That's bigger than Harvard's entire endowment — and it belongs to the children of Texas.
OPEN THE FUND →These aren't bad-luck rankings. They are the result of 25 years of deliberate underfunding.
Texas wasn't always at the bottom. Texas was built to be different.
It's called the Permanent School Fund. It belongs to the children of Texas.
"A perpetual school fund for the support of the public free schools..."
Texas was broke and rebuilding from the Civil War. The men writing our new state constitution gave half of every acre of public land in Texas to the school fund — and used that same word again, "perpetual." They had almost nothing, and they still gave half to the kids who would come after them.
When the oil gusher blew in near Beaumont, it turned out the land the framers had set aside for schools was sitting on one of the largest petroleum reserves in human history. Every royalty from that oil has flowed into the school fund for 124 years.
The Permanent School Fund is now the largest school endowment on Earth — about $12 billion larger than Harvard's. It was built by generations of Texans who never saw a dime spent on their own kids. They built it for the children who were coming after them. That's us.
For 180 years, every generation kept the promise, and ours is the first to break it.
The constitutional amendment gave the State Board of Education the legal authority to release up to 6% of the Permanent School Fund every year for public schools. In the twenty-two years since, the board has never gone above 4.5%.
The board approved 3.45% for the 2026–27 biennium and called it a "record high." That rate is still just over half of what voters approved, releasing the smallest share of the largest fund in Texas history.
The same board — the same majority that has never gone above 4.5% — sets the rate for the next two years at its November 16–20, 2026 meeting. The election results from November 3 will be sitting on the table in front of them. What we do this fall is what they will see when they vote.
The gap costs Texas schools more than $1.5 billion every year — about $9 billion withheld over the six years since the basic allotment was last raised. This isn't a budget shortfall. It's a refusal.
Under the Texas Constitution, the Permanent School Fund is held in trust for the schoolchildren of Texas. A trustee has a legal duty to act in the beneficiaries' interest — not the trustee's. Sitting on $65.7 billion while releasing the smallest share allowed in 14 years is failing that duty.
The Constitution doesn't give the board the right to keep this money. It gives the children of Texas the right to receive it.
This doesn't require a tax increase, a new law, or a special session. Texans already passed the 6% cap in 2003 — the board just has to use the authority we gave them.
Texas has a record $32.7 billion surplus and a $65.7 billion school fund, both at all-time highs — more money than the state has ever held at once.
Releasing 6% sends more than $1.5 billion of our money to our public schools every year, with very few strings attached. The Available School Fund can pay for teacher raises, smaller class sizes, special education, pre-K expansion, counselors, classroom technology, building maintenance, and the textbooks our kids are still missing.
Our forever education fund belongs back where it started — in our schools.
The state's per-student funding has been frozen at $6,160 since 2019. Districts are running deficits, closing campuses, cutting librarians, losing teachers to higher-paying states. Releasing the constitutional max fixes it. Pick any one — or split the money across them.
Ask every SBOE candidate the same question: "Will you vote 6% on your first session?" A yes commits them. A no is on the record.
Raising the rate takes 10 yes-votes on the 15-member board. Eight seats are on the November 3 ballot, four of them open — the closest a 6% vote has been in 22 years.
Texas voters wrote the 6% release into the Constitution in 2003. The State Board of Education has refused to use that authority every two years for 22 years. Under Greg Abbott, that refusal has paired with a new $1 billion voucher program — public money flowing to private schools while the trust fund built for our public ones sits in Austin, untouched.
Eight seats on the State Board of Education are on the November 3 ballot, four of them open. Every candidate has to answer one question, in writing, before Election Day.
Send the question to the candidates running in your district. Their responses will be posted here as they come in.
FIND YOUR SBOE DISTRICT →One email when something changes — when a candidate responds to the pledge, when the board meets, or when there's a real moment to act. No spam, no fundraising asks.
Early voting: October 19–30. Election Day: Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
The board votes November 16–20.