be an issue if my (financial aid) is delayed,” said Carter, who lives on the East Side.

The expected delays in the financial aid packages is the latest setback for the new FAFSA, dubbed the “Better” FAFSA because it was designed to be simpler and faster for students and their families to fill out. It also will give students more opportunities for more financial aid. The application overhaul was ordered by Congress as part of the .

The form usually is available Oct. 1 and institutions receive the application information within days. This cycle, the Department of Education did not launch the FAFSA until Dec. 30 on a limited basis. It became available around the clock in early January. Initially, the government told colleges and universities to expect the applicant information by late January.

The submitted forms have their own , but eventually an ISIR (Institutional Student Information Record) is routed to the higher education institutions or career schools requested by the students. In the past, this process took a few days, but some experts estimate that this cycle could take a few weeks or longer. Once a school receives the applicant information, it usually takes that institution several weeks to evaluate, process, package and send award letters to students. The speed of that process depends on the institution’s resources.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Each state deployed the American Rescue Plan Act funds to stabilize their child care sectors. The success of the American Rescue Plan stabilization funding provided the impetus for select states to dedicate their own resources to continue the investments. Whether the product of years or organized lobbying, or a decision to reroute surplus funds back to families and educators, 11 states and the District of Columbia have taken concrete steps to shore up their own child care sectors.

from The Century Foundation, authors Julie Kashen and Laura Valle-Gutierrez detail the how and why of states deciding to invest in child care. Kashen was kind enough to share some of her insights from the report with Early Learning Nation magazine. A lightly edited Q&A follows:

Rebecca Gale: It took the American Rescue Plan to show what so many advocates of robust social policy have been saying for decades: government investment works and can make a difference, stabilizing industries and lifting people out of poverty. But the moment the funds ran dry, many policymakers were satisfied to return to the status quo. What do you think changed from their initial support of ARPA to their unwillingness to continue what has been shown to positively impact so many lives? 

Julie Kashen: First, let’s acknowledge how bad the status quo was. Before anyone had heard of the COVID-19 pandemic, families struggled to find quality, affordable child care, and child care providers grappled to retain staff and afford basic necessities.

There were a lot of policymakers who were not satisfied to return to that status quo. In fact, the House of Representatives in November 2021, passed historic legislation proposed by President Biden — the Build Back Better Act — which included that would have lowered child care costs for nine out of 10 families with young children, while giving parents the choice to find the right program for their family in center-based, home-based, family-based, school-based and Head Start programs.

It would have expanded free preschool for three- and four-year-olds, raised wages in the early education sector and supported the cost of high-quality care. In fact, when ARPA passed, many envisioned that when the funding expired, there would be the foundation of a sustainable child care and early learning system in place. Unfortunately, that bill, with no support from Republicans, , and so did not become law.

When the funding expired, and both called for $16 billion in emergency child care funding to address the immediate needs caused by the child care stabilization funding cliff. So, I would argue that we have quite a number of policymakers fighting hard for change at the federal level, but being blocked in their progress by partisan politics.

RG: D.C. and the 11 states that opted to invest in child care are overwhelmingly “blue” states (D.C., California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont, Washington) with a handful of “red” or “purple” ones thrown in (Alaska, New Hampshire, Kentucky). to find affordable child care, despite party affiliation. What do you think sets the states apart that opted to direct extra funds to the child care sector?

JK: All of the states that deployed their own resources for stabilizing their child care sectors experienced the positive impact of the ARPA stabilization funds and saw the benefits to communities and local economies of putting resources into children and families. Most of the states had long-term organizing campaigns, including grassroots organizing and union campaigns, that combined with a moment of greater awareness of, support for child care and political leadership that helped them succeed.

It’s also worth noting that there are a number of “red” and “purple” states that took additional action leveraging federal funds. While we did not include them in our list of states that put their own resources in, the results of their leadership are similar using federal dollars. In , for example, after Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ multiple attempts to move $356 million through the state legislature were blocked by legislative opponents, he reallocated $175 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to cover half of this gap. Missouri, Ohio and North Dakota are just some of the

RG: Ten states went through their state legislatures to take action, but New Mexico went through a ballot initiative to create a permanent fund which has the potential to offer some of the longest lasting impact (D.C. took action through the Office of the Mayor). Have you found that social issues like support for child care could do better at the ballot box than in state assemblies?

JK: We know child care is popular among voters regardless of political party. In fact, from GQR and the Child Care for Every Family Network shows four in five Republican parents of children under 18 (79%) support guaranteed child care, as do 83% of independent parents and 97% of Democrat parents. So, ballot initiatives are often a good route.

