 So, we're here at Nowcast SA Studios in the sixth floor of Central Library in San Antonio talking to David Hinojosa and Al Coffman about the Texas Supreme Court ruling on school finance that came down recently. Al Coffman, who is now a law professor at St. Mary's University, filed the first school finance case in 1984 when he was an attorney for MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and David, who is now the director, national director of policy at IDRA. IDRA is an equity-based research and technical assistance non-profit in San Antonio. David filed the case that was just decided by the Supreme Court back in 2011 after the legislature cut $5 billion from school funding. So, David, talk to us about what the court did. Well, what the court did was essentially gut the constitutional rights of school children in the state of Texas to a quality education. It did this by holding that the system was sufficiently funded, holding that the gaps and the differences between funding for property poor versus property rich district, although substantial, were good enough for the Texas Constitution, and unfortunately it reversed the lower court ruling that held that the system otherwise wasn't meeting the constitutional standards. In the end, this means that the Supreme Court lowered the constitutional floor of a basic adequate education into the basement and passed the responsibility nearly wholly to the legislature to fix if it cares to at all. If it cares to at all, because essentially what the court said was it should be fixed, but they didn't make anybody required to do anything. Exactly. Right? So, let's go back to the beginning of this, back to 1984, and tell me what this case is about and why it matters? Well, it's a history of Texas that the low-wealth districts and minority children were badly treated in public education, and there have been struggles for many years. There was a U.S. Supreme Court case back in 1973 about school finance, but there was no real progress made. So in 1983, 84, a group of low-wealth districts and advocacy organizations got together and said we have to go to court to force the legislature to do something, because the legislature basically won't move because they were controlled by wealthy districts and by high taxpayers, and so they weren't going to take the action necessary. So at the time, the poor districts had about half as much as the wealthy districts in terms of providing for their students. They had no funding for facilities. They were terribly understaffed. They had uncertified teachers. They had buildings falling apart, and the people in those districts, as well as the community's own, knew they had to deal with the situation. So that's why we brought the lawsuit. And it starts with Edgewood right here in San Antonio. Edgewood was the poster child for this case. Well, and Edgewood had been the leader. I mean, Edgewood was the leader in the federal court lawsuit back in 1973, and then Edgewood was I think the leader of the poor school districts and the emotional leader, as well, of the efforts we did in 1984. The whole premise, the underlying premise, is that when you fund schools through property taxes, if the area that is funding the schools is comprised of not affluent people and not really rich property, then it's very difficult to raise enough money. Well, that's right. And in Texas, there is a tremendous disparity between the poorest districts and the richest districts. A district like Edgewood had $20,000 of property for every student, and there were some very wealthy oil and gas districts that had $7 million of property for districts. So it was a tremendous variety. That wouldn't be so bad, except the state relied so much on that money to support the schools, and then didn't supplement enough to make up for the differences. So if Edgewood could raise 100th as much as the surrounding district for a certain tax rate, the state didn't do nearly enough to compensate for that to bring them up to the same levels. So huge disparities in what districts were able to spend per student, what they were able to spend on buildings, what they were able to spend on teachers, huge disparities that the state was not willing to level out. Yeah, the state and ultimately all of us, the taxpayers and the people who vote or not vote, all of us together were the ones who created this situation, too. So you filed the suit back in 1984, and some things improved? I think they did in 1989, and we won a major opinion, unanimous opinion of the Texas Supreme Court saying the system was unconstitutional. And in 1991, we won another one, and both of those were very strong decisions. They forced the legislature both to increase the funding and increase the equity of the system. They didn't solve it, and they didn't go far enough, but they did make some improvements. And then comes 2011, and the legislature cut $5 billion in school funding? Yeah, it was funding from the overall funding that school districts were getting, as well as for specialized programs like pre-K programs, extended day programs, tutoring programs that really reach the child every day, especially underserved children like economically disadvantaged and poor children. And there was no other resort. The legislature had pulled all of that money out, had raised the standards too, had expected all students to graduate college and career ready, which was a good thing, a good move for the legislature. They had expanded testing, high-stakes testing, graduation requirements from four to 15, and what else are school districts and school children supposed to do, except WALO and FELLY, but to use the courts again? Because it has been that leverage point of the only real significant reforms that we've known in Texas dating back the last four decades. So when the legislature pulls $5 billion from public education funding, that shows up close and personal everywhere, right? Absolutely. And it wasn't just the property poor districts that were suing on this. Of course, because they were receiving significantly less money from the system already, it's certainly meant a lot more to them. But class size is increasing across the state. School districts having to curtail extended day programs, summer school programs, cutting back on their pre-kindergarten programs. A lot of these programs that really help target the needs of English language learners and really help them meet the increasing state standards, those were having to be cut back. So it wasn't just the Edgewoods, it was the Dallas, it was the Houstons, it was the Austin ISDs, the El Paso ISDs, several districts, 600 plus across the state, property rich mid-wealth districts and high-wealth districts were all suing because they were all hurting. Wow, wow. And we go back to the pre-k once again. I mean, we know for children who, for whom English is their first language, what pre-k coming to kindergarten, kinder ready means and that means a much more higher likelihood of them reading the grade level in third grade, a much lower likelihood of them dropping out in junior high school, a much higher likelihood of them graduating from high school. And for kids who need extra help, it's the same kind of thing. Yeah, and we have an increasing number of English language learner students. They now make up nearly one out of every five students in the state of Texas. English language learner means for whom English is not their first language. Exactly, and they're not yet proficient in the English language itself. But for economically disadvantaged students, those are now three out of every five students across the state of Texas. I mean, there were districts like Richardson ISD, who are now majority low-income districts. And Richardson ISD in the Dallas area in the past has always been known as a very wealthy upper-class, majority Anglo, majority high-income school district. So these impacts, these demographic shifts in state that have been coming on, you know, for the past couple of decades, but certainly even more so in the last decade have magnified, you know, the challenges that students face. And this is a great opportunity for the state of Texas. I mean, this growing diversity, you, children who are learning the English language have the potential to be a bilingual student when they graduate. And instead, when you starve school districts, they starve the education that students are receiving because they have no other recourse. They can't meet the needs of those students. And they start fearing these students, unfortunately. They don't see these students and their families largely as assets, unfortunately. They see them through more of a deficit mindset. But this is an incredible diversity. We have a lot of, you know, 60% of our kids are low-income, but that shows you how much, how resilient students can be also when they face those challenges of putting food on the table and getting ready, you know, for school and then coming home. So again, you know, this is incredible opportunities that the state has, but unfortunately there's this huge disconnect between expectations, standards from the state and the funding and resources and opportunities that they provide to school districts so those children can access and education to succeed. Those changes have really added to the chance to do something about this because when we filed this lawsuit back in the 80s, the low-wealth districts had a variety of disadvantages. They had less money, less ability to raise money, they had more poor kids, they had more kids who were English language learners, higher cost in general, and they just suffered in every possible way. Now, because the populations, poor population English learners are larger and more distributed, other districts also have a dog in this fight and they have a real interest in it. That's one reason why we started, we started with nine school districts and now there's 600 districts involved in the lawsuits because I think they and their boards and their communities know that all of them need to get involved in this. Now, the next step is to try to get all of that interest and focus into changing the legislature and changing the leadership in the state. But there is a much broader need and a much broader understanding of the issues now. And that's where we go. I mean, where do we go from here? I mean, you've been talking to school districts, you talk to school districts all the time and the folks who were part of this lawsuit, now what? Well, it's going to be absolutely necessary that one children and their families speak up, that they have a voice in this because they can hold their own individual legislator accountable, they can hold their own individual school district accountable as well. And we're going to need a significant uptick in family and parents and community engagement to try and tackle this problem. Because, you know, what the Supreme Court did say after reinventing this record and