AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' dramatically shifting demographics will be the focus as the first witness is called in a school finance trial.
Demographer Steve Murdock will take the stand Tuesday on behalf of about 600 school districts suing the state over how it funds public education.
Murdock is expected to testify about the explosion in the state's Hispanic population, which has caused public school enrollment statewide to grow by an average of 80,000 students per year.
Six lawsuits have been filed on behalf of about two-thirds of Texas school districts, which educate about 75 percent of the state's more than 5 million students.
They have been rolled into a single case that opened Monday before state District Judge John Dietz in Austin.
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