Texas Facing at Least Two School Funding Lawsuits
During the legislative session earlier this year, David Thompson received a message from a Republican lawmaker on the floor of the House.
“Please sue us soon,” it read.
The veteran school finance lawyer told the story to several dozen school leaders last weekend as he explained to them why he is poised to do just that — file litigation against the state over the way it funds its public schools. The involvement of courts, he said, could help provide political cover for lawmakers to make better policy.
Though the prospect of school finance litigation arose even before the Legislature removed $4 ...
Comments (3)
gypsy314 ne
No more tax dollars to illegal aliens will help our schools.
Peggy Venable
Here we go again. Using tax dollars to sue the state for more tax dollars. We need to end this merry-go-round. It is all about more money for schools. The legislature gave public schools more money while cutting other programs. Education makes up over half the state's general revenue budget now. If more money resulted in better education, a case could be made for it. But two things defy that logic: first, there is no more money for education unless we raise taxes (which is a bad idea, particularly in this economy) and second, more money has not improved student performance. Moreover, education received almost $4 billion more this biennium than last. The education lobby and big-government rationalle is this: Jane Doe asks for a raise of $10,000. She gets a $2,000 raise and turns around and claims her employer cut her pay by $8,000. That is the logic we are dealing with. K-12 schools currently spend only an average of 48 cents out of each dollar on instruction, the ISDs employ one non-teacher for each teacher and over 200 superintendents make more than the Governor of Texas makes. We need to stop the practice of using our tax dollars to sue for more of our tax dollars. We are not helping teachers, students or parents -- while we ARE enriching attorneys.
Robert Blum
Public funding for the educational system in Texas would go a lot further IF the independent school districts' administrative offices were consolidated/merged on a county or regional basis.