pretending that class size doesn't matter, pretending that money doesn't matter, despite a robust record showing otherwise, what they did say was that things aren't good in Texas. We're saying this is constitutional, but constitutional is not good enough for the state of Texas. And legislature, it's your responsibility to fix this and provide quality education for all students. So the first thing is, of course, you know, trying to engage parents and students on this issue. But secondly, it also is going to require incredible effort to have property wealthy and property poor and mid-wealth districts all come together and get in the same boat. For years, property wealthy districts have refused to invite other districts onto their ocean liner and said, your tugboat is well enough. Well, they haven't made, you know, the kind of inroads they need on Texas policy through that approach. And we have, you know, these pro-equity and anti-equity groups. They need to realize that if we need to build a robust system, especially with this legislature, who is not always kind to opportunity for all to take any action in the upcoming session, they're going to have to come on the same boat. They're going to have to come together, put aside their differences, quit trying to extend the equity gap between the wealthy and the poor. And if they all come together again, you're not talking about just 600 districts. You're talking about all 1,024 school districts and their 5.5 million school children and families. That's how many there are. And it's going to take some leadership on that. I mean, some leadership from somewhere. Well, it's going to take some leadership. And I mean, that has to start with the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the speaker of the House have to be committed to this and have to say not just that, well, we can't afford to do everything. We have to lower taxes. But say the future of this state is educating these kids. And the only way that Texas is going to be able to compete nationally and internationally is to have a better educated workforce. And we're very low in expenditures for the compared to the rest of the country. We have greater needs than most other states. And the leadership is going to have to bite the bullet and do that. And of course, all of us need to talk to the legislators and the leadership and persuade them. Persuade, that's a very nice word. But I mean, I think we need to persuade them to do this. And we need to make sure that they understand that the political consequences of inaction will be very negative for them. And the tech supreme court, they did, essentially, they changed the law in this case. They changed the standard. We knew what the target was going in. And we tried and proved those claims against standards that the Supreme Court has set before. But while they can change the law, they can't change the facts. And the fact is that we have 68% of Latino students in the state of Texas who are not achieving the state's own low standard for college readiness. We have more than 50% of the kids across the state who are graduating not college and career ready. 72% of African-American students graduating are not college ready. According to the lower standard, the state itself has set. And the Supreme Court did say that we need to bring the school finance system into the 21st century. Apparently, that's not necessarily what the Constitution somehow requires. It's frozen back in time. But they did say that we need to do that. So there are some real critical elements that need to be updated in our school finance system. Parts that haven't been updated since the 1980s. How antiquated is that given our changing times, needs, and expectations? And it's going to be critical that all of this effort be to hold the legislature accountable for its actions. So you just spoke to a school district. And what did you tell them that their next steps are? For teachers, for administrators, parents, what are their next steps? Sure. And it's to continue to try and provide the best opportunities that they are doing. Because there's a lot. There's thousands of schools across Texas that are trying to make do with what they have. And they're not going to stop trying to make do with that. But they're going to have to get their parents organized. They're going to have to reach out and educate their communities and their legislators on this issue and let them know how parents are impacted. I mean, in the case we had a parent who was in a property poor district in Pasadena, and then she did a little bit better income-wise. And they moved to Clear Creek, which was just basically across the side of the tracks in the Houston area. And she saw the differences between no science experiments, between having to take paper to her school for her kids to use for copying paper, not having access to textbooks, not having access to tutoring, to having all of those things plus so much more enrichment across the tracks just because they were in Clear Creek and no longer in Pasadena. I mean, those kind of injustices we should not be talking about, especially because we hold all children to the same standards. Their record in this case, by the way, as a lawyer and professor, I did the first case. But in this case, they developed the most complete and impressive record ever in Texas School of Finance. I mean, they showed the disparities. They showed how they met all of the legal standards as never has been done before. But