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- <text id=90TT2641>
- <title>
- Oct. 08, 1990: American Notes:Schools
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Oct. 08, 1990 Do We Care About Our Kids?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 55
- American Notes
- SCHOOLS
- Elusive Equality
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> 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."
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-