Los Elefantes Rosas en las Cúpulas en la Legislatura: An Empirical Analysis of the Texas Education Finance Mechanism with Special Emphasis on Bilingual Education

Abstract

The State of Texas’ education finance mechanism – known as the Foundation School Program (FSP) was challenged in a series of litigation known as Edgewood v. Kirby I - IV and West Orange Cove I- II. Though the state Supreme Court’s holding ultimately moved the Texas Assembly to make changes in the funding mechanism, not since the 1980s has there been a systematic evaluation of the fiscal efficacy of the State of Texas’ FSP. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine empirically levels of vertical and horizontal finance equity generated by Texas’ education finance system. Information will be presented in five sections that describe and discuss: (a) summations of the Texas Supreme Court decisions on K-12 education finance since 1989; (b) analyses of initial statistical results generated from efficacy analyses of the Texas Foundation School Program; and, (c) policy recommendations guided by the results.