For advocates of public education in Texas, Friday the 13th brought both sorrow and hope.
Sorrow came in the morning when the Texas Supreme Court released its 100-page unanimous opinion declaring that the state’s public school funding system, however dysfunctional, met the “minimum constitutional requirements.”
I have been unable in the space of one day to locate the spectrum of constitutional requirements to better understand the range of minimum to maximum and exactly where Texas falls on that spectrum. My brain looks at systems and evaluates on a pass-fail basis, and Texas public schools, especially those districts that serve the urban working-class and poor, lack the resources and funding to compete. Too many of their students, most of whom are children of color, are failed.
It was a crushing ruling for all who held out hope that the state’s highest court would hold the Texas Legislature accountable and demand that elected officials meet their constitutional obligations. Instead, the justices pleaded a lack of authority to intervene, it was an odd and unconvincing legal argument. When the executive or legislative branches fail to uphold their duties, where else can citizens go for redress other than the courts?
What kind of country and society would we be today if the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education had issued an opinion lamenting the existence of racially segregated schools, while concluding that public schools fell under the purview of state legislative bodies, thus leaving the high court helpless to act?
I read the Texas Supreme Court opinion as an abjectly political ruling, and thus an act of moral cowardice.
Hope came in the evening at the 15th annual H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards as 800 people filled a ballroom at the La Cantera Resort for what has grown to be the annual Academy Awards for the state’s finest public school teachers, administrators, districts and school boards.
The atmosphere was electric with anticipation as finalists and hundreds of other educators there to support them awaited the awards presentations and the announcement of the winners. This was a gathering of the state’s best and brightest, singled out not by the Texas Legislature or the Texas Education Agency, but by the most civic-minded private company and employer in Texas.
(You can read education reporter Bekah McNeel’s coverage here: Neil deGrasse Tyson, H-E-B Celebrate Texas Educators.)
Winners brought many to tears with their heartfelt acceptance speeches and accounts of overcoming tremendous personal and social challenges to inspire students to learn. One other message common to all the winners, even those who had been teaching for decades: they had never received such uplifting recognition.
There are teachers, principals and school board trustees in some of the state’s most economically challenged districts who refuse to fail, who refuse to allow the inequitable funding of public schools to stop them from transforming lives through education.
That’s why Leander ISD in the fast-growing affluent suburbs north of Austin can win a Large School District Award, but so can the Young Women’s Leadership Academy in the San Antonio ISD, whose principal, Delia McLerran, won the Secondary Principal Award.
Unfortunately, all the vision, commitment and perseverance in the world cannot help the poorer school districts close the gap with the wealthier districts. No one can run uphill as fast as they can on a level playing field. The H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards represent one of the most important public education recognitions in the country, but no single company, no matter how generous, can make up for elected officials in the Legislature and on the bench from shrinking their legal obligations and moral duty.
Listening to keynote speaker Neil deGrasse Tyson engage the audience on the subject of inspiring young children to achieve their potential, I couldn’t help thinking how illuminating it would be for the nine Texas Supreme Court justices to be in attendance. They would have experienced public education and its limitless potential in a way that cannot be found in 200,000 pages of trial testimony, legal briefs and lower court rulings.
They would have heard and seen what could be possible for all of the state’s five million public school children instead of those fortunate to be born in the right zip codes. H-E-B rotates the awards dinner through several Texas cities, and when it is next in Austin I hope the audience includes the justices and the leadership of the Texas Senate and House.
Most of those in the Republican leadership, it’s been repeatedly demonstrated, send their children to private schools. They are unfamiliar personally with public schools, which are seen abstractly as districts, not as crucibles where good teachers shape the lives and futures of boys and girls.
Much of the opinion’s wording, and that found in two concurring opinions (here and here), would have served nicely in an opinion declaring the system unconstitutional. And while the justices lamented the endless cycle of litigation that reached back to the 1970s, it seems obvious that lawsuits will continue to end in lower court rulings of unconstitutionality until a broken system is fixed.
