Spending Floors in Gifted Education Services

Abstract

For nearly two decades, the state of Texas mandated gifted education services and provided funding to public school districts. One policy that was unique to the state is the mandatory minimum spending. This research examines how these mandatory minimum spending floors influence spending in public school districts within the state and how that influence varies across locales. Our findings provide evidence that rural public school districts in Texas were more likely to operate near to the mandatory state minimum spending for gifted education than non-rural public school districts. In particular, rural public school districts allocated 50% of the funds towards gifted education programming as suburban public school districts when the minimum spending floors was accounted for. The results should provide caution to policy makers on the possible ramifications of removing spending floors on gifted education programming in rural public school districts.