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| Litigation
into Law and Public Engagement into Policy:
CFE Money Flowing to New York Districts
This Year
The
New York Legislature passed a budget on
April 1, 2007 containing a $1.76 billion
increase in state education funds for the
coming year and unprecedented education
reforms that, together, make enormous strides
to remedy the constitutional violations
identified by the state courts in Campaign
for Fiscal Equity v. State, filed by
CFE almost 14 years ago. Read
Full Story
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California
Study Reveals Staggering Resource Gaps;
Six More States Release Studies
“Getting
Down to Facts,” the unprecedented
education finance study in California that
brought together researchers from 32 institutions
was released in March, after 18 months of
planning and preparation. Included in the
project were two professional judgment cost
studies, which found that the state government
needs to increase its public school expenditures
by many billions of dollars. Since
last summer, cost studies have also been
completed in Arkansas, Nevada, Washington,
Minnesota, Montana, and Rhode Island. A
study in Ohio is due out soon. Read
Full Story
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| Court
Finds Arizona Under-Funds ELLs; Litigation
in Missouri and Kentucky
Arizona
is illegally under-funding programs directed
towards English learners, a federal court
ruled in late March. Arizona’s actions,
Judge Raner Collins of the U.S. District
Court for the District of Arizona ruled,
violate multiple federal laws and may put
in jeopardy $600 million of federal education
funding that Arizona receives. In other
litigation news, closing arguments were
held last month in Committee for Educational
Equality v. State, Missouri’s
school funding trial, and the Kentucky trial
court is considering a motion for reconsideration
of its February decision to grant defendants’
motion for summary judgment in Young
v. Williams. Read
Full Story
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| Reviewing
Wisconsin Cost Study Illuminates Costing-Out
Complexities
Adding
to the numerous education costing-out studies
performed for state governments or independent
organizations in the past year, a team led
by Dr. Allan Odden of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison released a cost study
for Wisconsin’s K-12 public schools
in March. The study, “Moving From
Good to Great in Wisconsin: Funding Schools
Adequately And Doubling Student Performance,”
was prepared for a state policy task force
that comprised policymakers, educators,
and other state citizens and stakeholders,
and it recommended a nine percent increase
in school spending, one of the smallest
increases recommended by an “adequacy”
study in any state. Read
Full Story
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How
Far Have We Come? New Book Looks at School
Segregation in Connecticut
The
Children in Room E-4: American
Education on Trial, by Susan Eaton,
is a compelling book that tells the story
of Sheff v. O’Neill, Connecticut’s
ongoing school desegregation case, through
the experience of one classroom in Hartford,
the nation’s second poorest city.
Eaton, a former reporter for the Hartford
Courant and former Assistant Director
of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, introduces
readers to Jeremy, a bright fourth grader
at Simpson-Waverly Elementary School, an
award-winning, ninety-nine percent minority
school in Hartford, his dedicated and tireless
teacher, Lois Luddy, and the rest of Jeremy’s
classmates. Read
Full Story
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