7/29/2019 Testimony On: Budget and Educator Impact of School Choice

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TCCRIwww.txccri.org 512.474.6042 PO Box 2659, Austin, TX 78768

School Efficiency LitigationExpert Witness Report Summary

Expert: Joseph Bast, President, Heartland Institute

Testimony On: Budget and Educator Impact of School Choice See full report at:texasclassroomsfirst.com/efficiency

Findings:

Taxpayer Savings Grants benefit students, teachers, schools, and taxpayers. Taxpayer Savings Grant program would reimburse parents the lesser of actual tuition expense or 60 percent of the

state average per-pupil maintenance and operations expenditure for students that previously attended public schoo

and transfer to private school.

Taxpayer Savings Grants could save the state approximately $2 billion per biennium. These grants would make the system more efficient. Approximately six percent of students would move to their preferred school in the first biennium.

School choice would benefit teachers by leading to increased pay and benefits, and better working conditionsbecause school choice would create a robust market for teachers.

School choice would lead to increases in teacher pay: The current school system is a monopoly that artificially suppresses teachers wages. Schools do not need to

compete for students, which means they do not need to compete for effective teachers. Recruiting students

would require schools to offer quality teachers better pay, benefits, and working conditions.

Increased demand for quality teachers would lead to competent teachers seeing pay and benefit increases,while incompetent teachers would have to either improve their performance or go to a more fitting profession.

Increased demand would also lead to a higher degree of specialization among teachers and create a class of

education entrepreneurs that market their services to multiple schools.

Most teachers would see significant pay raises, especially in districts with greater competition like Houston,which has 298 public schools and 300 private schools. The average teacher salary in HISD would increase by

$12,000 if competition were introduced.

School choice would lead to improved working conditions for teachers: Schools would be forced to adopt policies that created better working conditions to recruit teachers. School choice allows teachers to adopt teaching policies and programs that they feel is best for their students

instead of being forced to comply with burdensome mandates currently imposed on public school teachers.

Private school teachers make considerably less than public school teachers, yet burnout rates, retention rates,and job satisfaction rates are substantially higher among private school teachers than public school teachers.

School choice would lead to better coordination between teachers, students, and parents: Currently, teachers and students are paired based on geography. If a child is within a specific district, they

attend a specific school and are not afforded the opportunity to select a teacher that is a better fit for the child.

Geography is educationally irrelevant creating an arbitrary class composition and requiring teachers to teach tothe lowest common denominator, thereby slowing the development of more advanced children.

Choice allows students to be grouped according to their needs, interests, learning styles, and aspirations. School choice is necessary for teachers:

The current status quo for public education has led to increasing frustration and rapid burnout among teachers- 30 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years.- Many burnt out teachers stay because their skills do not readily transfer to another career.

The status quo deters and often punishes teacher innovation, fails to recognize excellent educators, andprovides few incentives to improve performance leading to poor overall job satisfaction.

- Ever increasing mandates cause frustration because they treat teachers as mere technicians uploading theeducational program to the students.

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