Court weighs potential overhaul of California school financing
Photo: Associated Press
The First District Court of Appeals in San Francisco hinted Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, that it was considering a potentially historic judicial intervention in California’s woeful school finance system — a ruling that it violates students’ constitutional right to an adequate education. (PRNewsFoto/SunPower Corp.)
A state appeals court indicated Wednesday that it is considering a potentially historic judicial intervention in California’s woeful school finance system — a ruling that it violates students’ constitutional right to an adequate education.
The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco heard arguments in a suit by many of the major participants in public education — school boards and administrators, the California Teachers Association and State PTA, and nine individual districts, including San Francisco and Alameda. They argued that the state’s 19th century constitutional guarantee of a school system to encourage “the promotion of intellectual ... improvement” is transgressed by a system that trails nearly every other state in student achievement, staffing and per-pupil funding.
During the 75-minute hearing, the three-justice panel seemed uncertain about how to define a legal standard that wouldn’t interfere with the Legislature’s authority to set funding levels for schools and other state programs. But when the state’s lawyer argued that no such standard exists and that courts should leave school financing to lawmakers, the justices responded sharply.
“The schools are inadequate. California’s at the bottom of the list,” said Justice Stuart Pollak, who noted that courts in other states have required wholesale changes in school financing. “Can’t we recognize that there is a basic, fundamental problem with our schools?”
“There must be a judicially manageable standard” to decide whether California is violating its students’ rights, Justice Martin Jenkins said. He suggested that the court could read “some broad policy standards” into the state Constitution and leave the details of any remedies to the experts.
That’s all the plaintiffs are asking, said their lawyer, Steven Mayer: for the court to declare that “the existing system’s inadequate. Legislature, fix it.”
Proposition 13 effect
The suit, filed in 2010, challenged a school finance system that plunged from the top to the bottom of the national rankings after passage of the Proposition 13 property tax cut in 1978 and subsequent reductions in state spending.
California, with more than 6 million public school students, has some of the nation’s most oversize classes, lowest staffing Court weighs potential overhaul of California school financing - SFGate: