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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                Chris Elliott                        Zach Lee                  Christian Palmer
                Geronimo Rodriguez       Blake Whitaker       Kristen Young

Texas lawmakers face big test in education

With only six weeks left of classes, it's easy to forget about school, but the Texas Legislature does not have that luxury.

On Friday, Gov. Rick Perry called a 30-day special session of the Texas Legislature to devise a new way for taxpayers to pay for the public education system -- and history has shown that finding another way to foot the $4.3 billion bill is a little more daunting than studying for a final exam. This is the fourth special session in two years called to solve the same problem.

Where the other special sessions have failed however, this one, slated to begin April 17, has nothing less than the fate of public education in Texas depending on it. 

In 2005 the Texas Supreme Court found Texas' dependence on local property taxes to pay for schools unconstitutional and gave lawmakers a June 1 deadline to find a new way to raise money for education.

If legislators don't come up with a solution by that deadline, Texas will be unable to send money to any of its 1,037 public school districts, effectively giving K-12 students at least a semester off.

Without a doubt, that would be intolerable, but it's also ridiculously unlikely to happen.

Barring an unforeseen outbreak of mass idiocy in Austin, some compromise will be reached and students will go back to school in the fall without feeling any effects of the Legislature's sluggish and ham-fisted response. 

The whole episode provides an interesting example of the way state government works. 

Checks and balances are clearly demonstrated: The legislative branch would have floundered with the issue forever if the judicial branch had not stepped in, but the judicial branch only set a deadline, relying on the legislature to change the law itself.

Of course, something like that might not be appreciated -- or even understood -- by the next generation of students if Texas continues to put education on the back burner.