Texas school districts are facing a statewide enrollment decline that could deepen in the years ahead, lawmakers were told during a hearing in Austin on Monday.<\/p>\n
The warning comes as districts across North Texas \u2014 including Fort Worth, Richardson, Coppell and Grand Prairie \u2014 have shuttered schools or seriously discussed closures while grappling with shrinking class sizes.<\/p>\n
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told legislators the state lost 75,000 students in one year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot tell you the precise cause of this,\u201d Morath said.<\/p>\n
Bob Templeton with Strive Public Policy said the decline is not expected to stop soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not another blip or one-off. This is an inflection point, and it is the start of sustained enrollment decline,\u201d Templeton said.<\/p>\n
Templeton said the state could lose another 120,000 students next year and 400,000 students four to five years from now.<\/p>\n
He pointed to declining birth rates and an increase in families choosing homeschool or private school options. Some lawmakers questioned how vouchers could widen the gap.<\/p>\n
Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, said lawmakers should not ignore the state\u2019s role in the trend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not fighting what the science obviously tells us, but I also think it would be irresponsible for us to say, hey that’s not our problem, it\u2019s just a global trend, when we\u2019ve done something ourselves to accelerate that. I\u2019m not sure what the answer is, but I just don\u2019t think we can be uninvolved,\u201d Bernal said.<\/p>\n
Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, asked whether the enrollment decline could affect the teacher retirement system.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you looked at the impact that this decline will have on the viability of the teacher retirement system?\u201d Hinojosa said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not, but it has crossed my mind as a concern,\u201d Templeton said.<\/p>\n
Templeton told lawmakers independent school districts will likely see revenue erosion, a concentration of high-need students and stress on the teacher market in the years ahead.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas school districts are facing a statewide enrollment decline that could deepen in the years ahead, lawmakers were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4119,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-288988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-schools","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}