On Tuesday, September 1, 2015, the Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning the State’s appeal of Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz’ ruling that the public school funding system was unconstitutional.
Solicitor General Scott Keller, the lead attorney from the Texas Attorney General’s Office defending the State of Texas, argued that public school funding is a “political question” that “has mired courts in disputes that are best left to the Legislature.” Although Keller later acknowledged that the Courts have previously rejected arguments that school finance litigation cases lack standing as a political issue, Keller nonetheless argued for the Court to revisit that standard and outright reject the case brought to the courts by over 600 plaintiff school districts. In response to the State lawyers’ argument that public school funding is a political issue, not a legal question, former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, representing Fort Bend ISD et al, one of four plaintiff groups of school districts, argued, “Now is not the time and this is not the case to abandon judicial review” of public school funding issues and “…we believe we have proof that the system fails the constitution because we have done the analytical work that the legislature has refused to do.”
“Money isn’t pixie dust” argued lawyers for the State in reference to adequacy issues argued by the plaintiff school districts.
"We can sugarcoat this any way you want to sugarcoat this," Rick Gray, representing the plaintiff group Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, et al comprising poorer school districts, stated, "but the reality is the face of Texas is changing dramatically." On this point, Mr. Gray explained that minority students represent the largest segment of public school enrollment growth, many of whom are from economically disadvantaged homes or need English as a second language instruction. Mr. Gray also argued that revenue gaps of $3,072 per student or $100,000 per classroom are too large for a suitable public school funding system. He also explained that the poorest 15% of districts are taxing 9.6 cents more and getting $3,072 less than the richest 15% richest districts. He concluded that “All school districts need to get to GDK (General Diffusion of Knowledge) at or about the same tax rate.”
“We are not preparing students for the 21st century,” Wallace Jefferson also argued. School districts “are crying out for the Legislature to act,” and Texas public schools must be funded at a level to graduate students that are college and career ready. He also argued that "The amounts that they [Legislature] put in have not replaced the amounts they reduced in 2011," and that the State is “going in the exact opposite direction."
By the end of their allotted time for testimony to the Supreme Court, the attorneys for the groups of school districts appeared to have effectively presented a comprehensive case for why the public school funding system needs structural changes.
Attorneys for the charter school plaintiffs also argued that the state aid funding system forced charter schools to cannibalize funds that should be allocated to instructional classrooms for other purposes including funding facilities.
During a break between testimony by the plaintiff attorneys for the groups of school districts and the start of closing arguments, Justice Willett made an observation that appeared to summarize one of the core issues involving the disconnect between the complexity of the state aid funding formulas and issues involving significant differences in revenue streams to school districts with similar tax efforts that serve comparable student demographics and enrollment sizes. This observation appeared to have been made by Justice Willet when he stated, “It’s really hard to fathom at least to me that if Texas policy makers began with a blank sheet of paper today that they would create anything resembling sort of the complex sort of Rube Goldberg kind of contraption that we have that seems to lurch from one lawsuit to another, Band-Aid on top of band aid, on top of Post-it note, on top of paperclip sort of all bound together with a rubber band…”
By the end of the morning, the plaintiff attorneys for the groups of school districts appeared to have effectively presented their case that the causes for the school districts' lawsuit involve substantial dollar amounts that are far more than mere "pixie dust."
The State’s lawyers closed by urging the Justices to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction or remand it to the District Court for further consideration of recent legislation activity and requested that if the Supreme Court renders a ruling that it be in favor of the State on all points.
The Justices did not indicate when a ruling would be released on the State’s appeal of the ruling made by Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz.