Wind Power Funds Schools

What is happening? Blackwell Consolidated Independent School District provides a postsecondary scholarship of up to US$36,000 for graduates. The funding comes from  a $35 million deal the school district brokered with a wind farm company in 2005,

Why is this important? “[In Texas] school districts have a strong incentive to borrow money by selling bonds to pay for capital improvements, then use revenues from the wind farms to pay off the bonds.”

How will this be important? Findings show that new wind farms result in large increases in the amount of local revenue that is brought in per student, with only small reductions in state aid

The Conversation | Wind farms bring windfalls for rural schools, but school finance laws limit how money is spent