DALLAS – If being conservative is defined as carefully monitoring and making best use of one’s resources then, I can be called a fiscal conservative. But what state leadership and the majority party have done with Texas’ system of school finance over the last 20 years has nothing to do with being fiscally conservative. Rather, it is mindful of what could be called a “self-fulfilling prophesy.”
Today’s ruling on Public School Finance, by Judge Dietz, once again vindicates those who have long espoused that Texas’ Public School Finance System has in the past and continues to fail to meet the constitutionally mandated “general diffusion of knowledge” standard in providing to Texas students, an efficient system of public schools. Testimony reiterated that the system continues to be poorly funded and the mechanism distributing the funds also unfair, even with the infusion of more than $3 billion from last session. Since 2011, school districts have struggled on reduced budgets and were force to find refuge in the legal system. But this time, property poor and property rich districts were on the same side. It is my hope that state leadership will listen to the courts and not continue attempts at avoiding an issue that has landed us in court seven times from 1984 – 2013.
As a state, we have consistently chosen to underfund the educational needs of a student population that has reached historic levels of diversity. At the same time, traditional public schools are being vilified by one means and then yet another. This criticism provides cover to continue to install the mechanisms that deplete the educational resources for children, who in a
generation, will be called upon to enter the workforce and contribute in a meaningful way to Texas’ economy. In such a scenario, who will be the winner? It’s time to stop playing games with the future of Texas and properly fund our schools.
