September 28, 2016 5:42 PM

KR: Houston voters risk reversing 40 years of moving toward equity in school finance

For HISD voters to defy the state in November implies the state of Texas should view the children of Houston as more worthy of tax dollars than a child in any other party of the state

A growing number of voices in Houston ISD are encouraging voters to reject recapture payments in an effort to force lawmakers to resolve the Texas school finance crisis.

The logic is voters would reject the idea of sending $162 million back to the state on the November ballot and force the Texas Education Agency to detach $18 billion in taxable value and the district’s tax roll, starting with the biggest taxpayer. Even Mayor Sylvester Turner is urging voters to get on board with the idea of rejecting the measure.

Unfortunately, such a move conveys a lot more than a wish lawmakers address school finance. It implies that Houston ISD, by its sheer force and might, expects to get special treatment. That the school districts that have respected Robin Hood, and sent payments back to the state, were some kind of mindless buffoons. And that Houston voters have no respect for the most important decision the Texas Supreme Court has made in the last generation: That every child, irrespective of zip code, has the right to an equitable public education in this state.

So let’s clarify what this vote means, why we have Robin Hood and, just to spice things up, we’ll bring in some talk about how this puts charter schools, and soon vouchers, right in the mix.

To correct some reports, the recapture of property taxes under the so-called Robin Hood provision is not technically about “equity of school funding” across the state. The Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Edgewood v Kirby in 1984 was that every school district in the state should be able to raise roughly the same amount of revenue for a penny of tax effort.

By Kimberly Reeves