ECS Covers the National Education Adequacy Movement
In April of 2005, the Education Commission of the States’
Project on School Finance Adequacy issued a Policy
Brief and “StateNote”
on school finance litigations. Citing the National ACCESS
Network’s website
as its source, the StateNote provides a user-friendly
chart that links to ACCESS’ information on the
state-by-state status and history of school funding
adequacy lawsuits. The policy brief, entitled “School
Finance Litigation and Beyond,” discusses the
role of adequacy litigations in national education policy
and goes on to underline the alternative paths to educational
adequacy and equity. Both documents reflect a growing
awareness within the states of the significant impact
of the national movement for education adequacy.
StateNote Charts Cases
The ECS Clearinghouse provides StateNotes on a wide
variety of topics, from accountability to vouchers.
Listed under Finance, the “School Funding Adequacy
Cases” StateNote provides a chart detailing the
progress of adequacy lawsuits in all 50 states, reporting
facts about many cases and their outcomes —unfortunately
not always complete or fully accurate. The StateNote
also delivers some startling details about the lawsuits
based on ECS’s analysis, including that of 32
of the 50 states have experienced adequacy suits, and
only 7 of these cases were decided in favor of the state
against which they were filed. Such statistics underline
the increasing prevalence of adequacy litigations as
a means of obtaining better education funding, as well
as the increasingly national quality of the progress
towards court-ordered funding changes.
Policy Brief Misses Underfunding
While the StateNote provides basic quantitative information
on the progress of adequacy litigations and links to
more in depth summaries, the policy brief “School
Finance Litigation and Beyond” immediately assumes
the profound impact that education adequacy lawsuits
have already had on education in the fifty states. The
brief sets about to analyze the effects of some of these
lawsuits, and to propose alternative means of reaching
adequate and equitable systems of education funding.
The brief focuses initially on the costs of adequacy
litigation to the state. According to ECS analyst Michael
Griffith, lawsuits often serve to cripple the legislative
process, regardless of the outcome of the suit itself.
Griffith notes that state lawmakers frequently hesitate
to legislate needed reforms before a final verdict is
rendered in a lawsuit, and even then focus narrowly
on what the court requires of them. This legitimate
criticism of state legislatures fails to acknowledge,
however, the long-term inaction by lawmakers that necessitates
most adequacy lawsuits, and the improbability that these
lawmakers would act more quickly, or at all, absent
a legal mandate.
Griffith goes on to provide potential roads to school
funding adequacy that do not involve litigation. These
are, “1. Work to make reforms before the courts
force a change; 2. Provide greater spending flexibility
at the school level; 3. Work to implement student-based
budgeting programs; 4. Use value-added testing to better
target resources.” All four represent legitimate
policies for attaining educational adequacy; however,
none will have the intended effect without a sufficient
level of funding. In fact, the example cited in which
the Maryland Legislature’s Thornton Commission
worked to create changes to state education policy occurred
under threat of litigation, and likely would not have
occurred without such an impetus to increase state spending.
Indeed, many of the recommended policies would function
most effectively as remedies for states struggling to
implement state court orders. The larger Education Adequacy
Movement does not focus solely on litigation, but rather
on the extensive and engaged remedy of education finance
systems, which will undoubtedly require new programs
of accountability and assessment, as well as other reforms.
None of these reforms can be effective, however, until
appropriately funded by state legislatures.
ECS Resources
The Education Commission of the States is an “interstate
compact on education” that helps states work together
to better understand and address issues in education
policy and practice. Their website is a vast resource
for information on national and state-by-state education
issues and current events. Additionally, the group circulates
daily and weekly education news reports to large listservs,
and performs extensive policy analyses.
Both of these publications are part of a wider list
of resources on education adequacy litigations that
include a PowerPoint presentation and a discussion of
adequacy cost studies. These and much more can be found
at www.ecs.org.
Prepared by Nelly Ward, April 27, 2005 |
