Opinion ID: 894693
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Priorities We Have Never Approved

Text: One reason courts require standing is amply demonstrated by the evidence in this trial, which tended toward a wish-list for school district employees. Eight superintendents testified for the school districts at trial, each listing what they needed or what they would do if they had more money. Their priorities were almost identical: more bilingual teachers, more certified teachers, more certified librarians, more teacher training, higher salaries, better benefits, smaller classes, and longer school years. Each of these may be important. But if eight families from the same districts had testified at trial, is this what they would have listed? Assuming all could not be fully funded, would they have listed them in the same order? We simply do not know. We do know that, for most of us, our priority as employees is higher salaries, while our priority as customers is lower prices. Both may be possible when competition increases efficiency, innovation, and productivity. But at some point the two inevitably conflict, and some compromise is necessary. Because the trial here included only education providers and no education customers, the evidence may not accurately reflect where that line should be drawn. Moreover, fundamental reforms may be overlooked if school districts may assert Article VII claims by themselves. Here, for example, not a single expert witness studied the possible savings that might accrue from consolidating some of the State's 1,031 school districts. This Court has repeatedly lamented the crazy-quilt pattern of small school districts, [46] as a result of which duplicative administrative costs are unavoidable. [47] The plaintiffs' experts confirmed that smaller districts have the highest level of expenditures per student, as one would expect, because of diseconomies of scale. Yet not a single school district or expert witness suggested any consolidations. [48] It is unrealistic to ask school boards and administrators to recommend their own abolition, or lower salaries for themselves or any employees. Such potential conflicts between the interests of school districts and school families prevent the former from claiming standing to represent the latter. We have recognized representative standing in some circumstances, [49] and sometimes state agencies may assert standing on behalf of their constituents. [50] But we have done so only when the goals of a group and its members are so closely aligned that there is no reason to require participation by one in a suit by the other. [51] That is not the case here. In its final analysis, the Court dispenses with standing generally, because (1) students and families were free to intervene, and (2) the districts could find students and families to back their claims. Even if we assume that poor families can hire lawyers, or school districts can recruit sham plaintiffs to bolster their claims, it is hard to see what that has to do with the standing of the parties actually before us. More important, such arguments could be made by every party who lacks standing, including millions of taxpayers, [52] or the father whose challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance was recently rejected for lack of standing. [53] Normally, this Court strictly enforces standing so that we retain our proper role; [54] hopefully today's exception is good for this case only. Standing is not a technicality; it is essential to any court's authority to decide a case. [55] We cannot abandon it in noteworthy cases; indeed, that is when adherence to legal standards is most important. As the United States Supreme Court recently noted, courts must be especially rigorous in requiring proper standing when asked to declare the actions of the other two branches of government unconstitutional. [56] The school districts alone cannot meet such standards here. III. Article VIII & Discretion No State ad valorem taxes shall be levied upon any property within this State. Texas Constitution, Article VIII, § 1-e The 47 plaintiffs, mostly property-rich school districts, bring a claim that Article VIII, section 1-e of the Texas Constitution is violated by a tax-rate ceiling in a single subpart of a single statute. [57] Unlike Article VII, Article VIII was intended to benefit school districts, and thus they have standing to assert this claim. [58] In Edgewood III, we declined to adopt a precise test for violations of Article VIII because state control over property taxes presents a spectrum of possibilities. [59] Instead, we held that a tax violates Article VIII if the State so completely controls the levy, assessment, and disbursement of revenue that school districts are without meaningful discretion. [60] In Edgewood IV, we explained that districts lose such discretion when they are forced to tax at the maximum allowable rate just to provide a general diffusion of knowledge. [61] This appeal turns on whether the plaintiffs proved they were forced to tax at the maximum rate. In reviewing the evidence, the Court contradicts everything we have said about such evidence before, and adds new factors we apparently overlooked before. This is too imprecise; a legal standard cannot turn on entirely different evidence from one case to the next.