It may be sooner rather than later, but one way or another it’s coming.
Despite numerous challenges and Band-Aids to Texas’ school funding system over the past three decades, school leaders say another school finance lawsuit is imminent.
If it doesn’t come before the legislative session that begins in January, a lawsuit likely will be filed by the spring as a growing number of schools contend with deep budget cuts that include staff layoffs and diminishing programs.
A worst-case scenario is already playing out in other states. Budget cuts are so deep in Oregon and California that many districts have shortened their school year. And in Hawaii the governor cut the school week from five to four days for the state’s 171,000 public-school students.
School leaders across Texas say those kinds of drastic measures aren’t far-fetched.
“Those are the kinds of things that will have to take place,” said San Antonio ISD Superintendent Robert Durón. “It’s closer than people realize.”
I’ve been predicting this for awhile now. We do not adequately fund our schools, there is still great disparity in funding levels between school districts, and we continue to require schools and school districts to do more with less. Sooner or later, something’s got to give.