• By Chloe Latham Sikes, Ph.D. • IDRA Newsletter • November-December 2024 •
Texas state lawmakers will kick off the 89th legislative session on January 14, 2025. For the following 140 days, they will take up issues that affect every corner of the state, and the top among them is education.
IDRA’s policy priorities include issues from prior legislative sessions that will come up again and new recommendations that will advance students’ educational opportunities for success.
These include fair school funding for public schools, protecting and expanding excellent educational opportunities for emergent bilingual students, promoting culturally-sustaining schools that support all students, creating safer schools without harmful discipline and policing practices, and preparing all students to succeed in college.
Secure Fair School Funding
IDRA prioritizes fair school funding for public schools, as we have done for over 51 years. In 2025, state lawmakers should fund public schools by raising the basic allotment and increasing targeted per-pupil funding that supports students who are emergent bilingual, receiving special education services, and from households with low incomes. These investments help raise teacher pay and increase funding for all students while maintaining an equitable approach to funding.
Research shows that private school voucher programs strain educational budgets, take funding from public schools, do not improve student achievement, and leave students and families at risk for discrimination.
In order to preserve public school funding and meaningful investments, lawmakers should also reject any private school voucher programs. Research shows that private school voucher programs strain educational budgets, take funding from public schools, do not improve student achievement, and leave students and families at risk for discrimination (PFPS, 2023). Public money should stay in public schools.
Ensure Excellent Educational Opportunities for Emergent Bilingual Students
Fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in Lau v. Nichols (1974) that students must be educated in a language they understand. Nearly one in four Texas public school students is an emergent bilingual student who speaks a language other than English at home.
Texas educates the greatest proportion of emergent bilingual students in the country. Accordingly, the state needs to make key improvements to realize the power of bilingual students.
Get IDRA’s Texas Policy Priorities brochure (English • Spanish)
Texas lawmakers can ensure excellent educational opportunities for emergent bilingual students by increasing the programmatic support and training for educators, expanding dual language pathways and bilingual recognition for graduating students (e.g., improving the Seal of Biliteracy), supporting growth and retention in the bilingual teacher workforce, and protecting the rights of all students to access public schools regardless of immigration status (see Latham Sikes & Piñon, 2024).
Promote Culturally Sustaining Schools
Culturally sustaining schools offer positive, safe and supportive school climates for all students to receive a high-quality education. Recent classroom censorship policies have made schools less safe and less supportive for students, especially those who are significantly more likely to experience identity-based discrimination, like Black and Latino students and those who identify as LGBTQ+.
Recent data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights show that school-based incidents of bullying and harassment based on a student’s identity have increased in the past 10 years. Most of these incidents are on the basis of a student’s gender or sex, and over one in three are related to a student’s racial identity (OCR, 2021).
Texas lawmakers should promote culturally-sustaining schools where all students can be their authentic selves. Policymakers can do so by adopting protections and data reporting procedures for identity-based bullying and harassment and by advancing academic courses, curricula, and materials that reflect the richness of student’s diverse identities instead of censoring them.
Create Safer Schools without Harmful Discipline
Students need to be safe to learn, thrive and grow. However, many of today’s policies have focused on practices that kick students out of school instead of focusing on how to keep them in school and get the behavioral, mental wellness and academic support they need to succeed.
Over 10% of Texas public school students have experienced at least one disciplinary action, like a suspension or expulsion. For 30 years and often for mild infractions, Texas has relied on punitive measures, including forcing students into disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEPs) or pushing them out of school altogether. Yet families have very limited control over their students’ DAEP assignments and educational options, and little is known about the quality of support, interventions, and academics that students receive in these settings.
Texas is still one of 20 states that permits school administrators to slap, spank, paddle or hit a student as punishment.
Research shows that keeping students in school, building trusting relationships between schools and families, and implementing evidence-based behavioral support are far more effective for improving students’ outcomes and turning around student behavioral issues.
Texas lawmakers can make sure schools are safe for students to learn and grow by eliminating the use of corporal punishment in schools, investing in alternatives to practices that kick students out of schools, increasing the due process procedures for students and families in school discipline hearings, and enhancing discipline data collection.
Prepare All Students to Succeed College
Schools have a responsibility to prepare all students to succeed in college, but not quite half of students are meeting readiness benchmarks (TEA, 2023). Texas schools are still losing more than one in five high school students before they graduate and are twice as likely to lose Black and Latino students than white students. The attrition gap between Black and white students has doubled since IDRA’s first attrition study 37 years ago in 1985-86 (Quintanilla-Muñoz & Sanchez, 2024).
To achieve state goals for college access and success, Texas lawmakers should invest in expansive early college high schools that offer rigorous early college coursework, support targeted college advising, and promote a strong data infrastructure for students, families and college counselors to understand and access their college preparatory pathways.
Lawmakers should also protect good policies on the books that make higher education more accessible to all Texans, such as the Top Ten Percent Plan and in-state tuition equity for undocumented students (i.e., Texas DREAM Act).
Research is clear about which policies and practices are good for students and their learning. Passing and protecting education policies that are evidence-based and student-centered will support strong public schools that prepare all students to access quality educational opportunities and succeed in college and beyond.
Resources
OCR. (2021). School Climate – Harassment or Bullying. Civil Rights Data Collection, Office for Civil Rights.
Latham Sikes, C., & Piñón, L. (October 2024). The Path to a Stronger State Seal of Biliteracy – Advancing Texas Student Success through Bilingualism and Biliteracy – IDRA Policy Brief. IDRA.
PFPS. (May 2023). Keep Public Funds in Texas Public Schools. Policy Brief. Public Fund for Public Schools.
Quintanilla-Muñoz, C., & Sánchez, J. (October 2024). Schools Struggle to Hold On to Students – Preview of IDRA’s 38th Annual Texas Public School Attrition Study. IDRA Newsletter.
TEA. (2023). Texas Academic Performance Reports, 2022-23. Texas Education Agency.
Chloe Latham Sikes, Ph.D., is IDRA’s deputy director of policy. Comments and questions may be directed to her via e-mail at chloe.sikes@idra.org.
[© 2024, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the November-December edition of the IDRA Newsletter. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]
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