The Lubbock Independent School District announced Monday they will join the Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition in an equity lawsuit against the state.
Simply put, LISD is receiving less money per student because they are one of the poorest districts, and LISD claims that is unfair.
LISD officials say the district currently receives $4,600 per student, where as Austin districts receive nearly $6,500 per student. Now they are joining 300 other Texas Schools and taking their case to the courtroom.
“We remain constant in the 2005-2006 school year in terms of revenue. This past legislative session we were cut well over $13, almost $14 million dollars,” said LISD Superintendent Dr. Karen Garza.
LISD says with those cuts from Austin, standards increased. For instance, The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills Test will now be replaced with the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STAAR test. LISD says that requires students to have more math and science with less money.
“It’s largely contingent upon the legislature that eventually needs to fix some of the challenges and the issue in the ways schools are funded in the state of Texas,” said Garza.
The Abilene Independent School District board of trustees voted unanimously Monday night to join more than 20 other school districts in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Texas’ school funding system.
“No fundamental change in the education system has ever occurred without going to the courts for relief,” said Stan Lambert, board president.
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The board voted to join a coalition of more than 20 school districts — including Fort Worth ISD, Austin ISD, Houston ISD and Katy ISD — being represented by Houston law firm Thompson & Horton LLP.
Lambert said the firm’s David Thompson argued a similar case before the Texas Supreme Court six years ago and won some small changes in the education funding system.
Lambert said the lawsuit was necessary because the state’s education funding system was fundamentally broken.
There are more than 1,000 school districts in Texas, and Lambert said he expected more than half of them to join the lawsuit by the time it is filed.
“We felt it was important for us to do our part,” Lambert said.
So that’s one more district for each of the known lawsuits; the Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition has already filed its suit, while the Thompson suit is still in the works. At this point I’m more interested in the reasons why a given district would not be suing rather than why they are.