Education Funding Is in the Legal Spotlight Essay

Education Funding Is in the Legal Spotlight Essay

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Education Funding Is in the Legal Spotlight Essay

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State Education Funding is in the Legal Spotlight: Washington State Courts Have Boldly Ordered Education Funding and Implementation, a Legal Dispute That Could Have Implications across the Country By Underwood, Julie Phi Delta Kappan, October 2015

State Education Funding Is in the Legal Spotlight: Washington State Courts Have Boldly Ordered Education Funding and Implementation, a Legal Dispute That Could Have Implications across the Country Underwood, Julie, Phi Delta Kappan

From a legal perspective in the U.S., education is a state function. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is education mentioned, which means, according to the reserved powers clause in the Tenth Amendment, education is a state function.

This was underscored in San Antonio v. Rodriguez 411 U.S. 1 (1973) when the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal constitution did not protect students in poor school districts from the state’s uneven distribution of resources since education was not a federal constitutional right.

What if the state doesn’t live up to that responsibility?

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Individuals and advocacy groups have the right to question the state’s fulfillment of this responsibility in court, and many have.

Lawsuits challenging state support of public education have been brought in 46 of the 50 states. Only Delaware, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah have not had school funding lawsuits. In the first wave of cases during the 1970s and 1980s, people sued their states claiming discrimination and arguing that state resources were not equitably distributed across the public school districts.

Since the 1980s, school funding cases have focused on whether states have sufficiently funded their education systems. Plaintiffs argue that the state has a responsibility to ensure all children have access to quality educational opportunities. Courts generally find that the state constitution affords all children an opportunity to acquire a minimum level of education.

The hard part for plaintiffs is in proving that the resources the state spends are not sufficient to provide that opportunity.

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Between 1989 and 2015, courts in 22 states have found that state resources fail to provide an adequate state system of education. But courts in 15 states have found that their state provides sufficient resources, and cases are pending in 15 other states (National Access Network, 2015).

These cases are usually long drawn out affairs, climbing up and down the judicial ladder of appeals as state legislatures make changes that are reviewed over and over again by courts. Former New York Times reporter Paul Zielbauer likened this dynamic to a Russian novel, which goes on forever “and, in the end, everyone dies.”

For example, the New Jersey school funding case Abbott v. Burke was filed originally in 1981 on behalf of children in some of New Jersey’s poorest areas. It alleged that the state’s method of funding was unconstitutional under the New Jersey constitution because it resulted in

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disparities between rich districts and poor districts, leaving the poor districts unable to meet the needs of their students. The case has resulted in 21 New Jersey Supreme Court opinions from 1985 to 2011.

Typically, if the state supreme court finds the system unconstitutional, it describes the defect but does not outline or direct the remedy. Plaintiffs then must continue to litigate the question of whether the legislative fix is sufficient to fulfill the court’s order.

For example, after 21 years of litigation in Abbeville County v. State of South Carolina, 767 S.E.2d 157 (S.C. 2014), the South Carolina Supreme Court found that the state’s funding scheme for the public schools failed to meet the state mandate of providing “a system of free public schools that affords each student the opportunity to receive a minimally adequate education.”

The court conceded in its opinion that it could not suggest a method of fixing the problem because that is a legislative issue but noted that it could “recognize a constitutional violation when [it] see[s] one.” It sent the case back for the legislature to fix the problem.

A bolder court in Washington

A group of individual citizens and taxpayers and a statewide coalition of community groups, school districts, and education organizations filed suit in 2007 challenging the sufficiency of state resources for Washington state’s public schools. In McCleary v. State of Washington in 2009, the trial court not only found in favor of the plaintiffs but in so doing determined a minimum standard for complying with the constitution.

The court ordered the state legislature to determine the per-pupil cost of providing that level of education and to provide full funding for it. The education required was one that was necessary to give all students an opportunity to meet minimum state academic standards.

In 2009, the state legislature passed an education reform bill, which defined a basic education in the state, the required funding, and how to implement it, but it did not fund the programs necessary for implementation.

In 2012, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the current state system of funding “consistently failed to provide adequate funding for the program of basic education, including funding for

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essential operational costs such as utilities and transportation, which resulted in local school districts turning increasingly to local [tax levies] to make up the shortfall.” Rather than send the case back for a lower court to monitor compliance, the court retained jurisdiction to supervise the legislature’s response to the order.

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The state provided regular reports to the Washington Supreme Court indicating that the legislature had not yet funded and implemented the 2007 education reform plan. By September 2014, the Washington Supreme Court lost patience and took the unusual move of holding the state in contempt.

In an order, the court said, “if by adjournment of the 2015 legislative session, the state has not purged the contempt by complying with the court’s order, the court will reconvene to impose sanctions, and other remedial measures as necessary.”

Possible actions include suspending all legislative action until an adequate education measure has been adopted, prohibiting state expenditures on other needs until the education needs have been met, and ordering the state to sell resources or to end tax exemptions to garner the necessary funds for education.

The legislature did not provide the court-required funding so, in June 2015, the Washington Supreme Court ordered the legislature “to complete a plan for fully implementing the state’s program of basic education for each school year between now and the 2017-18 school year, addressing each of the areas of the K-12 education identified by [the 2009 reform plan] and a phase-in schedule for fully funding each of the components of basic education….

After receipt of these materials, the court will convene to consider the adequacy of the state’s compliance and, if necessary, the imposition of contempt sanction or other remedial measures.” McCleary v. Washington, Washington Supreme Court No. 84362-7 (2015, p. 3).

In an unprecedented move, the court imposed sanctions on the state legislature, fining them $100,000 a day until it adopts legislation that adequately funds the state’s public schools. McCleary v. Washington, Washington Supreme Court No. 84362-7 (August 13, 2015).

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Other states are watching

This case is incredibly important right now because most states have reduced their support to public education. As we know from the 2015 PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public

Schools, the American public regards lack of sufficient school funding as the biggest problem facing their local schools. State funding wasn’t plush before the recession. When the effects of that hit state budgets, education spending was cut. As the nation’s and states’ economies recover, you would expect an increase in funding for education. But many states have continued to cut rather than restore education funding.

Persuading elected officials to improve funding for education is a hard task. The state constitution and the political power of the state supreme courts may be the leverage needed to get change.

JULIE UNDERWOOD (Julie. Underwood@wisc.edu) is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reference

National Access Network. (2015). School funding info: State by state http://bit.ly/1U6wo2x

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication information: Article title: State Education Funding Is in the Legal Spotlight: Washington State Courts Have Boldly Ordered

Education Funding and Implementation, a Legal Dispute That Could Have Implications across the Country. Contributors: Underwood, Julie –

Author. Journal title: Phi Delta Kappan. Volume: 97. Issue: 2 Publication date: October 2015. Page number: 76. © Phi Delta Kappa

International. COPYRIGHT 2015 Gale Group.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form

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Education Funding Is in the Legal Spotlight Essay

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