State School Funds On Trial, Again

State School Funds On Trial, Again


Next month in an Austin courtroom, two-thirds of the school districts in Texas will resume their argument that the state's school finance system is inadequate and inequitable and that it creates a de-facto statewide property tax, forbidden by the state constitution.

The school districts filed their lawsuit in October 2011, but Texas has been here before: Since 1984, the state's school finance system has been challenged six times, most recently in 2005. In that case, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state, but schools have won earlier rounds of litigation.


“It's sort of a personal history of my last 30 years,” he jokes.

While the arguments in the current case aren't new, Moak says that the case—which is actually the combination of six separate lawsuits—represents a broader coalition of plaintiffs than in the past.

“It's a relatively united public education community,” he says, “which has been rare.”

Texas isn't the only state facing a legal challenge to its school-funding system. Next month, a three-judge panel in a Kansas District Court is expected to rule on a lawsuit arguing that that state isn't spending enough on education. And next spring, the Colorado Supreme Court will review last year's District Court ruling that the state's funding system is “unconscionable” and does not meet the state constitution's requirements for a “thorough and uniform” education system. If they lose in court, Colorado and Kansas might have to spend billions more on education.


But school-funding advocates have found that winning a lawsuit doesn't necessarily improve the quality of education—or even boost funding over the long term, as funding formula changes and budget cuts can eat into court-mandated increases.


Evolving Legal Arguments

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court held that San Antonio's financing system was not an unconstitutional violation of the 14th Amendment's “equal protection” clause because education is not a constitutional right. But a footnote in Justice Thurgood Marshall's dissent in the case made clear that there was no obstacle to challenging school finance plans at the state level. Since then, all but five states—Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada and Utah— have experienced school funding lawsuits.



Some argue that in most of the “adequacy” cases courts are still using an “equity” lens to determine whether disparities between districts are evidence that some students haven't been given an adequate education. But the increasing emphasis on ratcheting up standards could make “adequacy” lawsuits more prevalent, experts say.

What's harder to say is whether that's a good thing, and whether students actually win when these lawsuits are successful.




What Happens After a Ruling

Washington state, one of only two states entering 2013 with a budget deficit, lost its own school-funding case a year ago. But the state Supreme Court didn't mandate a required level of funding or a way to achieve it.  That's not unusual.

“The problem with these cases is that the courts don't provide a clear way forward or a remedy,” says NCSL's Thatcher.







But that was before the recession, which spurred Kansas to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from education. As a result, this year's state education budget is 13 percent less, when adjusted for inflation, than in the 2007 school year, according to the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities. The cuts triggered the current school- funding lawsuit.


The Texas budget that will be introduced next month by Governor Rick Perry won't reflect any change in education funding related to the threat of court action, says his spokeswoman Lucy Nashed.

“We don't make decisions based on things that haven't happened yet,” she says.



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