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Document Type

Student Article

Abstract

This Article will analyze the Texas school finance system, evaluate its challenges, and propose reforms to simplify it. Although the Texas Legislature repeatedly promotes the idea that education is a priority, there is a long history of controversy over many aspects of education, particularly funding. Thus, to fully understand the current funding and legislative dilemma, Part III will analyze the current funding scheme. Part IV will examine the history of the finance system culminating in February 2013 when a Texas District Court ruled the current school finance system is unconstitutional due to claims of adequacy and a finding that the funding process is essentially a statewide property tax. The issues of adequacy, state property tax, and efficiency, as well as specific solutions for each, will be discussed in Part V. Instead of attempting to amend the current funding plan so that it will be constitutional by meeting the former criteria, Part VI advocates abandoning the current funding scheme for something completely different. This Article will not provide or promote a definitive solution to the issue, however, it will prove that the Texas Legislature’s approach to educa- tion funding for the last two decades has been unhurried and incomplete. As a result, both schools and students have been seriously and negatively affected by this unhurried trial-and-error system. Thus, instead of trying to fix an already broken system, this Article will emphasize the importance of a major structural change for school funding.

DOI

10.37419/JPL.V2.I3.1

First Page

341

Last Page

385

Included in

Law Commons

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