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Dec. 9, 2011
School coalition files lawsuit over education finance system

State funding inadequate; system has become statewide property tax

 

Highland Park ISD is participating in the school finance lawsuit filed today by members of the Texas School Coalition, which is made up of revenue-contributing school districts. The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the Texas school finance system, claiming that it fails to provide schools with sufficient funding to meet state educational standards and that the system has become a statewide property tax.

   

Mark Trachtenberg and John Turner of Haynes and Boone, LLP filed Calhoun County ISD et al vs. Robert Scott et al in state district court in Austin on behalf of six school districts. In addition to the six plaintiffs, another 54 school districts are represented by the law firm in connection with the case. Most of the participants are members of the Texas School Coalition, districts that have paid almost $15 billion in local taxes to the state finance system since 1993 and are projected to pay more than $1 billion this school year.

 

"This lawsuit will demonstrate that school districts are not being provided with the resources needed to meet the standards the State of Texas itself has identified as the measure of a constitutionally adequate education. And, the State's actions have left school districts without meaningful discretion to control their local property tax rates, which violates the constitutional prohibition against a statewide property tax," Trachtenberg said.

 

With Texas schools adding about 80,000 students annually, the Texas Legislature failed for the first time in 60 years to fund enrollment growth by cutting $5.4 billion from public education for the two-year budget cycle. This has forced districts to eliminate thousands of positions for teachers and other support staff.

 

"These severe funding reductions come at a time when Texas is requiring school districts to implement a new and more rigorous testing and accountability regime. The State's school finance system is no longer merely drifting toward constitutional inadequacy. It has arrived," Turner said.

 

Also, previous court rulings, including the successful West Orange-Cove II case in 2006 brought by Coalition districts, have made it clear that school districts must have a meaningful ability to use local property tax funds for local enrichment.

 

"The level of state funding has fallen to such a point that many, or even most, school districts must effectively use all of the local funds they can raise just to meet basic education standards. Local tax dollars raised above a certain level ought to be available for local enrichment and should not be used to compensate for funding the State has failed to provide. We will argue that the State has effectively co-opted the taxing capacity of districts, resulting in a de facto state property tax, which is prohibited by the Texas Constitution," Turner said.

  

The question of local discretion deals with both dollars and educational programs, Highland Park ISD Superintendent Dr. Dawson Orr said.

 

"Our local school board members are accountable to their communities, and they should have the flexibility to introduce educational programs that make sense for the students in those communities," Orr said. "For example, in Highland Park, we offer enriched science, art and music programs starting at the elementary level. We provide our intermediate and middle-school students with differentiated math offerings and interdisciplinary teaming, two approaches that are strongly supported by educational research. We offer Mandarin Chinese at the high school level because many of our students and parents want to open those doors for global engagement.

 

"The cookie-cutter approach doesn't work, and our school board needs to have the local discretion to financially support those programs. But under the current funding system, the board has very little fiscal control," he said.     

 

In the end, it is about making a stand for children, Orr said.

 

"It is critical that we resolve this crisis, fix the broken school finance system and re-establish our priorities," he said. "If the education of our children is not a top priority for our state, what is?"

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