by KIM HILSENBECK
On Oct 22, the trial on Texas school finance got underway in Austin as plaintiffs prepared to explain why the current school funding is unconstitutional under Texas law.
The main issue against the state is how public education is funded. Texas’s constitution says, “It shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
Said attorney Richard Gray: “The system of school finance, as we see it, is hopelessly broken.” He is one of more than a dozen lawyers representing the different parties that have filed lawsuits. He represents more than 400 districts.
“It is not only inadequate, it is irrational, it’s unfair and, most importantly, it’s unconstitutional,” Gray said in an interview with the Associated Press earlier this year.
According to pre-trial legal briefs filed by the state attorney general’s office, it will argue that because Texas places great emphasis on local control of its school districts, budget shortcomings are the fault of individual districts – not the entire system.
Assistant Attorney General Shelly Dahlberg argued in court last week that the state funded public schools beyond the rate of inflation and enrollment growth between 2006 and 2010.
Even with the 2011 cuts, she said, “Districts still need to show they are spending their money efficiently.”
Dahlberg noted that superintendents’ “wish lists” include items such as iPads for students. She also said that districts offer extracurricular programs including sports that aren’t required by the state.
School finance litigation is nothing new in this state; this is the sixth case of its kind since 1984.
The current trial actually involves six separate lawsuits filed on behalf of about two-thirds of Texas school districts, including Hays CISD. Those districts educate about 75 percent of the state’s more than five million students.
The case is being heard by state District Judge John Dietz – the same judge who heard the 2004 trial on school finance.
During opening statements, Gray said that upcoming testimony by Steve Murdock, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau and ex-state demographer of Texas, will focus on how Texas is becoming majority Hispanic. Gray said Murdock will also explain how the state’s average income is declining.
Gray said, “I think everyone can agree that education leads to higher earning.”
He noted, however, that poor schooling has the reverse effect by ensuring residents are ill-prepared for the workforce and are then forced into low-paying jobs.
School districts say it costs more to educate low-income students who often require costly remedial programs outside the classroom.
Hays CISD joined the fray in 2011. Its lawsuit was filed by the Houston firm Thompson & Horton.
Superintendent Jeremy Lyon said at the time that going through the courts seems to be the only way to make legislators act. He also said that Texas raised its requirements for student performance at the same time it reduced public education funding.
“If you are increasing your expectations,” Lyon said, “then you need to fund that increased expectation.”
During the early days of the trial, Dahlberg told the court that standardized testing requirements that began last year are being phased in gradually, and passing them won’t be an absolute requirement to graduate until at least 2015.
She also predicted that “almost every single” superintendent eventually called to testify in the case will concede that they expect their students’ test scores to continue improving over time – regardless of funding levels.
“I would suggest that we might have an impending crisis, but today it is not a crisis,” Dahlberg said. “And we do not believe the plaintiffs can meet their burden of proof to show that it is.”
Lyon said the district is following the trial closely.
“The testimony so far vividly illustrates the scope of the problems with Texas school finance, from the growing inequities of the system to the inadequate funding that is not keeping pace with the resources required to fulfill legislative mandates. One thing we seem to all agree on is that a strong and healthy Texas public education system is a vital economic development asset for the state,” he said.
