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The Texas Supreme Court Retreats From Protecting Texas Students, Albert H. Kauffman

Faculty Articles

The Texas Supreme Court has now fully retreated from a powerful line of previous Texas Supreme Court decisions protecting the rights of public school students and low-wealth districts.' Returning to Texas history's dual system of poor districts and wealthy districts, the Court removed itself from its constitutional role as a vital ingredient in progressing toward school finance equity and adequacy and has instead regressed to a dual school system in Texas that is divided between poor and wealthy districts.

This regression becomes evident by analyzing seven major school finance decisions: (1) Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby (Edgewood I); (2) …

The Texas Supreme Court Retreats From Protecting Texas Students, Albert Kauffman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This Article criticizes the 2016 Texas Supreme Court school finance decision, the latest of seven decisions starting in 1989, for its disregard of both the record in the case and the realities of the Texas Constitution and Texas politics. The Article also focuses on how standards for reviewing legislation have changed and the Texas Supreme Court's irrational and unfounded retreat to the "money doesn't make a difference" theory of school finance. Finally, the Article recommends a return to an objective, comprehensible, enforceable and constitutional system of review, and concludes with a prayer for holdings that recognize the inequities of the …