Investing in public education may have taken on a new meaning in Texas.

“Bombshell new analysis: Texas taxpayers are funding public schools at $50,000 per student!! $50,000/STUDENT! This accounts for ISD operations and debt. Yet, only 24% of Texas 8th graders are proficient in math and reading. Texas is massively OVERFUNDING public education,” state Rep. Brian Harrison posted on X.

Harrison was raising the alarm on an X post from economist Vance Ginn.

“Texas taxpayers fund $50K per student at “public schools”: 1) $16,792 per student for maintenance, operations, and debt service. 2) $33,542 per student for debt outstanding. = $50,334 per student for M&O and debt! Avg private school tuition: $11,340 per student,” Ginn wrote on X.

According to a report in 2022, only 38% of 4th-grade students in Texas are proficient in math, and 30% are proficient in reading. According to Texas 2036, math and reading proficiency for students in the state have been declining for several years.

As previously written by The Dallas Express, Don Huffines has slammed public education for chasing taxpayer dollars.

“Money has no correlation to student success in government-run schools. The more we spend, the worse the outcomes seem to get. Government schools never have enough of your money, and the proof is in the numbers: despite pouring billions into the system and massively increasing per-student funding, Texas has never seen improvement in student achievement,” Huffines wrote.

“The solution to this crisis is school choice, a system that would introduce free-market competition into Texas K-12 education and empower parents to select better-performing schools for their children,” Huffines continued.