The blog entry below is authored by September guest speaker on school finance, Lauren Cook, Director of Communications at Equity Center, a non-profit advocacy and research organization founded 30 years ago to represent school districts that are chronically underfunded by the Texas school finance system. As a product of Texas public schools from kindergarten through her undergraduate (English) and master's degree (Spanish) from UT Austin, she is a passionate supporter of public education.
Like most people, school district administrators don't enjoy going to court. It's time-consuming, expensive, and stressful. But public schools in Texas have been backed into a corner and have no other option for seeking fair funding for their students and taxpayers. For that reason, groups of districts are currently organizing to sue the state based on the grounds that our current school finance system does not meet the requirements for public education established by the Texas Constitution.
Why do we have a system that treats Texas children and taxpayers so unfairly? Especially considering the fact that since 2000, the 181 members of our state legislature have met in 11 sessions in which public school finance was either a primary focus (six regular sessions) or the sole reason the session was called (five special sessions), one would think that we would finally have a system that is efficient, rational, and fair.
But we don't.
The current system is none of those things, and districts will file a lawsuit to claim that it is inequitable (both for students and taxpayers), inefficient, inadequate, and lacking in meaningful discretion for local district tax rates.
In other words, it's not fair. For example, the current system allows districts like Alamo Heights ISD to spend more than $1,000 more per weighted student than San Antonio ISD has access to (at the same tax rate!). It forces districts like Ysleta ISD to tax at the maximum rate allowable by law ($1.17 per $100 value), only to receive $500 less per student than what is spent in Frisco ISD at $1.04 tax rate.
These inequities can't continue. Not only do they affect the educational opportunities available to students across the state, but they perpetuate an unfair system of taxation for residential and business property owners.
So what outcome are these soon-to-be plaintiff districts seeking? They are calling for a school finance system that is fair for all Texas taxpayers and students, and one that allows all children to have access to world class educational opportunities.
The legislature has had more than its fair share of opportunities to restructure our school funding system and address these critical flaws. During this past legislative session, instead of making the system more rational and fair, members chose to cut public education spending by over $5 billion, and they chose to cut those districts that were already funded at the very bottom by approximately $300/student for the current school year.
By reducing overall funding to public education and by cutting those districts that didn't have any funds to spare, the legislature sent a clear message that it does not have the political will to make the hard choices and clean up the system.
So it's time for districts to seek a remedy from the other governmental body that is supposed to protect the constitutional rights of all Texans. Because that's really what the courts are for --checks and balances. Well we think it's high time for the legislature's inaction to be "checked" and for our school finance system to finally be "balanced."
Our Texas school children and taxpayers simply can't wait.
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