TX: Poor school district opens new $20 million dollar Waterpark.

[philip964]

https://abc13.com/education/a-texas-sch ... t/4162905/

Poor Texas School District opens a new $20 million dollar water park with state funds. 75 percent of their funding comes from the State, for example rich HISD where 75 percent of the students are defined as poor receives only 15 percent of its budget from the state under the “Robin Hood” plan.

Thank you Republicans for doing such a good job of running our State.

[DEB]

As a Republican, I say "You're Welcome". As a Texan Nationalist, I would rather Texas money be spent on this, than given to Washington D.C.
All kidding aside, It is kinda strange though to have a Waterpark built by a School. I don't know or understand how they did it. Is Texas Schools like the Federal Government, where if you don't spend all of the money given to you that Fiscal Year, you lose that much funding next year? Were they told they had to build said Waterpark, by their representative? If so and due to the location, probably wasn't the Republicans that are responsible.

[Maxwell]

Wow! OK, I agree with you that the Robin Hood plan is out of date but please understand a couple of things before you go blaming any single group of people that chances are, had nothing to do with the original implementation. That would be like blaming me for something my Grandfather did.

OK, here goes.
1) The plan was court ordered and had to be approved by the Texas Supreme Court as "fair and constitutional" before it went into effect. This was not just a plan cranked out by politicians to help their own districts.

2) Larger, richer school districts get a lower percentage of their budget from these funds because they make much more on the property taxes. School districts that do not make much on property taxes get a higher percentage of their budget. Not everyone gets the same percentage (though in this case it would seem that the La Joya did take serious advantages)

3) To correct you statement above, and the information was in the link you provided, Houston gets 35% of their budget from The State. Not the 15% you stated.

This is a great example of taking from the rich (in this case richer school districts) and giving to the poor (which is a redistribution of wealth). And in this case a small, poor, school district just got facilities that are better than what I had in a large school district growing up or that larger districts like Houston just can't afford.

So in closing you are blaming the current Republicans for a redistribution of wealth (isn't the current Democratic Party actively proposing this same thing?) that isn't working because someone abused the funds they were given (not funds they earned) and now those that gave them the funding, such as Austin and Houston School Districts, are under funded to support the much, much larger student bases they have.

History keeps telling us all that socialism just does not work.

[JustSomeOldGuy]

Take that 'poor' with a grain of salt..... La Joya is a large district, both geographically and population-wise. It is predominantly low income in terms of population. And it sits over large oil and natural gas producing formations. So it's tax income is NOT poor. Other districts in south Texas send their bands (La Joya has both regular AND mariachi bands) to games, events and competitions in school buses. La Joya's travel in new buses, and their instruments and equipment travel in a semi with a custom trailer. La Joya has always been the envy of the other districts in Region One for having all the best toys..........

[srothstein]

I just wanted to point out that there are multiple ways to mislead people. The example of the Houston ISD is just one of them. A poor school district is defined as one with a tax base below a certain level on a dollar per student basis. A rich school district is one with a tax base above a certain level. In neither case does the average family income enter in to the calculation. La Joya has a total taxable value of $2.265 Billion. Houston ISD has a total taxable value of $174.202 Billion. That means Houston has 76 times as much taxable value. Houston has approximately 214,175 students while La Joya has 28,800. This means La Joya has 78,645 per student in taxable property while Houston has 813,362 per student.

Based on that, it is easy to see why the state would say Houston is a rich school district compared to La Joya. As a comparison, I live in Luling and our school district has a total enrollment of 1400 and a tax base of 427 million, or 298,947 per student. Considering how broke my district is, I would agree that La Joya is poor.

Another comparison might be how much they raise in local taxes. Luling gets a total of 4,759,000 with a tax rate of 1.114, Houston gets 2.028 Billion with a tax rate of 1.2067, and La Joya gets 29.826 million with a tax rate of 1.311. Just as a note, Houston and Luling tax at 1.04 for operations and the rest for debt while La Joya taxes at 1.17 for operations and the rest for debt. I still come up with Houston being a rich school district.

And while all of this might explain the Robin Hood plan, it still does not answer how any district builds a water park. But a little research shows that it is not quite how the article said. The article does not say that this is a sports and learnign center for the district. It mentions in passing that there is a natatorium (fancy word for swimming pool) and a planetarium on the site. There are a couple water slides and a "river" to float on. It is a recreational and learning center for the students. The water park is not truly a park, but more of a playground for the kids at the school. The pool is open to the public IF they join one of the lesson groups and pay a registration fee. I would think it is a little excessive, but not nearly as bad as the article implies.

[Boxerrider]

Here is an article on some of the things HISD has done with the money they get to keep.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports ... 925087.php
I'll agree that the waterpark is excessive, although it probably provides a better service to the community than mega-arenas.
I have been a professional educator for 23 years and have seen money wasted on all kinds of ridiculous things - most of it administrative costs of attempting to meet legislative guidelines.
Many politicians, not just one group, would like to have a state tax instead of the current funding system. More tax money to play with, and more centralized control.

Jeff

[Deltaboy]

Spin story to stir the pot! I been down there and I glad they got something nice! Remember Allen build a Football Stadium that day empty for a year do to Concrete Cracks!And they spent way more money!

[flechero]

Thank you Republicans for doing such a good job of running our State.

At least they have had money for the last 20+ years... so you are welcome, that this district even has schools!

Are you really that naive? I read your post and before I went to the lower posts, I actually checked to see if this was actually posted by philbo instead. (I'm not wearing my glasses this morning)

Just because a district misuses funds given to it, doesn't mean it's the fault of the giver. If that were true, we'd be blaming employers and parents for drug use, since they supplied the money.

Now lets look at the other side of this... if dems had been in control of Texas, we'd likely be in the same boat as Ca or one of the other bankrupt states and be suffering from a litany of issues related to having no money, no options and be totally reliant on DC to bail us out.

[ELB]

School boards decide which projects to pursue. You want different priorities, elect different school boards...and make sure it's not just elected by the staff of the schools because you didn't show up to vote.

Seguin ISD pulled a stunt where the board approved a project to put up the largest football scoreboard in Texas, a Jumbotron type affair. They claimed part of the money was coming from elsewhere, but it such an obvious misuse of their powers that four of the seven school board members were ousted at the next election. Unfortunately they had already tied the school system into purchase of at least part of the scoreboard project, but at least they can do no further harm. Until next election.

School taxes are the lion's share of property taxes, and school systems are not at all shy about making it two or three lion's shares. For the children of course.

[bigtek]

Socialist republicans are more common than party sycophants want to admit.