[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Texas [official website] upheld [decision, PDF] the state’s complicated public school funding system as constitutional Friday. The court noted that financial efficiency was not an issue with the state’s public school funding based upon prior precedent, while stating that there is no specific number at which funding becomes efficient or inefficient. Intervenors also argued that the school system was qualitatively inefficient because of its “monopolized statutory scheme” and the existence of school districts as “near monopolies.” The court held that the legislature is to be given “broad discretion to make the myriad policy decisions concerning education,” and thus monopolistic features are not sufficient to qualify the funding system as inefficient. It was also argued that the funding system imposed a “state-wide ad valorem tax,” but the court did not believe there was any evidence of lack of “meaningful discretion,” making it not an ad valorem tax at all. While acknowledging the role of judicial review in educational policy-making, the court emphasized that, “[o]ur Byzantine school funding ‘system’ is undeniably imperfect, with immense room for improvement. But it satisfies minimum constitutional requirements,” under the Texas Constitution [materials]. The court was emphatic about their role in determining constitutionality, not optimality, and left the legislature with the “urgent challenge [to] upend an ossified regime ill-suited for 21st century Texas.”

Education funding has led to numerous legal challenges across the US. The Supreme Court of Washington last August ordered [JURIST report] the state to pay a fine of $100,000 per day for each day that it fails to comply with a previous court ruling mandating adequate funding of public schools. Also last August the US Senate passed a bill [JURIST report] to revamp the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. The US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled [JURIST report] in July in favor of tight regulations pointed at the for-profit college industry. The court ruled that the Education Department has the right to demand that schools show that their graduates are financially dependent enough to repay their student loans. In August 2014 a judge for a Travis County Civil Court in Texas ruled [JURIST report] that the Texas legislature failed to meet its constitutional duty to provide for Texas public schools because the school finance system is structured, operated, and funded so that it cannot provide a constitutionally reasonable education for all Texas schoolchildren.