School Finance Laws Limit How Money Is Spent But Wind Farms Bring Windfalls For Rural Schools
On the website for the local school district in Blackwell – a town of just over 300 people in rural Texas – school Superintendent Abe Gott says: “We believe that no matter your dreams, you can achieve them from Blackwell, Texas.”
Texas has collected and spent more money on wind energy than any other state.
Daxis/flickr, CC BY-ND
To back that up, the Blackwell Consolidated Independent School District provides a postsecondary scholarship of up to US$36,000 for graduates from the district’s single high school. So far 140 students have benefited from scholarships, according to Gott.
The money that makes this possible came from a $35 million deal the school district brokered with a wind farm company in 2005, part of the massive growth of that sector in Nolan County and Texas.
The spread of w...