Edgewood Independent School Dist. v. Meno

• Decision Date: 02 March 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-0152,94-0152
• Citation: 917 S.W.2d 717
• Parties: 108 Ed. Law Rep. 1310 EDGEWOOD INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Alvarado Independent School District et al., Guadalupe Gutierrez et al., Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District et al., Coppell Independent School District et al., Sterling City Independent School District et al., Stafford Municipal School District et al., Humble Independent School District et al., and Somerset Independent School District et al., Appellants, v. Lionel R. MENO et al., and Bexar County Education District et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 717

917 S.W.2d 717

108 Ed. Law Rep. 1310

EDGEWOOD INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Alvarado Independent School District et al., Guadalupe Gutierrez et al., Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District et al., Coppell Independent School District et al., Sterling City Independent School District et al., Stafford Municipal School District et al., Humble Independent School District et al., and Somerset Independent School District et al., Appellants, v. Lionel R. MENO et al., and Bexar County Education District et al., Appellees.

No. 94-0152.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued May 25, 1994.

Decided Jan. 30, 1995.

As Modified Feb. 16, 1995.

Rehearing Overruled March 2, 1995.

Bracewell and Patterson, Kelly Frels, John David Thompson, III, Houston, Gray and Becker, Roger Moore and Richard E. Gray, III, Austin, Law Offices of Earl Luna, Robert E. Luna and Earl Luna, Dallas, Ray, Wood and Fine, Randall Buck Wood, Austin, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Antonia Hernandez, Albert H. Kauffman, Luis A. Wilmot and Carmen Rumbaut, Texas Justice Foundation, Allan E. Parker, San Antonio, Brown and Thompson, Andrew L. Wambsganss, Fort Worth, Olson and Olson, John F. Olson and William A. Olson, Houston, Thompson and Knight, Schuyler B. Marshall, G. Luke Ashley and Deborah G. Hankinson, Dallas, Foster, Lewis and Langley, Emerson Banack, Jr. and Kenneth L. Malone, San Antonio, Bickerstaff, Heath and Smiley, Sara Hardner Leon, C. Robert Heath, David Mendez and Steve Bickerstaff, Austin, Judith Sanders-Castro, San Antonio, META, INC., Roger Rice, Somerville, MA, for appellants.

Dan Morales, Atty. Gen., Toni Hunter, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raymond Bonilla, Jr., Comptroller's Office, Kevin T. O'Hanlon, Texas Educ. Agency, Austin, for appellees.

CORNYN, Justice, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which PHILLIPS, Chief Justice, and GONZALEZ, HIGHTOWER and GAMMAGE, Justices, joined. HECHT, ENOCH and OWEN, Justices, joined in Parts I, II, III, V, VI and VII.

Six years ago, this Court held that this State's system for financing public education violated article VII, section 1 of the Texas Constitution. Edgewood Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Kirby, 777 S.W.2d 391, 397 (Tex.1989) (Edgewood I ). Today we consider whether the Legislature's latest efforts to reform the education finance system satisfy article VII, section 1, and other provisions of the Texas Constitution.

Following standard rules of constitutional interpretation, we begin with the presumption that Senate Bill 7 is constitutional; the burden of proof is on those parties challenging this presumption. Spring Branch Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Stamos, 695 S.W.2d 556, 558 (Tex.1985). On final analysis, we conclude that all parties claiming that Senate Bill 7 is unconstitutional have failed to meet that challenge. ¹ We accordingly affirm the constitutionality of the public school finance system enacted in Senate Bill 7. We emphasize, however, that the challenge to the school finance law based on inadequate provision for facilities fails only because of an evidentiary void. Our judgment in this case should not be interpreted as a signal that the school finance crisis in Texas has ended.

With the abiding conviction that it was "idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity of self-government" unless the people are educated and enlightened, the delegates of the Texas people declared their independence on March 2, 1836, at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Our first state constitution, adopted in connection with Texas' annexation to the United States in 1845, provided:

A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of this State to make suitable provisions for the support and maintenance of public schools.

The present requirement, that public schools be part of "an efficient system," was added to our Constitution in 1876, and has been the focus of litigation in Texas courts since 1984.

Plainly, it is the Legislature's duty to make suitable provision for an efficient system of public education in Texas. Given the prominence of this concern throughout Texas history, there can be no dispute that education of our children is an essential Texas value. An efficient system of public education requires not only classroom instruction, but also the classrooms where that instruction is to take place. These components of an efficient system--instruction and facilities--are inseparable.

