Federal Money Released, Texas To Receive $830 Million In Education Funds

Gov. Rick Perry has announced Texas is about to receive a federal grant that may help the current educational funding crisis.

Late Friday, Perry said the U.S. Department of Education had approved the state’s application for $830 million in federal funding for Texas schools.

The grant application had been stalled in Washington for the past nine months as a result of objections by Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett. Doggett represents the Austin area.

Perry called the Department of Education’s decision “a victory for Texas schools.”

“Today is a victory for Texas schools that have been waiting for these well-deserved federal funds for far too long,” Perry said. “Thanks to our persistent efforts, including those of U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Sen. John Cornyn and other dedicated members of the Texas Congressional delegation, along with House Speaker John Boehner, this funding will soon be flowing to the school teachers and schoolchildren of Texas.”

Texas had previously been prevented from obtaining its share of the federal funds for Texas schools as a result of an amendment from Doggett to the 2010 federal education jobs bill. That treated Texas differently from every other state and attempted to require Perry to make certain assurances that Perry claimed would violate the Texas Constitution.

Doggett’s amendment was subsequently repealed by a provision in the federal budget bill passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this month.

“For months I worked with Sen. Hutchison to repeal the Doggett language and today Gov. Perry told me Texas did receive the funding from the Department of Education,” Burgess said. “Today our schoolchildren and teachers received the funding they should have never been denied.”

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott also praised the release of federal funding.

“I am pleased that the U.S. Department of Education has approved our application for $830 million in funding for education,” Scott said. “These funds will provide much needed funding for our schools as they prepare their budgets for the coming year and will help retain thousands of Texas teacher jobs.”

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who had filed suit to force the release of the funding based on the constitutionality of the Doggett amendment, also welcomed the decision.

“After months of waiting, Texas schools will finally receive their $830 million share of education funds that were unnecessarily delayed in Washington, DC. We are grateful that the new Congress remedied Congressman Doggett’s attempt to discriminate against his own State—and its school children,” Abbott said. “Fortunately for Texas children, teachers and schools, the Doggett amendment was stricken from federal law, the state’s application was approved and Texas no longer has to wait for the very same funds that were available to every other state months ago.”

Whether the additional funding will help ease the anticipated shortfall in Fort Bend ISD’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year – a shortfall that sparked school trustees to enact a reduction in force for the second year in a row – is not yet known.

Due to the Easter holiday, no school officials were available for comment following the announcement of the additional funding.