Connecticut Plaintiffs File School Funding Lawsuit

On November 22, 2005, a coalition of plaintiffs filed a school funding lawsuit against the state of Connecticut, asking the court to declare the state's education finance system unconstitutional and order the state to create a system that provides “suitable and substantially equal educational opportunities” as required by the state constitution.

In Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. (CCJEF) v. Rell, plaintiffs intend to represent a class of all students in 16 urban school districts, which enroll over 143,000 children. They assert inadequate “inputs,” such as the lack of high quality preschool, qualified teachers, and modern technology, and point to low graduation rates and low test scores, among other “outcomes,” as evidence of the state's alleged failure to provide suitable and substantially equal educational opportunities.

In addition to members of CCJEF, which include teachers, education advocacy organizations, community groups and the 16 towns, individual students and their parents are numbered among plaintiffs. Defendants include the governor and the state's commissioner of education, board of education, treasurer, and comptroller.

Although not part of the suit's allegations, the state's share of funding for education has fallen in recent years from 48 percent to 38 percent, placing considerable pressure on local school districts and municipalities and property owners, whose tax rates have increased to compensate for the lack of state funding.

Prepared by Molly A. Hunter, November 29, 2005