By Peter Schrag

Steve Murdock isn’t a household name in Sacramento – but maybe he should be.

Murdock is the former state demographer in Texas. This month, he testified in a trial in which hundreds of Texas school districts are suing the state for failing in its constitutional obligation to adequately fund its schools.

The suit was prompted by the $5.4 billion the Legislature cut from public school funding and education grant programs last year. If that level of funding continues, Murdock warned, businesses will go elsewhere in search of skilled workers. Texas’s average household income, now about $66,000 a year, could shrink by $7,700 by 2050 which, of course, could cost the state many more billions – in taxes and prison and welfare costs – than it’s saving now.

via Texas, California do compete – in funding race to the bottom – by Peter Schrag.