But it’s worth noting that more states improved their child care systems and invested in child care in 2023 than we have seen in any recent time, much of it because they finally had the federal resources to help. So, we now have clear evidence that when the federal government and states come together to take action, children, families and local economies all benefit.

That said, a concerning trend we also saw in 2023 was that when states found themselves with significant surpluses, rather than invest in families, that primarily benefited wealthy households and corporations. These tax cuts will reduce state revenues precisely at a time when more revenue is needed to invest in child care. The amount of lost state revenue will grow over time and make it even harder for these states to invest needed funding on child care and reap the economic benefits of those investments. Not only have these short-sighted tax cuts reduced states’ abilities to invest in child care programs, this lack of investment can induce further collapses in state revenues, since we know child care investments support local economies.

RG: Child care is an industry where the math will never quite add up. Your report quotes Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as saying the current state of the nation’s child care is “the textbook example of a broken market” since existing market forces cannot solve it. What about the nature of child care makes it both different from other market services, and makes it hard for people and policymakers to understand why federal investment is needed?

JK: Families across all income levels share the same determination to provide the best possible foundation for their children, especially in their early years. Two-thirds of children under age 6 have all of their parents (either solo or coupled) in the workforce. Parents need the freedom to afford child care and to have peace of mind that their children are safe and nurtured while parents go to work or to school and make the best choices for their families.

Most families don’t send children to fourth grade with a check to cover the cost of their teacher’s salaries or to maintain the school building. The same should be true for child care. Our shared interest in making sure our children thrive shouldn’t start when they turn five. Like public education, public libraries, safe food and clean drinking water, child care benefits all of us. And child care and early learning investments are as essential to economic growth as physical infrastructure or energy.

Most parents need child care at a time when they can least afford it because they are early in their career. This has particular impacts for families of color due to, at least in part, ongoing systemic and structural inequities that perpetuate overrepresentation of communities of color in jobs paying lower wages, the ranks of those experiencing higher unemployment rates, and families living below the federal poverty level. Unlike college tuition, which is also too expensive, parents don’t have eighteen years to plan and save. To access child care, families are forced to pay an amount put together patchwork solutions that create instability for their work lives and for their children, or be one of the fortunate few who receive child care assistance.

Meanwhile, will continue to put upward pressure on prices as child care businesses will have to raise wages to attract early educators – or go out of business. Even before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the child care sector, data from the Center for American Progress showed that more than half of families with young children live in a child care desert (a census tract where there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots).

Underlying all of this is the devaluing of care work in American society. One of the many legacies of slavery is the shouldering of care responsibilities by the people in our society with the least power and fewest resources. In the early twentieth century, white lawmakers excluded care workers—who were overwhelmingly Black women—from fair wages and labor protections to preserve the status quo. To this day, our culture and policies continue to undervalue caregiving, leaving caregivers underpaid or unpaid, and without the support they need to thrive.

This history has also contributed to the expectation that family care is an individual responsibility, rather than a communal one: if you struggle, there’s something wrong with you. In reality, care has been a universal need and a public good that requires public-policy-supported solutions, and now more than ever must be treated as such. This is why the pandemic removing the invisibility cloak from all of the hard work of caregiving that had been going on all along was so important.

RG: Even the most generous state support — like Vermont and New Mexico — is not a substitute for robust federal support. From a policy perspective, what could that federal support look like, and what do you think is possible in the existing political climate?

JK: The Build Back Better Act is the closest we’ve come to the robust, comprehensive child care and early learning system we’ve needed since . Build Back Better would have made sure that every family who needs it could find child care that works for their families, nurtures their children and doesn’t break the bank.

The, reintroduced in April of last year, took many of the lessons of the Build Back Better fight and the American Rescue Plan implementation, and built on a solid foundation to become an even stronger approach.

While Congressional champions, advocates and organizers work toward the next big opportunity, the immediate need is significant. The hope is that a combination of an increase in existing child care and early learning programs through the FY24 appropriations process and supplemental emergency child care funding will both make it through Congress as soon as possible.

RG: You’ve been researching and working on social policy for the better part of two decades, yet it took the COVID-19 pandemic to finally give child care its moment in the sun. As we move further away from the emergency lockdown phase of Covid, how do you think people will remember this time in our country’s evolution on public policy? Do you see this as a turning point?

JK: The turning point is that 1. People saw clearly the value of caregiving; 2. The government took historic action that worked and we can now point to as evidence of the value of these investments.

