Education Law

"Delusions of Adequacy"

Justin blogged earlier this week about the recent Missouri Supreme Court decision upholding the trial court's rejection of the state's most recent school funding lawsuit.  Now that I am beginning to emerge from beginning of the year course planning, conference paper preparation, and final dissertation edits, I thought I would chime in. 

The decision is part of what may be emerging as the new judicial approach to adequacy suits in state supreme courts.  In the three most recent decisions (Oregon, Indiana, and now Missouri) the courts have rejected the plaintiffs' claims, but rather than doing so based solely on the separation of powers concerns they present (as all courts rejecting such claims have done until recently), these courts have woven separation of powers-based objections together with lucid and thorough reviews of the text and constitutional histories of their education clauses. 

It is also interesting that, in two of these three states (Oregon and Missouri) the constitution's education clause is supplemented by a specific funding requirement.  In Oregon, the relevant provision requires funding sufficient so that students may attain state-defined content outcomes. In Missouri, the relevant provision requires that at least 25% of state revenues be spent on education.  The more specific clause did not help the plaintiffs in Oregon because the same clause allow the legislature to fail to meet the stated standard, as long as it explains why.  In Missouri, the more specifc provision did not help because the percentage of state funding already far exceeds 25% of state revenues. 

The Missouri case also contains an initially very technical, and then quite philosophical (and very readable) partial dissent that expresses a distate for the recent focus on adequacy to the exclusion of equity in school finance reform (citing the excellent recent academic work of Bill Koski, Rob Reich, James Ryan, Michael Heise, and Peter Enrich, among others).  The dissent argues that "adequacy" is an illusory delusion where huge inequalities exist (employing the quote that is the title to this post to describe what poor districts get in Missouri under the current system).  Although it is stated as a partial concurrence and partial dissent, the separate opinion joins the majority in holding that the constitution does not require any particular level of funding over the 25% of state revenues.  Nevertheless, the dissenting portion clearly sees the system as unconstitutionally inequitable in the way it attempts to "equalize" local assessed valuations. 

The unifying feature of the recent cases is that, even upon deep consideration of state constitutional provisions requiring the finding of education, courts are finding that they are not empowered to second-guess legislative determinations of the sufficiency of absolute education funding.  Taken together, I wonder if these recent cases are signaling a growing distate in state supreme courts for adequacy suits in general.  If so, will we see a swing back to equity or some new direction in education finance reform?   

Full post as published by Edjurist on September 09, 2009 (boomark / email).