Jim Boldt, President of Duckabush Communications/Public Affairs, wrote the following opinion piece about the nationwide trend of using the court system to ensure adequate funding for K-12 education.

It’s almost as if there is a coordinated national effort for K-12 funding.

McCleary — It’s Not A Coincidence:

We walk around wondering how our Supreme Court and state legislature could get in this situation. If you are very busy and state-focused you may think this school funding fight is happening only here in Washington. But no, these teacher-union lawsuits are happening all across America. Mathew and Stephanie McCleary’s lawsuit was actually funded with public funds from thirty large districts and thirty state teacher unions. Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kansas, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, and Colorado all have or had school funding lawsuits in recent years. All similar to ours: “We need more money.”

We are not alone, and it looks coordinated.

Paramount Duty? It Better Be:

Is there anyone in Washington State who does not know that our state constitution stipulates that “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders…?” No other state has a stronger education mandate in its constitution (Article IX of the Washington State Constitution). Here in our state, someone asked the Supreme Court if they thought the state legislature was doing its job in taking care of the education of our children. That someone was Stephanie and Mathew McCleary. The McClearys did not act alone. They filed the lawsuit along with thirty school districts, thirty local teachers unions, and a host of others. The short story is that the court agreed that the legislature was not funding its own definition of basic education. But where the court crossed the separation-of-powers fence, for the first time in history (probably because it’s wrong), was when they took jurisdiction of the issue, ordered the legislature to take action (more money), and then announced they would “monitor” the legislative branch. Lying down in front of the Washington Education Association supported SC, the legislature finally put an additional $1000 per student per year into the K-12 program. The court came back and ruled, “Nice try,”  and then held the legislature in contempt, fining them $100,000 a day!  This is when the legislative branch, the legislators, should have told the court the party is over. Right, wrong, enough money or not, the legislative branch of our government has allowed an inappropriate precedent, but we’ll jump into that in another post.

Some justices respect the separation of powers. Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers of Connecticut wrote for a majority of four justices, “Such judgments are quintessentially legislative in nature.”

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Pennsylvania:   Appropriation ± Funding Formula:

The case, William Penn School District v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, is just one of many in recent years that highlight a fundamental shift in legal strategy for education funding lawsuits. Schools and other education advocates won a victory in Pennsylvania when the state Supreme Court reinstated a lawsuit claiming that the state’s school funding formula doesn’t meet the schools’ basic needs.

Illinois: $700 Million and No Consensus:

Last year, a group of public school districts sued, arguing the state was not adequately funding schools to comply with state-mandated learning standards.

Seventeen school districts brought the action in St. Clair County Circuit Court following suits in Cook County Court by the Chicago Public Schools questioning the state’s method of funding education and stating that it discriminated against Chicago’s largely black and Hispanic student body.

Illinois’s Secretary of Education reported that Republican Governor Bruce Rauner had boosted education funding by $700 million since 2015. Like Washington, no consensus has emerged in the legislature.

New Jersey: Christie Gets Crunched

In an opposite use of courts in school funding cases, a little over a year ago New Jersey’s Governor Christie filed an appeal to the State Supreme Court in a landmark Abbott v. Burke case – described by the New York Times as the most important court ruling on equal education opportunity since Brown v. Board of Education. Wow, that is quite a claim.

Unable to push his preferred education policy changes through the legislature, the Governor was trying to convince the Justices to do the job for him.  The Education Law Center, a group of teachers unions and others, pledged to fight the appeal.

The high court blocked Christie’s attempt. In his ruling, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, noted that the cases did not cover tenure and collective bargaining about which Christie wanted to prevail, and declined to “exercise original jurisdiction” on the issues. He also emphasized that the court was not “opin[ing] on the merits of the issues or arguments” when it came to teacher employment rules.

Kansas: Sweet and Swift

Decisions were swift and simple in Kansas. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled last fall that the state’s new school finance system is unconstitutional, striking a definitive blow to the legislature’s latest effort.

The decision stated in part that the legislature failed to meet the Kansas Constitution’s requirements to adequately fund education. Sound familiar? The Supreme Court did not specify a dollar amount to reach constitutional compliance.

Ohio: They Gave Up

For twelve years the State of Ohio wrestled with its school funding issue in court. It all started in 1997 when the Supreme Court ruled in DeRolph v. State. In a 4-3 decision, they wrote that the state’s method for funding K-12 education was unconstitutional. The majority opined that the state funding system “fails to provide for a thorough and efficient system of common schools,” as required by the state constitution. Like in McCleary, they further ordered the legislature to find a remedy.  However, to this day, the Ohio issues are still unattended. In 2009, the court, after several trips to their chambers, relinquished jurisdiction and walked away from the battle.

Texas: An Empty Answer

Can you imagine 600 school districts ganging up on a Supreme Court on behalf of kids, more money, and higher wages? In 2016 the Texas Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision on what they called the state’s “Byzantine” school funding system and labeled it, “ossified” (I had to look it up too, ossified means to become inflexible, or fossilized…like some members of the US Senate). They mentioned in passing that it should be modernized. However, it was declared “constitutional,” counter to the claim of the districts and teachers. Like Washington, the question of school funding had been before the Texas court many times (six) since 1984. Never has the court declared the funding scheme unconstitutional.

Connecticut, Michigan, Florida, Missouri, and Colorado?  “Same Church Different Pew”

The rest of our court-tested school funding states are tragically the same. Oh, a little different here, or little longer there, but it all comes down usually to teacher union groups suing for more money. They dress themselves up like citizen groups, or put someone like the McClearys out front for optics I guess, and then file.

It’s Embarrassing Considering the Magnitude of Getting it Wrong:

I spent four years on the House Education Committee in the 1970s when we took a cut at our first definition of basic education. Since then I was elected twice to the Federal Way School Board and even served five years on the board of a private school. This weekend’s pathetic handling of DACA, and what looked like total disregard for a bunch of kids who did not wake up one morning and decide to come to America on their own, reminds me of school funding. They count on us. They are kids. We have a moral job and we have a legal job. If you listen to employers and read reports about the type of skills humans will need to compete in a future job market (not just with each other but with AI creatures), you learn that someone, some group, needs to stand up for these little ones, the young ones. They can’t vote, they can’t articulate what they want or need to learn. It’s our job.

We can cynically and honestly mention that about 70-80 percent of every dollar of K-12 funding ends up in the pockets of teachers (except for the amount that is taken, without permission, to fund education unions). The unions and their employers, the districts, in turn take the public money and sue to get even more money. But who else would? Or, is it really about more money?

We have very few jobs as important as raising and educating the little ones. It should be our PARAMOUNT duty. If the legislature doesn’t do it, it looks like there is a concerted effort nationwide to ask the courts to do it.  There will never be enough money for K-12. There could be, however, adequate money for a forward thinking education policy. Just know, We Are Not Alone.

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