Texas’s school funding formula is a power-equalization formula, with different tiers of funding that aim to provide similar levels of funding for similar tax effort. In the 2017–18 school year, the state funding formula resulted in slightly progressive cost-adjusted funding across districts in terms of students’ poverty status, while white students and rural students, on average, are enrolled in districts with higher per student funding in cost-adjusted dollars. We examine the effects of changes to the formula on funding progressivity and find that even substantial changes have generally modest impacts on progressivity and per student funding.
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