Missouri School Districts File Equity and Adequacy Lawsuit

On January 6, 2004, the Committee for Educational Equality (CEE), along with parents, students, and taxpayers, filed suit against the State of Missouri and various state officials, claiming that the state's education finance system violates the education article of the state constitution and the equal protection and due process provisions of the state and federal constitutions.

In their Petition to the state Circuit Court, plaintiffs seek a court order directing the defendants to design and fund a "comprehensive system of public education which is adequate, which is equitable and which affords to each child . . . an equal and adequate educational opportunity." The Petition summarizes shortcomings in teachers and staff, courses and programs, facilities and equipment, and other educational resources, allegedly caused by inadequacies and inequities in state school finance.

Lambasting the state legislature in his remarks the day the suit was filed, Superintendent Tyler W. Laney, Chair of CEE, emphasized what he viewed as ongoing harm to Missouri children under an inequitable funding system that is becoming increasingly inequitable. Alex Bartlett, CEE's attorney, in a statement before the Joint Interim Committee on Education, explained the legal basis for the suit, then mentioned recent court decisions in New York and Kansas, and summarized the "conservative methodology" used in a costing-out study that concluded Missouri needs to increase annual school funding by $913 million.

As reported by David A. Lieb of The Associated Press, although the lawsuit puts pressure on the Legislature to write a new funding system, plaintiffs and legislators alike were not optimistic that a new system would be adopted in the 2004 legislative session. Last time, one legislator observed, it took 26 months to get a court decision and only then did the legislature act.

CEE

CEE is a not-for-profit organization of over 240 of Missouri's 524 school districts, and those districts educate over 340,000 of Missouri's 893,000 public school students in both rural and urban settings. A smaller version of CEE successfully sued the state in the early 1990s in a similar lawsuit which resulted in a new school funding system. According to the newly reconstituted CEE, recent years of partisan political wrangling in Jefferson City have led to inadequate and inequitable school funding, higher local property taxes, and many school districts with inadequate resources to help their students meet more demanding Missouri learning standards or the new federal "No Child Left Behind" requirements.

Prepared by Molly A. Hunter, January 9, 2004