Recent education funding court decision: Good? Bad? Other?

[pmbryant]

I don't know much about the details and history of the current court and political dispute over education funding in Texas, but on the surface it appear the recent legal decision is good news for those who are interested in making sure our state provides quality public education to all.

But what will the Texas Supreme Court do with it? What will the GOP dominated legislature do?

If anyone else here is more familiar with the details and has some opinions to offer, I'd be very interested to learn more.

Here's a column about this from today's San Antonio paper Carlos Guerra:

Carlos Guerra: School funding ruling almost a complete victory for plaintiffs

Web Posted: 12/02/2004 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News

Because Texas District Judge John Dietz said back in September that he would do so, few were surprised when he ruled Tuesday that Texas' school funding system violates the state Constitution.

What was surprising was the detail and meticulousness of his formal order.

(snip)

Wealthy districts complained that they can't raise the money needed to properly school their students, and Dietz ruled that Texas' school finance system is unconstitutional "because the $1.50 cap on (maintenance and operations) tax rates has become both a floor and a ceiling, denying school districts 'meaningful discretion' in setting their tax rates."

He also held that Texas' school funding mechanism "violates the 'general diffusion of knowledge' clause of the Texas Constitution" by not providing enough money.

"(The system) is financially inefficient, inadequate and unsuitable because (it) fails to recognize or cover the costs of meeting the constitutional mandate of adequacy."

Dietz agreed with the poor districts that even after the state "equalizes" their budgets with money taken from wealthy districts, they are still shortchanged on facilities funding. And he agreed with them that insufficient money is allocated for educating students with special needs.

"Property-poor districts do not have substantially equal access to facilities funding," nor does Texas adequately fund districts to educate "bilingual, economically disadvantaged and other special needs students," Dietz wrote.

(snip)

[pmbryant]

1. Still looking for comments or opinions

:shrug:

[Justitia]

2. dunno either....but TX Supreme Court is 100% GOP

so I'm not real hopeful for any good outcome.

Interestingly, I haven't even heard of any possible scenarios for fixing this - although THAT may be the strategy.

Remember, the top public education slayer (Lenninger - sp?) is from San Antonio and it has been his personal goal to eradicate public education (nutcase, friends with Perry). So, the no-plan for funding may be the strategy, de facto bankrupting TX public education and killing it off.

It all seems fairly grim, IMHO.

[pmbryant]

3. Thanks for the response

I did not know the deal about Lenninger. What is his position?

I don't see that "no-plan" could be the plan. Even in Texas, that just won't fly politically. Far more people have kids in public schools than do not.

:shrug:

Peter