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- NATION, Page 55American NotesSCHOOLSElusive Equality
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- Like many other states striving for fairness in funding
- rich and poor school districts, Texas has found no quick fix.
- After the state supreme court last year affirmed a 1987
- district court ruling that the existing system was
- unconstitutional, Governor Bill Clements and state lawmakers
- wrestled with the issue through four rancorous special sessions.
- They finally adopted a formula for bolstering less affluent
- districts with additional state funds. Last week District Court
- Judge F. Scott McCown pitched out that plan. Ruling in a suit
- by the poor school districts that filed the original action,
- McCown concluded, "The rich districts are left rich, the poor
- districts poor."
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- McCown found that the new plan, putting an extra $528
- million from sales taxes into school financing, was
- insufficient. Moreover, he said, the plan's way of allotting the
- funds was unfair and failed to achieve the structural overhaul
- that the state supreme court had ordered. McCown gave the state
- until September next year to get it right.
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