School districts across the state were delivered some welcome news this week.
More than $831 million Federal funds that had been bottled in a blood fued between Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Lloyd Dogget will finally be distributed to them to retain and hire teachers.
The Brownsville Independent School District will get $8,793,894.
Observers say that the district could have received about $19,000,000
but Perry decided to use "formula funding" instead of "title one" funding that resulted in the lower number.Local districts' officials expected the federal funds to remain frozen, presuming that legislators might use the $831 million to plug holes in the state budget. Under the House draft version, money for schools statewide could be cut by as much as $11 billion.
The San Antonio Express reported that the crux of the nine-month battle between Perry and Doggett centered on the use of the money, part of a federal education jobs bill intended to help districts hire or retain teachers.
After Perry wouldn't guarantee that the money would go directly to schools, Doggett filed an amendment to ensure that it would.
But Congress repealed the amendment as part of a bill passed to avoid a federal government shutdown last month. Perry last week said the money would be made available to school districts.
The TEA posted a notice late Friday on its website, but most districts weren't informed that the money was available until Monday.
Doggett's office said in a statement that some poorer districts received less money than originally estimated because the TEA based the allocations on attendance rather than Title I funding.
Budget writers intended to use the $830M in education-jobs funding to help close the gap in funding public schools. But Perry and the TEA got there first.No sooner had the money come in than Perry and TEA distributed it to schools. Before the budget writers could blink, it was gone. Perry, who has done absolutely nothing to help schools get through this budget crunch, gets the credit, and the Legislature doesn’t get the money it needs.
2 comments:
Money can't fix everything; witness the well documented follies at Oliveira Middle School where the inmates (delinquents) are running the asylum! Don't believe me, ask parents or teachers; the present campus administrator is hopeless. Checkout Cheezmeh on Facebook!
Too Little - Tooo Late, The Business of Running a School District, specially in the Tex - Mex border... Where most students are poor, come from an uneducated background, most are a " BUNCH OF STARVING ARRIMADOS " and are stiil believing that By beign Brainwashed at school into thinking that The USA is NOt into Brankcrupcy --- They just go to school for the Free - Cheap meals, Free - cheap illegal drugs, to Check on the sexy Girls, etc... These Bad stufff hasa to stop --- Please send them back to Matamoros !!!
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