this long-term goal of improving the education in the state, I just can't stress it too much how important it is. I mean, the only way the state will improve is to put in that extra funding or to use the funds that they have more effectively. One of the things that bothered me most about the decision are many things that did. But one of them bothered me was they talked about how the disparities we rich and poor are about the same as they were before and they're not so much worse. But they've always been bad. And there have always been disparities. And the low-wealth districts have always had less and always needed more. And they've never had solved that. And they talked about the different districts here in Texas. In my own experience, we educated our kids in public schools here in Texas. And then we moved to a Boston suburb. And then we moved to a San Francisco suburb. And there's simply no comparison between what Texas could offer and what those other districts could offer. They just were richer. They had a smaller classes. They had better qualified teachers. They had more robust programs. They had better special ed programs. The fact is, for that additional funding, which they spend, they got a lot. And it was a much better education for our children. So there are some easy, not easy, but there are models out there to look to for how this can be done. I mean, there are solutions. School finance is an incredibly complex. I mean, I've always said that we need to find some other word other than school finance. But if we want to focus on fair funding for all school children and bring the system into the 21st century, there's two really basic things that the legislature could do. Not necessarily the only things they should do, but what they can do. And one is to increase the basic allotment that's the basic funding that school districts receive and raise that up and also increase the weights or the cost adjustments, the extra cost that the state gives for economically disadvantaged and English learner students. Because they do need access to additional programs often to help them meet the same standards and help them meet their own potential. And so just by updating the basic allotment by updating the weights for bilingual education and compensatory education for the low-income students, we can go a long way just by those two core pieces. And as you were saying, that's not just in Edgewood. Now it will have an effect in wealthy school districts like Austin? Like Austin ISD, like Houston ISD, like Northside here in San Antonio, like Northeast in San Antonio, even school districts like Bernie in this area. And Richardson in the Dallas area. Virtually every district across the state of Texas would benefit one way or another from those two core reform measures. And so what stands between now and making that happen is for members of the Texas legislature and the Texas leadership to believe that the constituency, their voters care about this. Absolutely, that's what's needed. It's not just the legislature like what Al said. You know, it's the governor, it's the lieutenant governor. They seem to have other ideas. They're actually happy that the Supreme Court ruling held that the system was minimally constitutional. What they don't understand that there's a huge gap between what a quality education is in Texas and what a constitutionally adequate education is in Texas. And what that means for the future of the state? Well, are we gonna invest in the children who are going to be our future, so that we can cut down on certain costs, which would include crime, which would include welfare potentially in those areas. And just at its basic core, just provide what the district, what the schools and the state should be providing to children to help them achieve their full potential. That shouldn't be too much to ask for it. Because if we don't, again, we're talking about 60% of this children and that rate is growing. We're talking about one out of every five students who's an English learner nearly in our state. And the consequences are gonna be innumerable. To some extent, the Supreme Court opinion called the bluff of the leadership and the legislature. They've often said the court should stay out of this. We the legislature know what's best for Texas, we can handle it. And the leadership has said the court should stay out of it. We're the leadership, we can do, we're elected statewide, we know what we need for Texas. Well, now the court's out of it. So now they're gonna have to do it. Let's see, they blamed a lot of it on, well, we can't do it because we never know what the court's gonna do. We can't do this because we never know what the court's gonna do. Well, now the court has basically said, we're not gonna deal with it anymore. You, the leadership, have to deal with it and we'll see what happens now. Yeah, and a band-aid's not gonna suffice this time. I mean, the schools are in crisis mode. They're hemorrhaging and a band-aid is not going to fix this kind of wound. It's gonna take significant work on behalf of the legislature to make sure that opportunity is provided to all. I think the line from the decision was a band-aid on top of a band-aid. That's right, that's right. But there was a lot of nice language in there. They're just no good opinion there. Well, thank you so very much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. And we can come back and revisit in the future. Yes, we can. Thank you very much. Thank you.