Louis Malfaro, president of the 65,000-member Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers, commented today on the school finance lawsuit appeal heard in the Texas Supreme Court this morning:
The evidence that our state leadership has failed our schoolchildren is overwhelming. And as we continue to reflect on each of the facts that emerge in the school finance trial highlighting inadequate and inequitable funding, let’s not forget that our state leadership had plenty of opportunities to fix the system without relying on a court decision.
While the governor complains that school districts are subjecting the state to “endless and needless litigation,” he fails to mention that lawmakers left town last spring with billions of dollars still available to invest in schools that on average are still receiving $500 less per pupil from the state, adjusted for inflation, than they were in 2008.
The real losers in this case have been the schoolchildren, because they already have endured years of neglect, including the incomprehensible cut of $5.4 billion to public education in 2011 that left them with larger class sizes and schools with fewer resources to educate an increasingly challenging student population. Some 60 percent of Texas schoolchildren are now economically disadvantaged, 17 percent are learning English as their second language, and 9 percent struggle with disabilities. With almost a million more children added to our public schools in the last decade and another million to be added in the next, we must not miss opportunities to invest in the economic future of our state.
Let’s not forget that school finance also affects the ability of districts to pay teachers a competitive salary, something that should always be a priority, but a point that is even more important as many districts grapple with teacher shortages.
The silver lining in this lawsuit is that it makes the conversation about inadequate and inequitable funding unavoidable, and it should make action on fixes to the system equally unavoidable. Our hope is that the debate will shine a bright light on the correct path forward—an investment in our public education system that offers real and equal opportunity for all students.”
