South Carolina Abbeville v. State Adequacy Trial Begins

Opening arguments from attorneys for plaintiffs and the State of South Carolina, July 28, in the school funding adequacy lawsuit, Abbeville County School District v. State, echoed arguments made recently in school funding cases in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and New York. A state circuit court judge is hearing the case on remand from the state supreme court, in its 1999 Abbeville decision. The trial is expected to last two months.

"This is a case about South Carolina's continuing neglect of its children," Stephen Morrison said on behalf of plaintiffs, as reported in The State, Columbia, South Carolina's daily newspaper. "The state consistently fails to provide its children with a quality education." Counsel for the state defendants argued that although the state has set academic goals for students, those goals exceed what the state is required to provide, which is only a "minimally adequate" education, The State reported.

In the Massachusetts school funding adequacy trial, which began in June, the parties agreed before trial that the state's current academic goals for students would be the appropriate benchmarks at trial. And, North Carolina's student academic standards were pivotal in the Hoke County v. State trial court ruling, currently on appeal to the state's supreme court.

Other issues before the South Carolina court in Abbeville, such as whether "money matters" and what constitutes a minimally adequate education for students in the 21st century, were recently decided in favor of plaintiffs in New York's CFE v. State adequacy case.

For on-going coverage of the Abbeville trial, see The State website and click on "Education."

Prepared July 31, 2003