Williams
Plaintiffs Release Experts' Reports In mid-October 2002, the plaintiffs
in Williams v. State of California made available sixteen
reports on public-education issues related to their adequacy
case. The class-action lawsuit, which was first filed in 2000 by several California
organizations, seeks to force the state to fund certain basics of an adequate
education, such as qualified teachers, safe facilities, and textbooks, in order
to remedy the deplorable conditions in California's poorest schools. The reports,
commissioned by the plaintiffs from experts at leading California universities,
address the effects of these basics on students and learning. The reports
are the latest development in the Williams case, which is in discovery. Plaintiffs
have conducted 38 depositions
of state witnesses since April 2001, when the court agreed to sever
and delay the state's counter claims against 18 districts. The court granted
class status in October 2001. The governor came under fire for hiring a private
firm after the attorney general agreed to defend the case cheaply, and for paying
his lawyers more than $300 an hour to depose the children included in the class,
sometimes very aggressively and for hours at a time. In April 2002, a
Harris
poll of 1,071 California teachers found significant discrepancies between
the state's wealthiest and poorest districts. Poor and minority students were
four times as likely than the wealthiest white students to suffer high teacher
turnover and twice as likely to have outdated and insufficient textbooks. The
schools with the highest populations of poor and limited-English-proficient students
were twelve times as likely to employ one fifth or more teachers without the proper
credentials. Plaintiffs are represented by a team of organizations, led
by Public Advocates,
Inc., the ACLUs of Northern
and Southern California,
Morrison & Foerster, LLP,
and the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). More detailed information about the
case can be found on the Decent
Schools for California website. Plaintiffs are requesting a trial date
of June 2003. Prepared October 17, 2002 |