More than half of the state’s 1,000 school districts joined to file the lawsuit whose lower court victory was overturned Friday, and no one believes those school leaders will stop pushing for reform. Statements like the one made by Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus Friday suggest there is some hope of a bipartisan effort to do more for the state’s school children.
We can hold out hope, but the pragmatist tells me that relief will not come, that legislative leaders will use a tight budget cycle to justify the status quo. If that happens, it will take another lawsuit, more years of court battles, and eventually, an independent judiciary to do the right thing.
That is on a very distant horizon now. Until we get there, no one I saw or spoke with Friday night is giving up.
Top image: Bilingual pre-k students Justin and Selvin work with tablets for reading and language exercise at Stewart Elementary. Photo by Scott Ball.
Related Stories:
Texas Supreme Court Upholds Public School Funding System
Neil deGrasse Tyson, H-E-B Celebrate Texas Educators
I agree, but perhaps we misunderstand what Texas leadership really sees as their moral obligation. Clearly, they do not see equity as a moral obligation. Rather, their moral obligation is segregation. Governor George Wallace may have recanted “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”, but Texas leadership has not. Texas continues to successfully pursue strategies that ensure continued class and racial segregation, and inequitable school districts are an important part of that strategy. Rich districts and poor districts, right zip codes and wrong zip codes are by design, not accident. Dan Patrick’s announcement Friday that Texas will accept the loss of $5 billion in federal school funding in revolt against the transgender guidance issued by the White House is more of an opportunity to advance the assault against public schools than a loss of important educational funding. And in that dispute, Patrick’s reference to “30 pieces of silver” isn’t even original in this context. Matt Murphy used the same phrase in his defense against three Klansmen accused of murdering Viola Liuzzo in 1965.
Let’s just be honest with ourselves.
First, a technical comment: The caption under the second teacher is wrong (it duplicates the caption for the “tearful” teacher). Please fix the caption so we’ll know who this outstanding teacher is.
Secondly, how to get it through the addled brains of TX governance that education of our kids is the best way to solve problems adult Texans face? Specifically, I think our public education curriculum should have increased coverage of dietary health (which will prevent unwanted illnesses) and sexual responsibility (which will prevent unwanted pregnancies, thereby reducing abortion rate — shouldn’t that alone make the right-wingers running the joint happy?) and parenting classes (to prepare the kids for when they CHOOSE to become parents) and better drivers ed (so folks driver safer thereby not endangering themselves and others).
And will someone tell Dan Patrick that a transgender female using the women’s room is NOT a “boy in the ladies room”. A transgender female is someone who was born male but is now living her life full-time as a female. A potential male rapist who gets up in drag to bust into the ladies room seeking a victim is NOT a transgender woman. He’s a rapist in female clothing. And has anyone ever donned female clothing to get into a women’s room to commit rape? Answer that, Dan.
And will someone please show Dan Patrick some photos of transmen? These guys — some of whom are muscular, hairy, bearded, low-voiced — have the “female” box checked on their birth certificates but are living their lives full-time as MALES. Dan wants to legislate these guys to use the women’s room. Really, Dan? Do you want a butch hairy transgender guy taking a whiz (regardless of his genitalia, which are no one’s business but his) in the same bathroom with your mother, wife, daughter or granddaughter? Then put your stupid proposed legislation to rest and work on some of the REAL problems here in Texas. Like underfunded, inadequate public education.
OK, I’ll calm down now. Have a nice day, everyone, and let our transgender citizens use the bathrooms they need to use.
I agree that Texas must do more than what it is doing…..
but…..
I think it starts locally. Pesonally I feel that the many ISD’s we have here in Bexar County have done nothing to show financial accountability. We have ISD administrations that are inflated with “Assistants to The Assistants” and staff. They have made financial decisions that did not benefit the education of our children.
Until we clean up locally….I don’t see any support coming from the State….except from those who will be coming up for election.
