The six Angelina County superintendents wish to correct a couple of errors reported in a recent article, “Dumpster fires, other mistaken notions.” Mr. Marchand addressed lack of funding for charter schools by comparing PCA funding to the county traditional public schools. The data reported was incorrect.

“Using data from the latest Texas Academic Performance Report from the Texas Education Agency ...” was the first error quoted in the above referenced article. The source he referenced was not the Texas Academic Performance Report. The TAPR does not include financial data for districts. When questioned by one of the superintendents, he clarified he used the FAST Report, which was compiled by the Texas Comptroller’s office, not the Texas Education Agency. This report, with political implications, reflected incorrect financial data without a recourse for districts to appeal the data. The FAST Report was an attempt to reflect schools were inefficient with their funding as measured by passing rates on the state assessments (TAKS and STAAR). The revenue was inflated and did not reflect the accurate dollars a district received.

The second error was in the amount of funds received by charter schools compared to public schools, including Angelina County. Charter schools are funded at the state average. The state average is approximately $8,290 per student. The FAST Report inaccurately reported revenue for Angelina County schools. Mr. Marchand averaged the six districts inaccurate revenue from the FAST and reported $10,294 per student. Below is a chart of the per pupil revenue each of the six county public schools will receive for 2015-16 based on the official tax notices that were publicized and filed with the state:

District  Local  State Total
Central $2,336  $6,883  $9,219
Diboll $1,846  $7,108  $8,954
Hudson $2,069  $6,295  $8,364
Huntington $1,857  $6,663  $8,520
Lufkin $3,624  $5,094  $8,718
Zavalla $3,595  $7,719  $11,314
District average $2,554  $6,627  $9,181
Pineywoods Academy, charter  $0  $8,290  $8,290

Due to the diseconomy of scale for small schools — Zavalla ISD qualifies for “small school funding.”

Pineywoods Academy compared to the average state funding for Angelina County school districts receives more than $1,600 additional STATE funding per student without a legislative mandated to collect local taxes to earn the state funds. Prior legislation established a revenue cap per student for school districts based on 2006 revenue. The six county school districts have passed TRE’s (Tax Ratification Elections), which established a $1.17 tax rate per $100 value of property in order to increase the value of our local tax dollars to compensate for the below average state dollars allotted for our districts.

The state provides 100 percent of the funding for charter schools. A hybrid charter school funding system was created that takes the average basic allotment and adjusted allotment for all school districts and creates a charter level revenue per pupil. Charter school funding is based on the state average, not an allotment based on the individual characteristics of the charter. The value that has been assigned to charter schools is higher than 562 ISDs (55 percent), with 95 percent of the students in the state attending the 562 ISD that are below charters in funding.

Every district in Angelina County has a target revenue that is well below the state average. A district’s local revenue is based on local tax collections, the state then funds the balance of the target revenue cap for the district. If ISDs were funded like charters, total state support would increase by over $4.7 billion!