And they also complained in the suit that local districts lacked meaningful discretion over their property tax rates, which is how local districts pay their share of school costs.
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The Texas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the state’s school finance system as constitutional, even if flawed.
Texas’ attorney general is celebrating the state’s surprise win in the school finance trial.
Before issuing his ruling, Dietz reopened evidence for a four-week period so that he could consider changes made by the 2013 Legislature, which restored about $3.4 billion of the $5.4 billion in public education cuts made in 2011 and changed graduation and testing requirements.
The Texas Attorney General’s office has argued that, while far from ideal, the current system met constitutional standards, though it has refused to comment outside of court or related filings.
The four lawsuits, plus challenges by charter schools and business interests, were wrapped into one massive case that led to nearly four months of trial, more than 90 witnesses and about 5,700 exhibits before state District Judge John Dietz from 2012-14.
The lawsuit is the the largest of the seven school-finance disputes to hit the Texas Supreme Court in recent years, featuring the most diverse group of districts and numerous claims.
Those 2011 cuts prompted school districts to sue, arguing they could no longer properly function amid Texas’ public school enrollment growth of almost 80,000 students annually.
September 1, 2015: The Texas Supreme Court hears oral arguments from school district attorneys and the state.
“The school funding issue, for now, has been resolved”, Patrick said at the Texas Republican Convention in Dallas.
“It’s incredibly disappointing for the under-served students of Texas, for the under-served school districts”, said David Hinojosa, national policy director with IDRA and previously litigated the case for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF. The justices, all Republicans, ignored “years of court battles, research studies, and outcry from Texas parents and educators” to reach a ruling that is “dead wrong”, the Democrats said.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, called the decision a victory for Texas taxpayers. “Our role is much more limited, as is our holding: Despite the imperfections of the current school funding regime, it meets minimum constitutional requirements”.
This marks the first time the state has won a school finance case.
Texas State Teachers Association President Noel Candelaria said in a statement: “It is a sad day when the state’s highest court decides that doing the least the state can do to educate our children is enough”.
School finance suits have raged for three decades in Texas. His office opposed the more than 600 Texas school districts that sued in 2011 over the Legislature’s $5.4 billion cut to education funding.
However, in penning the ruling for the court, Justice Don Willett basically punted on intervening and reduced the chances of future legal challenges, writing “our judicial responsibility is not to second-guess or micromanage Texas education policy or to issue edicts from on high increasing financial inputs in hopes of increasing educational outputs”.
It also means the GOP-controlled Legislature won’t have to devise a new funding plan.
In poor districts, critics say, the difference results in more crowded classes, fewer teachers for non-English-speaking students, fewer enrichment programs like art classes and field trips, and fewer remedial programs to help low-performing kids meet the test standards.
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May 2006: The Legislature cuts local school property taxes by one-third while allocating more state funding to public education.