Yet sadly, the existence of more than 1000 independent school districts in Texas, each with duplicative administrative bureaucracies, combined with widely varying tax bases and an excessive reliance on local property taxes, has resulted in a state of affairs that can only charitably be called a "system." For too long, the Legislature's response to its constitutional duty to provide for an efficient system has been little more than crisis management. The rationality behind such a complex and unwieldy system is not obvious. We conclude that the system becomes minimally acceptable only when viewed through the prism of history. Surely Texas can and must do better.

We do not presume that the framers and ratifiers of the Texas Constitution have given the Legislature an impossible task, nor do we presume that they so limited the Legislature's discretion in discharging this duty that all but one or two options are foreclosed. The Legislature's discretion should be tethered only by the limits that the people have dictated in the Constitution they have adopted for themselves, and for their representatives.

This Court's role under our Constitution's separation of powers provision should be one of restraint. We do not dictate to the Legislature how to discharge its duty. As prominent as this Court's role has been in recent years on this important issue, it is subsidiary to the constitutionally conferred role of the Legislature. The people of Texas have themselves set the standard for their schools. Our responsibility is to decide whether that standard has been satisfied, not to judge the wisdom of the policy choices of the Legislature, or to impose a different policy of our own choosing.

I

This litigation has a long history. In May 1984, numerous school districts sought a judicial declaration that the public school finance system violated the Texas Constitution. After a trial, the district court ruled that the existing system was unconstitutional in several respects, and enjoined the State from funding it unless the violations were corrected by a certain date. The court of appeals reversed that judgment, 761 S.W.2d 859 (Tex.App.--Austin 1988); but this Court reversed the court of appeals' judgment, holding that the school finance system was not "efficient" as required by article VII, section 1 of the Texas Constitution. Edgewood I, 777 S.W.2d at 397. We thus affirmed the district court's judgment, modifying it only to postpone the effective date of the injunction. Id. at 399.

The Legislature responded by passing Senate Bill 1 in June 1990. The school districts renewed their challenges in the district court, which held that the school finance system remained unconstitutional. On direct appeal, we also held that the system remained inefficient, noting the "overall failure to restructure the system." Edgewood Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Kirby, 804 S.W.2d 491, 496 (Tex.1991) (Edgewood II ). We therefore directed the district court to reinstate its original injunction, but again postponed the effective date to give the Legislature time to respond. Id. at 498-99.

The Legislature then passed Senate Bill 351, which created 188 county education districts (CEDs) to carry out taxing functions. Numerous school districts and individuals challenged the constitutionality of the new finance structures. This Court sustained two of those challenges, holding that Senate Bill 351 levied a state ad valorem tax in violation of article VIII, section 1-e of the Texas Constitution, and that it levied an ad valorem tax without an election in violation of article VII, section 3 of the Texas Constitution. Carrollton-Farmers Branch Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Edgewood Indep. Sch. Dist., 826 S.W.2d 489, 524 (Tex.1992) (Edgewood III ). Once again, we directed the district court to reissue its injunction, as modified to give the Legislature time to act. Id. at 523 & n. 42, 524.

The Legislature's first response to Edgewood III was to propose a constitutional amendment that would have authorized the creation of CEDs with limited authority to levy, collect, and distribute ad valorem taxes. See Tex.S.J.Res. 7, 73rd Leg., R.S., 1993 Tex.Gen. Laws 5560. When the voters rejected that measure, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 7. ²

Senate Bill 7 was immediately challenged by numerous groups of plaintiffs, representing hundreds of school districts, both property-rich and property-poor, as well as many parents and local officials. After a trial on the consolidated actions, the district court held that Senate Bill 7 was constitutional, but found that the Legislature had failed to provide efficiently for facilities. The district court accordingly denied most of the relief sought by the plaintiffs, but ordered that no bonds for any school district could be approved, registered, or guaranteed after September 1, 1995, unless the Legislature had provided for the efficient funding of educational facilities by that time.

Nine groups of plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors perfected direct appeals. The State also perfected its own appeal. We noted probable jurisdiction of all ten appeals.

For purposes of discussion, the present challenges are organized according to the parties bringing them. Two groups of appellants are composed mainly of property-poor school districts, whose complaints focus on the efficiency of Senate Bill 7. ³ Five groups of appellants are composed largely of property-rich school districts; their complaints focus...