Two New Education Adequacy Cases in California

The State of California faces two new legal challenges to its decades-old school funding scheme. On May 20, 2010, a coalition including the California School Boards Association, the California Congress of Parents, Teachers and Students, the Association of California School Administrators, several school districts, and over 60 students and their families filed a complaint against the governor and the state in the Superior Court of Alameda Court. Additionally, Public Advocates, counsel for the Campaign for Quality Education, Californians for Justice (CFJ) and the Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), organizations representing thousands of low-income students and a number of individual student plaintiffs, announced their intention to sue in a formal demand letter sent to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on May 19.

In the complaint filed in the first case, Robles-Wong, et al. v. State of California¸ the plaintiffs contend that the State, as a result of its education funding formula and mechanisms, stands in violation of the state constitution not only for depriving students of their fundamental right to education and equal protection, but also for failing to meet its obligation to “provide for a system of common schools” and to “first set apart” money for public education. Plaintiffs ask the Court to declare the State’s current scheme unconstitutional, and seek to compel the legislature to devise a new school finance scheme that provides students with the opportunities and resources necessary to meet the State’s own educational standards and accountability benchmarks. The existing system, according to the complaint, has failed to keep pace with educational realities, including the unique needs of an increasingly diverse student population and the rigorous requirements of California’s recently adopted comprehensive education program.

A Convoluted Calculus: School Finance in California

California’s complex funding system was crafted in the 1970s and 1980s in the aftermath of the seminal Serrano v. Priest case, which rendered the State’s property tax based funding structure unconstitutional on the grounds that wealth-related disparities in per-pupil spending violated the State’s equal protection clause. In response to Serrano, and in order to promote equalization of funding, the legislature established a revenue limit system, which capped amount of tax money districts could spend per student. Shortly after, however, voters approved Proposition 13, which slashed property tax rates and reduced the amount of money available for the state to distribute to “low-wealth” districts. The result was a “leveling down,” rather than a “leveling up” of education funding.

The state’s education finance system was further revised in 1998 by Propositions 98, a voter-approved constitutional amendment which was intended to increase and stabilize educational funding. It’s minimum level of support requirement, however, is based on the 1986-1987 education budget, and the level of school aid is contingent upon unpredictable year-to-year revenue streams. Additionally, the legislature has the ability to reduce the amount of aid it actually allocates to schools below this requirement by funding “education-related” child care and adult programs through the education budget, and diverting particular streams of revenue from the general fund in order to artificially lower the minimum.
The net effect of these and other laws has been a steep decline in financial support for schools—the State, which once led the nation in per-pupil spending, ranked 44th in 2008-2009.

A comprehensive overview of the State’s finance system is available here.

Robles-Wong, et al. v. State of California

The plaintiffs in Robles-Wong, et al. v. State of California contend that the State’s current funding scheme is entirely divorced from educational realities and actual costs, and the State’s continued reliance upon it constitutes a violation of the state constitution. In addition to taking the more traditional tack of arguing that inadequate funding infringes upon students’ fundamental right to education and violates the equal protection clause, the plaintiffs also contend that the State’s failure to align funding with its academic requirements and expectations amounts to a failure to provide a functioning “system” of schools as required by Article IX of the state Constitution. In addition, they assert that Art. XVI, which states that “from all state revenues there shall first be set apart the monies to be applied by the state for the support of the public school system” means that the State must treat financial support for schools differently from other spending decisions and “intentionally and rationally” determine and provide for the actual costs of its comprehensive education program.

The complaint provides a very detailed and dismal overview of the state of public education, which persists in spite of California’s aspirational “comprehensive educational program.” In 1995, the legislature outlined the specific content and skills that public schools must impart to all students so that they can “succeed in the information-based, global economy of the 21st century.” The legislature also mandated a range of programs, including targeted services for at-risk groups, which schools must provide in order to ensure that all students are able to meet state standards. However, only 50% of all students—and 37% of African American and Hispanic students—demonstrated proficiency in English Language Arts in 2008-2009, and the graduation rate hovers below 70%. These disappointing outcomes, plaintiffs contend, are directly related to the failure of the State’s finance system to provide school districts the funds to ensure that students have access to, among other inputs, quality teachers, small class-sizes, and supplemental or remedial services if needed. (For example, the complaint asserts that California ranks 49th both in providing computer access and in its teacher-student ratio.)

Plaintiffs have asked the Court to declare the system unconstitutional, enjoin the state from using the current funding formula and mechanisms, and require that the legislature act to craft a new, constitutional finance scheme.

A Second Lawsuit on the Horizon

In a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Campaign for Quality Education, Californians for Justice and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment announced their plans to file a lawsuit against the State, if it does not address their demands within two weeks of May 19, 2010. Attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote that the existing school funding system fails to provide “sufficient resources,” and thus denies students “equal access to a meaningful education.”