Judge finds school funding neither adequate, efficient, nor giving local districcts
“meaningful discretion.”
See full text of rulings under Daily Buzz at Harvey Kronberg’s Quorum Report
Again I repeat
it is the people of Texas who must set the standards, make the sacrifice and give direction to their
leaders. And the time to speak is now. These problems only get more difficult the longer we wait.–
Judge John Dietz.
By Carrie Pierce, “Faculty Senate Addresses Master Plan, Enrollment, Feb. 10, 2004
“We are not racially diverse,” he [Frank Ashley, acting assistant provost for
enrollment] said. “Our numbers were negative for African American enrollment last
year.”
Of the 6,500 freshmen enrolled in fall 2003, only 161 were black, Ashley
said.
“We have something we have to work on here at Texas A&M,” he
said.
Ashley said the recruitment committee is sending people out to all regions of
Texas to attract students, blanketing the whole state.
The recruitment committee and
financial aid department are also coming together for the first time to discuss options, Ashley
said.
(SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS) MALDEF (the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund)
welcomed the court order released this afternoon by Travis County Judge John K. Dietz following his
declaration that the Texas school finance system is inadequate and inefficient.
Judge Dietz
granted final judgment in favor of MALDEF’s clients and found specifically that the current school
finance system violates the Texas Constitution because property-poor districts do not have
substantially equal access to facilities funding and do not receive sufficient funding to educate their
students, particularly when taking into account the larger proportion of limited English proficient and
low-income students in districts like the Edgewood Intervenors.
Because Texas continues
to rely primarily on local property taxes to fund public schools, and the property wealth of school
districts varies widely around the State, Judge Dietz concluded that the State must equalize school
funding with provisions similar to those in place today.
MALDEF celebrated this victory
for fair school funding with its clients, known as the Edgewood Intervenors in this case. The Edgewood
Intervenors are twenty-two property-poor and predominantly Latino school districts that joined this
latest round of litigation to remedy the continued inequality in school funding and ensure that they
would have the funds necessary to educate their students. Many of these districts were plaintiffs in
the original Edgewood school finance cases that led to the current funding system.
The
latest lawsuit, West Orange-Cove CISD v. Neeley, (“Edgewood V”) was brought by both property-rich
districts and property-poor districts, with neither party calling for the end of the equalization
measures known as “Robin Hood.” Dietz, the Chief Judge of the District Court in Travis County, issued
655 findings of fact and 24 conclusions of law based upon the evidence in a five week trial held in
August and September of this year.
“Today’s ruling supports the basic notion that every
schoolchild in Texas deserves a fighting chance and that educational opportunity depends on the fair
funding of schools,” said MALDEF President and General Counsel Ann Marie Tallman.
MALDEF Regional Counsel Nina Perales added: “Property-poor school districts have continued
to suffer from underfunding, even after our victories in the Edgewood cases. Judge Dietz’s ruling
recognizes the persistent inequality in school finance and sends a strong message to the Texas
Legislature that Latino students deserve better resources and a meaningful opportunity to learn.”
David Hinojosa, MALDEF Staff Attorney and co-lead Counsel for the Edgewood Intervenors
commented further: “Judge Dietz recognizes that our superintendents are doing all they can with the
resources they have, but that in the end, money does matter. The State of Texas erred by raising
academic standards for all Texas children yet only providing funding for a less-than-adequate
education.”
I read your fine article with interest. As an older Texan I want to add my two cents. A lot
of Bush’s Texan support is from the “Willful Ignerts”. They are the middle and lower class whites
who consistently vote against their economic interests and take personally any perceived mistreating of
the well-to-do.
Their world-view is concretist, and while it could be shattered by
trauma, it will never be changed by argument. It would be a fool’s errand to even attempt it. There
is, however, one political possibility with these people-neutralize them by delegitimizing their Prince
in their eyes. Keep them out of the polling booths by showing Bush to be a Trickster and a Fraud. The
UnChristian Bush. The UnTexan Bush.
Sorry…just thinking out loud. Will keep working
on it.
Malcolm Evans
Longview **********
Greetings!
ONE good question which no one seems to be seriously asking (those sterile sub-
divisions you mention – based on MY limited exposure, they are EVERYWHERE in America …)
Where ARE the people who will get INSIDE of this new “robotized” culture and will see
it from the insider’s POV (the roots of this can be seen in the 1950s … the recent PBS documentary
on the foundations of “Tupperware” are a real eye-opener … makes one wonder how many Americans
literally cannot even remember their own childhoods ???)
