Texas Supreme Court Case: Edgewood ISD V. Kirby

EDGEWOOD ISD V. KIRBY The court case of Edgewood ISD et al. v. Kirby et al., was a landmark court case that disputed the equality of Texas’ finance policy for public schools’ districts. Landmark court cases involve public rights and liberties which, the Texas Supreme Court decides whether an existing government law is constitutional. The outcome of the Texas Supreme Court ruling on landmark cases effects the lifestyle for all Texas citizens. In Edgewood ISD et al. v. Kirby et al., the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Funds organization (MALDEF) represented the lower-class people. (MALDEF) sued William Kirby, the commissioner of education, for unequal treatment towards lower income school districts. The organization claimed Kirby’s

They ordered the state legislature to enact a constitutional property tax based financial plan to fund public schools. In response, the state legislature created a bill that transferred the states funding going to wealthy districts to be distributed to the lower income districts. However, once again (MALDEF) dissatisfied with the bill, filed another suit asking for a better plan. They won in arguing that the “Robin Hood” plan did not accomplish the funding problem. The state appealed the verdict to the Texas Supreme Court however, once again the justices sided with the (MALDEF) organization. Since the legislature did not successfully correct the unfair property tax system. In response, the state legislature redrew the districts into one hundred eighty-eight education districts, so money would be distributed equally. This time the new bill did resolved the property tax funding school issue for lower income districts however, only by unconstitutionally taking the money from the wealthy’s districts property tax. The Texas Supreme court agreed to hear their argument and agreed that the state legislature was violating the upper classes constitutional rights by unrightfully taxing the wealthy property districts to cover the lower income districts. Thus, led the Texas Supreme Court to order the state legislature to reestablish yet another tax plan for public

The article “Public School Finance, School Choice, and Equal Educational Opportunity in Texas: The Enduring Importance of Background Conditions” states, “As a result of the Edgewood litigation, state educational expenditures have increased, and today there is more equality of access to instructional resources across Texas school districts than ever before” (Janssen, 2000, pg.2). Another significant impact from the Texas Supreme Court ruling as the Property Tax finance policy unconstitutional in Edgewood ISD v. Kirby was the increased academic scores of students from elementary through middle school in the two subjects English and math. As explained in the article “Tangible Impact of School Finance Litigation” stating, “In both reading and mathematics, the relationship between the scaled scores for both fourth and eighth graders and whether the state had experienced the filing of an adequacy lawsuit was significant. With scores increasing nationally as a function of time, the filing of a lawsuit increases this impact in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and mathematics” (Lockridge,Maiden,2014, pg.17). Along with these result, the article “The Local Impact of School Finance Reform in Texas” explained “Local views on the new finance program varied across the districts in a