The education funding issue, the CPS funding issue, the TXDOT funding issue, the DPS funding issue, the prison system funding issue, the medicare funding issue, the juvenile justice funding issue, the college tuition issue – need I go on – all go back (in recent history) to Carol Keeton Strayhdorn Rylander’s great statement that our new tax system was the “largest bounced check in Texas history.”
She was right. Our (new, at the time) tax system had no relation to the actual economy of Texas and would result in grossly underfunding key state services forever. Until our system of state revenues is revamped to reflect the real economy of Texas, we will careen from emergency to emergency.
The “Texas Miracle” never included education at any level and was only a mirage produced by $100 oil. Now, with a much more diverse economy, we need a tax system that reflects that economy.
I dont think there can be any change in the way texas public schools are funded until we get rid of joe strauss.
It’s so weird that a body comprised of 78% old conservative white men doesn’t understand the issues and needs of a diverse cultural group.
Right?
Bob,
I just want to raise a point about your comment in the next to last paragraph, where you state “it will take another lawsuit, more years of court battles …” In the event that any school district or group of school districts should attempt to file a new lawsuit, the state will likely prevail on its first motion to dismiss with a defense of res judicata, (the cause of action has been finally adjudicated and cannot be relitigated). I see a finality with this opinion that could hold for a generation. If the facts (legal elements) of the wrongs complained about here are insufficient to prevail on a constitutionality claim, then what change in the facts would lead to a different outcome? School districts might wait until after the next legislative session and a new education funding bill and make a claim that this sets a new precedent. But what could the Legislature do that is worse than what has been done? More importantly, from a legal scholar’s point of view, where in the opinion to we have an established threshold? Where does it say, “This is the bright-line. Do not cross it!” And as long as there is a Republican Party monopoly at the Supreme Court (this is a court with a long history of overturning just rulings in the lower courts in favor of state government and corporations) there is little reason to hope that anything the Legislature does will change their minds.
Bob – Even agreeing with you that Texas public education – and its finance – are deplorable, why is it that the court’s role to fix that? Spending and taxing decisions would seem to fall uniquely within the competence of elected officials, who are accountable to constituents – not a small panel judges whose democratic accountability is attenuated. Surely you can recognize that there are competing political interest groups here – some take your view on finance and education, and others like the existing system just fine. Blaming the court just distracts attention from where the real problems lie, in our democratically accountable Texas legislature. And, to the extent you assert the Court’s decision is “political,” perhaps this could be related to the fact that the Court itself is elected, and to some degree democratically accountable – and Texans have elected Republicans. I agree with you that the schools and finance should be fixed along the lines you describe – but the way to do so is through the ballot box, not trying to get the Courts to exercise oversight over the schools, a role they are not competent to exercise. In a democracy you have winners and losers, and the progressive left has been the loser in Texas for a while now. Democratic channels, not (relatively) unaccountable judges, are they way to get the school finance system you want. (Also, the Brown v. Board comparison is not apt – it is much simpler to issue an injunction to desegregate (and it was not that simple) than to dictate the design of a school finance system to the legislature – and has a somewhat greater basis in the U.S. Constitution than the Texas decision as to the Texas constitution).
It wasn’t the courts responsibility to fix anything. It was their responsibility to acknowledge what the lower court had ruled that the current way of funding public schools was unconstitutional and thus put the onus on the legislature to actually act to address this problem.
They so much as said that it was not a fair system, but cowardly excused it as minimally meeting constitutional requirements. Now the legislature does not have to do anything. They haven’t done anything since they gutted the funding; why would we expect them to do anything now?
The way to fix this, as you say is through electing officials that are committed to improving the current system. It is more of a challenge with all of the gerrymandering efforts and political influence to remove these roadblocks. Stupidity and Idiocracy reign Supreme in Texas’ leadership.
Tea party to school kids: let them eat cake.
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller to school kids: Let them eat cupcakes. And fried food.
Texas GOP voters have reaped what they have sown in electing such judges:
http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2016/05/texas-gop-voters-you-reap-what-you-sow.html