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September 27, 2004
UPDATE: School funding lawsuits
We have two updates in our ongoing coverage of legal efforts to improve state school funding systems. As we've indicated before, this can be challenging, because so much is happening around the country.
First stop: Georgia
The peach state looks to be the next setting for a legal challenge, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A group of rural school districts plans to challenge the inadequacies of the property tax system for districts with weak tax bases.
Some of the urban districts express misgivings and strong suspicions that the rural districts are shirking their responsibility to pony up enough of their own local revenues. Rural districts contend that even raising their local rates wouldn't meet the need. In fact, Joe Martin, a former school board president of one of the urban districts, Atlanta's, helped the rural districts in developing their suit. Bottom line, says Martin: Even if it were true that a local board needs to do more, the constitutional funding obligation remains on the state.
The Georgia School Boards Association's legislative positions on state and local school funding point to part of the problem here: The state constitution precludes local boards from receiving revenues from sources other than the property tax; the constitution prevents boards in booming areas from levying and collecting development impact fees; and the state tax base is continually being eroded by annual passage of exemptions from various state taxes. Meanwhile, the state's "Quality Basic Education" funding formula focuses on average real estate property values, rather than considering average per capita income, local poverty rates, and the percentage of student on free or reduced lunch.
Second stop: Texas
A state district court judge ruled on Sept. 15 that the state's funding scheme violates the state constitution's requirement of an "adequate and suitable" education. Here's a summary of a Houston Chronicle account. Ed Week also has a good article on the decision here. A broad coalition of wealthy and poor school districts brought the suit, noting the state has let its support for schools erode to an all-time low while property tax rates are capped.
Part of the court's focus: the achievement gap. The judge spelled out the serious cost implications to Texas if it fails to invest adequately in education now: declining average state income, higher taxes for prisons and the needy, etc. "The solution seems obvious," Judge John Dietz said. "Texas needs to close the achievement gap. But the rub is that it costs money to close the educational achievement gap." David Hinojosa of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund said Judge Dietz appeared to be swayed by evidence that the state's early interventions are effective in closing the achievement gap among third graders.
The court gave the state legislature a year to fix the problem; otherwise, the court will stop school spending until lawmakers face up to it. David Thompson of Bracewell & Patterson, a member of NSBA's Council of School Attorneys, former director of governmental relations for the Texas Association of School Boards, and attorney for one group of the plaintiff districts, told the Chronicle that he hopes the state supreme court will resolve this case in a timely manner, unlike the past cases that led up to this decision. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the state will expedite its appeal directly to the state supreme court, arguing that the weaknesses of the funding system don't make it unconstitutional.
Next stop: Maryland
Stay tuned for an update from Baltimore.
Posted September 27, 2004 12:00 AM
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