Ready or not, here it comes again.
A Travis County District Judge has decided to move forward with the state’s school finance trial despite some wavering about re-opening the case.
Earlier this month Travis County District Judge John Dietz revisited an order to re-open the case, which takes a look at if the state is adequately funding public school districts.
Attorney David Hinojosa is with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and said some of the judge’s doubts were based on the idea that new school finance laws from Texas Legislature really didn’t change anything.
“He said that he was worried about the financial data in the system and how fresh it might be because school finance data the way it’s set up is you don’t know what changes are being made to enrollment and property wealth and tax collections until the fall of the next school year,” Hinojosa said.
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The next court date is Oct. 4 inside Travis County’s 250th District Court — the trial is scheduled to start Jan. 21, 2014.
See here for the background. I would certainly prefer for Judge Dietz’s original ruling to stand, but as this will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court, it makes sense to review all the evidence in light of the legislative session. No need to give the state and the Supreme Court an easy out on the appeal. It’s a pain to have to do it all over again, but better now than a few years from now.
As long as Dietz’s ruling and the full cycle of appeals gets done before the next session, to put the Lege squarely in the gunsights. Preferably before Nov. 2014 and elections, for that matter.