6. NES vs. non-NES schools¶
As part of the Texas Education Agency's 2023 takeover of HISD, the state-appointed administration introduced the "New Education System" (NES) — a reform model with standardized, centrally built staffing and a different pay structure, applied to a growing subset of HISD campuses. It is the single clearest fault line in how HISD's money is distributed among its own schools.
The spending gap¶
| Per student | NES campuses | Non-NES campuses | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Actual operating spending, 2024-25, all funds (TEA data) | $14,288 | $9,193 | $5,095 |
| Same, General Fund only | $12,460 | $8,437 | $4,023 |
| Same campuses, 2022-23, before NES began | $10,125 | $8,421 | $1,704 |
| 2024-25 actual, all funds, leaving out the online school (Texas Connections Academy) | $14,288 | $9,411 | $4,876 |
| 2022-23, same comparison | $10,125 | $8,608 | $1,517 |
| Budgeted operating spending, 2025-26, General Fund (as filed with TEA) | $12,944 | $8,409 | $4,535 |
| Same, leaving out the online school | $12,944 | $8,799 | $4,145 |
| Budgeted campus allocation, FY2025 (HISD's own budget pages) | $9,453 | $6,903 | $2,550 |
| Budgeted campus allocation, FY2026 | $10,627 | $7,118 | $3,509 |
| HISD's own FY2026 "base funding" figure | $8,566 | $6,133 | $2,433 |
Sources: TEA campus-level PEIMS actual financial data, 2022-23 through 2024-25; TEA "2025-2026 PEIMS Budget Financial Data, Organized by Campus" (HISD's campus budgets as filed with TEA; 128 NES and 133 other campuses, General Fund, per TEA-counted student); HISD's adopted budget "School Pages," FY2025-FY2026. The 2024-25 actual comparison covers 129 of HISD's 130 NES campuses and 134 others; campuses under 100 students and alternative sites are excluded. Texas Connections Academy, HISD's online school (8,641 students in 2024-25, 11,316 in 2025-26), is counted with the non-NES campuses; rows in italics leave it out. Data: data/hisd_campus_nes_summary.csv, data/hisd_campus_nes_budget_summary.csv.
The three kinds of figure measure different things. TEA's campus data, actual or budgeted, counts all spending coded to a campus, including building maintenance and campus-coded central services (about 84% of HISD's General Fund operating budget in 2025-26). HISD's "School Pages" count only the allocation a campus manages. HISD's 2025-26 budget, as filed with TEA, keeps the General Fund gap at about the 2024-25 actual level ($4,535 versus $4,023 per student).
The gap in actual spending, $5,095 per student in 2024-25 ($4,876 without the online school), is about three times what it was before the reform began. These are descriptive differences, not an estimate of what NES itself costs. The gap was already widening before NES, from $820 in 2018-19 to $1,704 in 2022-23. NES campuses serve more disadvantaged students and are smaller on average (538 students against about 730), so fixed staffing costs weigh more per student. HISD has also publicly made NES campuses a funding priority. Districtwide costs are only partly assigned to campuses.
Enrollment is falling faster at NES campuses¶
| Campus group | 2022-23 → 2024-25 | 2024-25 → 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|
| Original 28 NES schools (2023 cohort) | −10.9% | −6.9% |
| NES-aligned schools | −14.1% | −10.6% |
| Schools that joined NES in 2024-25 | −12.6% | −10.0% |
| All NES schools | −9.7% | |
| Non-NES brick-and-mortar schools | −2.6% | −4.0% |
| Texas Connections Academy (online) | −3.6% | +31.0% |
Source: TEA campus-level fall membership counts (the 2025-26 counts are from TEA's 2025-26 campus budget report, which carries TEA's fall 2025 count, not a projection). Same campuses in each pair of years; campuses under 100 students and alternative sites excluded. Two campuses that closed after 2024-25, Las Americas (NES-aligned, 111 students) and Mount Carmel Academy (non-NES, 194), are left out of the 2025-26 column. Data: notes/tea_peims.md (B3).
NES campuses lost students four to five times faster than other brick-and-mortar campuses from 2022-23 to 2024-25, and about two and a half times faster in 2025-26 (9.7% against 4.0%). Meanwhile HISD's online school grew by 2,675 students. Counting the online school with the other non-NES campuses, as an earlier version of this table did, makes the non-NES decline look much smaller (−1.1%). The investigation did not establish a causal link between the funding model and the enrollment decline; both could share a common cause (NES campuses were disproportionately low-performing campuses to begin with, which may itself drive enrollment loss independent of the reform).
District-wide NES budget totals (HISD's own figures)¶
HISD has published NES budget totals on two different definitions. Each pair is comparable only with itself:
| Source and definition | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 23, 2024 workshop: "campus budget blocks" for NES schools | $513.4M (85 schools) | $732.2M (130 schools) | — |
| May 22, 2025 workshop: "NES campus budgets" | — | $570.2M | $545.3M (plus $20M of NES teacher raises) |
Sources: HISD FY2024-25 budget workshop, May 23, 2024, pp.31-32; FY2026 budget workshop, May 22, 2025, p.13. For FY2027, HISD's budget cuts NES campus budgets by $29M but publishes no total; there are 130 NES campuses, and HISD announced on May 12, 2026 that nine elementary schools will join.
There is no separate state allotment for NES. TEA has not created a distinct Foundation School Program allotment for intervention districts implementing a reform model; HISD's superintendent has publicly said that intervention districts "should get a little extra money, but we haven't." HISD pays for NES from its general resources: state and local formula funding, federal grants and, in FY2024-FY2025, its reserves. The records reviewed do not show which of those sources paid for the NES differential.
FY2027 brings a formula change. Starting FY2027, HISD is moving to a new, uniform per-student funding formula for all campuses — a $1,400 base amount plus state-style weights for student need — with NES campuses receiving an additional $500 per student on top.
Caveat on this data. TEA's campus-level actual-spending data covers only about 80% of HISD's total operating spending; central/districtwide costs are not attributed down to individual campuses, so the true all-in gap (including central support specifically directed at NES campuses) is not fully captured here.