The pandemic underscored the importance of investing in our care infrastructure — it crystallized how caregiving makes all other work possible, and how our failure to treat care as a public good burdens families and stifles our economy. The U.S. investments in children and families during the pandemic demonstrated the life-changing and economy-sustaining power of equitable policy. The investments in child care, the child tax credit and increased home and community-based services for older adults and disabled people were historic, serving millions of families, reducing poverty and supporting more people to age with dignity at home.

I remain optimistic, but the ease with which many of these policies have since been allowed to sunset, or roll back, or be eliminated altogether shows the extent to which bias, discrimination, and inequity are built into our economic system and structures. Two steps forward, one step back — it’s frustrating, but it’s progress that we can keep building on.

At a joint budget session of the House and Senate education committees on Monday, lawmakers made clear their intent to prioritize literacy, staff shortages, attendance, pay increases, career technical education and improving outcomes for students.

Analysts with the New Mexico Legislative Education Study Committee and the Legislative Finance Committee proposed the following investments for such initiatives:

• $46.2 million for career technical education
• $25 million to raise the minimum salary for all school personnel to $30,000 per year
• $3 million for planning and design for a statewide literacy center
• $30 million in flexible funds for literacy, community schools and innovative projects
• $15 million for the Public Education Department’s education fellows program
• $15 million for attendance programs

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for Âé¶čŸ«Æ· Newsletter

The $3 million for the literacy center is far below the governor’s request for $30 million.

New Mexico’s public education secretary Arsenio Romero also outlined plans to embed structured literacy within all New Mexico schools, something that is in line with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s priorities for the 2024 session.

“This has been proven time and time again to be the game-changer we need,” he said. “If we can have students become confident, competent readers at their grade level it’s going to have a positive effect on every other core area within their education but it’s also going to have a benefit for them their entire lives.”

He also requested $94.5 million for increases to teacher salaries and called on legislators to boost funding for the educator fellows program. The program provides coaching, hands-on experience and financial support to students who want to become certified educators.

“These teachers now that are in pre-service programs are getting that experience now so when they get their own classrooms they’re ready to roll and be successful, year one, day one,” Romero said.

Lawmakers expressed strong, bipartisan support for career technical education, calling it one of the biggest factors in student success.

Senate Education Committee Chair William Soules (D-Las Cruces) said he wanted to ensure there was sufficient funding for career technical education.

“When we are flush with money, education is the best place to put the extra money, not a place to try to do things on the cheap or see how much we can get for how little – but how much can we put into good programs that are going to make a difference,” Soules said.

Extended school hours drew bipartisan criticism from lawmakers concerned about smaller, rural schools. The New Mexico Public Education Department recently proposed a rule that would require all schools to have a minimum of 180 instruction days, forcing some schools to go from a four-day week to a five-day week.

“What happened to local control? Why do we have a school board when y’all are mandating sitting up here in Santa Fe that we are going to increase our school days?” said Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell (R-Roswell) “I am appalled by what’s happening in our schools. Our schools are excelling when there’s a smaller student-to-teacher ratio. It’s not going to improve just by adding more days on it.”

Ezzell said that additional costs for fuel, meals and utilities for rural schools to add an extra day would “break” small schools.

Some lawmakers expressed concern about making wise investments to support struggling students and meeting the guidelines in the Yazzie-Martinez ruling, a landmark public education reform case in New Mexico.

Rep. Yanira Gurrola (D-Albuquerque) expressed concern that there was not enough funding for bilingual education in any of the budget proposals. Legislative analysts found that there were at least 4,000 educators in New Mexico with bilingual certifications who were not teaching bilingual classes because of inadequate pay for an intense workload.

Gurrola this session which would create pipelines between the state’s colleges, universities and tribal colleges to bring bilingual educators into K-12 schools. She said in the committee meeting that it’s not enough for someone to be certified. It requires funding and resources for bilingual programs to be successful.

“Some of the schools who were presented to us as schools that beat the odds and were successful, they were trained in structural literacy and they were supplemented by other trainings to meet the needs of the diverse population,” Gurrola said.

Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque) said she wanted to see better data collecting and metrics to show skeptics where to invest money to comply with Yazzie-Martinez and help legislators make better decisions about education funding to support the state’s diverse student population.

“We’re not at risk. We’re exceptional. We come to the classroom exceptional, because of our language, because of our culture, because of what we bring to the table,” Roybal Caballero said. “Everybody else doesn’t understand that 
 We need to stop doing business as usual, which is all of this, and create something different.”