The basic facts of this cause are not in dispute. [FN1] The only question is whether those facts
describe a public school financing system that meets the requirements of the Constitution.
As summarized and excerpted, the facts are as follows.
FN1. By agreement of the parties, the 1985-86 school year was used as the test year for
purposes of constitutional review.
There are approximately three million public school children in Texas. The legislature
finances the education of these children through a combination of revenues supplied by the
state itself and revenues supplied by local school districts which are governmental
subdivisions of the state. Of total education costs, the state provides about forty-two percent,
school districts provide about fifty percent, andthe remainder comes from various other
sources including federal funds. School districts derive revenues from local ad valorem
property taxes, and the state raises funds from a variety of sources including the sales tax and
various severance and excise taxes.
There are glaring disparities in the abilities of the various school districts to raise revenues
from property taxes because taxable property wealth varies greatly from district to district.
The wealthiest district has over $14,000,000 of property wealth per student, while the poorest
has approximately $20,000; this disparity reflects a 700 to 1 ratio. The 300,000 students in
the lowest-wealth schools have less than 3% of the state's property wealth to support their
education while the 300,000 students in the highest- wealth schools have over 25% of the
state's property wealth; thus the 300,000 students in the wealthiest districts have more than
eight times the property value to support their education as the 300,000 students in the
poorest districts. The average property wealth in the 100 wealthiest districts is more than
twenty times greater than the average property wealth in the 100 poorest districts.
Edgewood I.S.D. has $38,854 in property wealth per student; Alamo Heights I.S.D., in the
same county, has $570,109 in property wealth per student.
The state has tried for many years to lessen the disparities through various efforts to
supplement the poorer districts. Through the Foundation School Program, the state
currently attempts to ensure that each district has sufficient funds to provide its students with
at least a basic education. See Tex.Educ.Code § 16.002. Under this program, state aid is
distributed to the various districts according to a complex formula such that property-poor
districts receive more state aid than do property-rich districts. However, the Foundation
School Program does not cover even the cost of meeting the state-mandated minimum
requirements. Most importantly, there are no Foundation School Program allotments for
school facilities or for debt service. The basic allotment and the transportation allotment
understate actual costs, and the career ladder salary supplement for teachers is underfunded.
For these reasons and more, almost all school districts spend additional local funds.
Low-wealth districts use a significantly greater proportion of their local funds to pay the debt
service on construction bonds while high-wealth districts are able to use their funds to pay for
a wide array of enrichment programs.