THE EFFECTS OF GOVERNMENT MONEY ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

This was enacted to improve the financing of all school districts across the state of Texas. It was suggested that it will be the duty of the legislature to establish “Recapture’s Robin Hood” education plan to ensure sustainable funding for both primary and secondary education for public schools in Texas (Article 7, Texas Constitution). The Robin Hood education system provision was aimed at ensuring that wealthy school districts revenue would be used to help the poor school districts in order to leverage the advantages that students have across the public schools despite the status of the school. 1It was also noted that the enactment would also mean that $1. 50 per $100 worth of the school property would be used for M&O, property maintenance of the school while the surplus would Recapture in the favour of poor schools or an agreement to transfer the surplus from wealthy school districts to poor school districts would be made (TEA code chapter 21)2.

However, there have been several conflicts on the interpretations and application of the Robin Hood Recapture plan with some experts warning that it will lead to bad effects while others suggesting for further amendments to harmonies its side effects. These opinions have led to 2017 amendments by the Texas Education Agency redefining the interpretation of complicated public-school finance system of the state. This broke the Robin Hood plan into 2 parts: Recapture and optional homestead exemption. Regardless, these revisions on Robin Hood plan have raised eyebrows with many experts indicating that if the Foundation Schools program will pay back schools with this criterion most wealthy schools will be favoured and therefore disadvantage those with little wealth (Congress, 2017)5. 2 The Origins of The Robin Hood Scheme “Public Financing System” The Robin Hood plan came in through legislation that occurred through a lawsuit way in 1984 when a group of schools sued the government of the day suggesting that the financing system that was in place was unlawful.

Occasionally, the analysis of the results from the different authors has led to more confusion due to contradictions in their finding with some siding with benefits while others suggesting that the plan has failed terribly in executing its main goals (Taijali 2018). Notably was the use of Chapter 42 districts which is a highly flawed mechanism to reach those schools which have been funded by the government through Robin Hood. Too, there have been several exemptions made by the government on the Recapture scheme with some schools though having below threshold property being subject to wealth Recapture (Grey 2018, 689). In addition, the complexity of the Robin Hood school financing system due to various amendments has posted a great challenge in addressing its impact on the education outcomes across all levels (Villanueva 2018).

Owing to the above reasons and some other which may be revealed through literature this research aims at investigating if there is a correlation of improved enrollments, completion rates and graduations among the Texas school using time series analysis. This will be one of the independent variables in company with Per Capita Rate, government school funding amount. Per Capita Rate This is the amount of the money that the government of Texas pays to every student in a year to promote the school operations and running activities as set out in the Texas constitution and school legislation consensus (Kuffman 2016). The trends of funding since 1980 to date have been fairly constant with seasonal decrease through the long-term trends indicates a decline. Figure 2 (a), Trends in Per Capita Rate Figure 2(b) Trends in Per Capita Rate without adjustments 2.

2 CONTROLS AND ASSUMPTIONS 2. Potential increase in the GDP could cause an increase in public school funding thereof leading to increases in the enrolment in education at different levels depending on increases in funding. Increase in the GDP increases the potential ability of the government to establish public schools at different levels thus increasing the supply (Belew et al. The available on GDP per Capita shows that there has significant rise in the average income for the state throughout the years for the chosen period. Figure 3: Time series Trend of the Real GDP Per Capita 2. 3 Financial Services Access and Provision increase rates Increase in the financial services in the state and the country could increase in the education enrolment since the citizens in the state have increased access to funds that necessitate them to continue with education such as that of higher learning institution to develop their skills and careers (Hodges et al.

The Public Enrolment Rates: the annual totals for students who are enlisted in the public schools in Texas such as prekindergarten, Kindergarten and K-12 learning institutions10 The Population size: the annual totals for the residents in the state. Public funding to the public schools: Represented as a per capita rate in US dollars (2010 base Year) 4. 0 EMPIRICAL POLICY ASSESSMENT AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS 4. 1 Data Description The graph below shows the average enrolment in public schools from 1980 to 2015. The time series trend shows the different trends before the enactment of Robin Hood policy (1980 to 1993, the period of transition (1994) and the period after transition (1995-2015). 931 a positive change on enrolment before (Figure 6 below) 4. 3 Testing for Time Variable After Controlling for Population Growth (Demand Variable) The regression equation for control of the effect of an increase in demand is of the form (ii) Whereby the shows the effect of population growth on the education enrolment rates The regression equation becomes Regression Output Using these results the regression becomes This generally indicates that the effect of Robin Hood plan was significant together with the government funding to the students.

By the coefficients provided in the output, per capita rate is correlated with 219. 180 positive proportional change in the enrolment rate While the change in population size cause a dismal 0. 0009865 change in the enrolment though not statistically significant. Most significant that resulted to this problem was the missing data for most of the variables for the period before enactment of the Robin Hood Plan which proved it quite difficult to analyze the trends that existed thereof. Collecting data for the Per Capita Rate and population size was simple for the period identified. However, for the Real GDP per Capita and enrolment rate values for the period spanning 1980 to 1997 was quite difficult to obtain. Combined with the property of specification and identification problem for the best control variables, the difference-in-difference model did not work well in analyzing the effects of the Robin Hood plan.

It was quite troubling to establish whether the per Capita Rate could significantly affect the education enrolment rates. Häfner, Isabelle, Barbara Flunger, Anna-Lena Dicke, Hanna Gaspard, Brigitte M. Brisson, Benjamin Nagengast, and Ulrich Trautwein. "Robin Hood effects on motivation in math: Family interest moderates the effects of relevance interventions. " Developmental psychology 53, no. Dorado, Alicia M. Grey, Christina. "Remnants of Separate, but Equal: What Is Wrong with Texas Public School Financing. " Baylor L. Rev. Hodges, Jaret, Juliana Tay, Ophélie Desmet, Emine Ozturk, and Nielsen Pereira. "RESPONDING TO SCHOOL FINANCE CHALLENGES: A SURVEY OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS IN TEXAS. " In National Forum of Educational Administration & Supervision Journal, vol. 31, no. Kauffman, Albert. "The Texas Supreme Court Retreats from Protecting Texas Students. Villanueva, C.