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Texas Supreme Court funding ruling jeopardizes HISD

The Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (2006), which houses the Houston Independent School District administrative offices, in Houston, Texas. David Ramirez Molina I Wikimedia Commons

The Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (2006), which houses the Houston Independent School District administrative offices, in Houston. | David Ramirez Molina/Wikimedia Commons

With more than 215,000 students, HISD is the seventh largest school district in the nation and the largest in the state. While the scale aligns with the motto “Everything is bigger in Texas,” this means the money available for each school is spread thin. Very thin.

In 2011, the Texas Legislature cut $5.4 billion from public schools, a decision that prompted 600 school districts to sue the state for inadequate funding. In an attempt to detail their experiences, the HISD Student Congress, a student-run committee focused on addressing problems affecting students, wrote and submitted an amicus brief to the Texas Supreme Court.

Although Judge John Dietz ruled in favor of the school districts in a trial court, on May 13 the Texas Supreme Court decided otherwise, saying “the school system is constitutionally adequate if it achieves a general diffusion of knowledge.”

This is completely unacceptable, and can be detrimental to students in the HISD.

Zaakir Tameez, Speaker of HISD Student Congress, said the Texas Supreme Court’s “general diffusion of knowledge” statement suggests that only the aggregate, rather than all students, deserve an adequate education.

Ultimately, five years after the initial case, the Texas Supreme Court argued that the school districts and the State of Texas at large provide a constitutionally adequate amount of funding. The education of hundreds of thousands of students have to pay for that decision.

“(The Texas Supreme Court) prioritized legal interests instead of trying to solve the problem,” Tameez said, who wrote a critique of the ruling with other members in HISD Congress.

In HISD alone, the decision made schools underfunded, resources limited and number of extracurricular activities minimal. In Texas, HISD ranks 605th as a school district. This abysmal placement comes with an A- as the highest rating for only two out of ten categories. Without the law compelling the legislature to make changes, improvements become difficult to reap.

“While many at the legislature and supreme court rest easy knowing they’ve somewhat successfully put this issue into a dark judicial corner, our school finance system will continue to maintain the status quo,” said Uyiosa Elegon, member of the HISD Student Congress and incoming University of Houston student.

The Texas Supreme Court has asked HISD for a complete overhaul of it’s financial systems, but offer no financial assistance.

“This same status quo has directly influenced school districts to make dire decisions that have heavily contributed to our level of education in relation to the rest of the nation,” Elegon said. “By the way, we’re at the bottom.”

Asking an entire school district to fix itself without the proper funding will contribute to the current failing system and hurt students, teachers and their futures.

Praneeth Kambhampati is a chemistry freshman and many be reached at [email protected]

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