Texas School-Finance System Unconstitutional, Judge Rules
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins - Feb 5, 2013 12:00 AM ET
Texas’s school-finance system is unconstitutional because it falls short of the state’s obligation to provide an adequate and equitable public education to all children, a judge ruled.
“The court declares the current school finance system violates the Texas Constitution in that it is inefficient, inequitable, and unsuitable and arbitrarily funds districts at different levels below the constitutionally required level of the general diffusion of knowledge,” District Judge John Dietz in Austin said yesterday in agreeing with lawyers for most of the state’s school districts.
Rick Gray, an attorney for more than 400 poorer school districts, told Dietz yesterday in a non-jury trial that these districts tax property at higher rates than richer ones yet get less revenue per student. The difference can amount to $30,000 per classroom in neighboring districts, he said. The disparity has grown with cuts in state aid to education, he argued.
“These gaps are marked, they are extreme, and they are simply wrong,” Gray said. “Texas should be ashamed.”
The state court trial that started Oct. 22 consolidates six lawsuits by groups representing 75 percent of Texas’s 5 million schoolchildren, the second-largest student population in the U.S.
Gray called Dietz’s ruling “a win for all school districts.”
more@Bloomberg.com
DO SOMETHING!
| 
