Costs of the Texas school trial

 About 2/3 of the Texas school system has recently claimed that the state of Texas is not upholding its constitutional obligation to provide an “efficient system of public free schools.”  The public school system and the state of Texas have recently gone to trial over the issue and it is not expected to be resolved for a couple of months.  On the school districts’ side, the attorneys argue that it is unfair to expect schools to meet the higher standards, which have recently been put forth by the state, while dealing with massive budget cut backs.  The state’s response has so far been that the current crisis the schools have been facing is due to the local government, not the state.  It also contends that the crisis is not as much as a crisis as the school districts are making it out to be. 

            This type of back and forth can be expected to go on for some time.  But one prosecutor, Chris Diamond, has made a much more general attack on the way the state of Texas is handling its constitutional duty of providing a public education.  He claims the entire system does not work because the government has a monopoly on public schools. 

 "It is the poor, economically disadvantaged who are saddled with the monopolistic system,” he said.”

This case could be an example of the types of costs Tullock talked about in his paper.  The entire case, with all its attorneys and the amount of time it is expecting to take, could costs millions of dollars.  The monopoly has given one side more power than the other and has thus induced a legal battle, spending resources that could otherwise be used elsewhere.  If the prosecutors were not defending the school systems they could be fighting for some other industry that is also in need.  If the defense attorneys were not battling out this case they could be helping Texas in other matters.  There are a million different ways the money could be used in this trial over the state’s monopoly.  In an economic sense, these are all opportunity costs, which are worked into the cost of the case, making it very, very expensive.