Greedy school districts win first round in school finance case

Texas Tribune:
In a decision certain to be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, state district Judge John Dietz ruled Monday in favor of more than 600 school districts on all of their major claims against the state's school finance system. With a swift ruling issued from the bench shortly after the state finished its closing arguments, Dietz said the state does not adequately or efficiently fund public schools — and that it has created an unconstitutional de-facto property tax in shifting the burden of paying for them to the local level. 
"There is no free lunch," he said, "We either want increased standards and are willing to pay the price, or we don't."
... 
Texas is spending too much on schools already.  School finance funding has been increasing at a rate greater than the rate of inflation.  Dietz statement about the property tax is strange since property taxes have been used for school financing for decades and were used at the time of previous litigation on school finance.  It would seem that to the extent that argument might have had some merits, it has been waived if it was not previously raised.  Schools need to deliver a better education for less than they currently get.  The problem is not lack of money it lack of standards.

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