Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arizona Courts End School Funding Cases

Recent state supreme court decisions in Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arizona have ended school funding adequacy cases in those states before trial, thus preventing plaintiffs from presenting their evidence of educational inadequacies. The Nebraska and Oklahoma courts granted the defendant states’ motions to dismiss, while the Arizona court granted the state’s motion for summary judgment.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that educational adequacy is non-justiciable on May 11, in Nebraska Coalition for Educational Equity and Adequacy (NCEEA) v. Heineman. On May 8, in Oklahoma Education Association v. State, the Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed a trial court opinion that the case presented a non-justiciable political question. The court concluded that “Questions of fiscal and educational policy are vested in the Legislature, and its wisdom in these areas is not within the scope of this Court’s review.”

In April, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to hear plaintiffs’ appeal from an intermediate Court of Appeals’ ruling that granted the state’s motion for summary judgment, in Crane Elementary v. State. The Crane Elementary plaintiffs had alleged that the state’s education finance system violated the state constitution because it did not provide the opportunity for an adequate education to the state’s “at-risk” students.

The Crane appellate court had unanimously overruled the trial court’s opinion that the case presented a non-justiciable issue but, nonetheless, a majority of the court granted summary judgment. In sharp contrast to the trial court decision in South Carolina’s Abbeville case, the appellate majority held that the state had no responsibility to address the barriers to learning faced by Arizona’s “at-risk” students and denied plaintiffs the chance to show otherwise in a trial on the issues.

A Continuum of Rulings

With their decisions, Nebraska and Oklahoma are now at one end of the continuum of state school funding decisions. In only a few states have the courts declared school funding non-justiciable. Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island courts have issued decisions similar to the recent Oklahoma decision, although there are potential opportunities for future school funding litigations in these states, depending on how future courts interpret the varied language in the opinions.

In a large majority of the states, the courts have held that constitutionally based adequacy challenges to state school funding schemes are justiciable and, indeed, that state courts have the responsibility to interpret their constitutions’ education articles and rule on whether the state finance system violates that article. Courts in a few states have not yet addressed this question.

Prepared by Molly A. Hunter, May 17, 2007