This culture [suburbs, two-car
garage, etc.] was celebrated by Hollywood and TV as early as the 1950s … the new manifestations HAVE
to be mostly updates of the originals … when I was a kind in Southern California [1959-1965] … the
extreme right-wing was a foundational component of the region …
… the Los Angeles
Times, George Putnam, the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade (covered “gavel to gavel” on local TV ….
Ch11… for an ENTIRE week) in the sports arena [now old and gone?]which was the original home for the
Lakers (Chick Hearn and the Lakers vs. Celtics playoffs – or was it the finals? with Bill Russell,
Elgin Baylor, Jerry West et. al. James Ellroy captures a believable “flavor” of the LA-region BEFORE
I arrived as a 7th-grader-to-be in 1959) …
to an impressionable kid from the near-
midwest, LA looked and smelled “different” in nearly every way … my 7th grade teacher used to
lecture her junior-high class on the unworthy-ness of our generation and how we were typical of the
post-war generation of young Americans who were insufficiently hardy enough to stand up to the
Communist challenge … and of how WE would probably surrender to Communist agression without even a
fight …
[sound familiar to you ??? probably only if you’re old enough?]
WHO is currently situated to actually STUDY the current manifestations of American
residential sprawl (it may be be worse than ever ??? … culture, economics, politics, education) so
that understanding is ACTUAL rather than hit and miss …? Who will even try ???
My
experience is that the sprawling suburban “middle-class” …
(see the new April issue of Harper’s
for a useful picture of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri … to a stranger like me, it rings quite true as
far as it goes)
… has always been as stomping grounds of crackpot American politics … as an old
college prof (San Jose State, 1970) used to suggest, American suburbia is founded on a transparent,
ill-defined sense of “community” … large cohorts of people are thrown together by economics and
real-estate developments (and most of the people IN these developments have NO idea of just who made
all the deals and decisions which created their inherently alienated communities, hence, there NO
genuine community.
… in America, economic development is the ONLY mechanism which
allows people to escape from the corruptions of well-established “communities” [increasingly insane
real-estate values since Ronald Reagan] … maybe what is wrong with America is an astounding LACK of
renewal in already-established communities – destruction (aided by corruption?) of selected parts those
communites has been our primary method since the 1950s ….???
And now, under GWB,
several millions MORE Americans are getting screwed ??? With many more millions having little idea of
how to fight-back [and not even imagining it to be possible] … and yet, GWB has many tens of millions
of “supporters” who subscribe to the prevailing very foolish fantasies …?
I’ve
probably said enough for now ….???
Sincerely,
R. K. LeBeck,
Jr.
SEQUIM, WA 98382
[Editor’s Note: In reply, I reminded the writer about
Carter’s “malaise” speech and how it turned out to be political poison. Here’s the response:]
PS: Absolutely yes.
…. there must be many thousands of other Americans
who have also lived through the last 40+ years who have seen and heard their own versions of
what I
saw and heard – artifacts of everyday life familiar to many – all over our country
…
Yes, I do remember Jimmy Carter’s “malaise,” as well as the one year (?)
experiment with extending daylight savings time, the challenge to turn
down the nation’s
thermostats, the late 1970s gas shortage (riding my bike to work was good for me!), and the surprising
hatred (my naiveté?) of
Carter as expressed by certain executives in the silicon valley company I
then worked at – it was a very common feeling among business “types” back then … it was as if THEY
had “never” [!!] before experienced disappointment in a sitting President (pretty damn silly of them,
I remember thinking back
then …. 1978/79?)
**********
In Michigan
the issue is jobs not terror. Forget Texas. Bible thumpers will never switch and vote for the Dems
even though the Republicans are shafting them economically behind their backs.
As for
states like Texas: The people must not have suffered hard enough under Bush and the Repubs. If they
are in their 50s and 60s, they will find out soon enough. Another Bush term will see the end of the
safety nets that were there for my parents when they retired.
Baby Boomers are either
fools or rich to stick with the Repubs. I pray daily (yes, Dems pray) that we can turn out the vote to
get rid of the most dangerous administration in my lifetime. I still say if the US media was not the
lapdogs of Bush and company, the American people would wake up and see them for what they are. LIARS
Catherine Brabant
Lincoln Park,
Michigan
**********
good one on counterpunch on the oscars, white bread
and mayonaisse. Of course, black folk in this country, even those who call themselves African, still
consider themselves American first and foremost, no matter how bad they may be treated. And their
leadership wether it be political or cultural has long lost their base in the black institutions that
integration was meant to destroy.
Once upon a time black folk controlled what how their
children were educated, the stores they shopped in, the very institutions that were critical to their
lives. Today, what do black folk control outside of their churches?
Wouldnt you agree
integration was the most effective tool to destroy black institutions? As for the oscars, what has
really changed?
Thomas C. Mountain
MoPress 