Fight for Federal Right to Education Takes a New turn
A new fight to secure a federal constitutional right to education is spreading across the country. This fight has been a long time coming and is now suddenly at full steam.
In 1973, plaintiffs in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez argued that school funding inequities violated the right to education. The Supreme Court rejected education as a fundamental right under the federal Constitution, leaving funding inequalities in Texas and elsewhere completely untouched. For more than 40 years, no one even dared to directly challenge Rodriguez’s conclusion in court. Now, in just two years, four different legal teams and plaintiff groups have done just that. But this time, they are shifting their arguments away from just claims about money. They are focusing on educational quality, literacy and learning outcomes.
The boldest claim was filed on Nov. 29 in Rhode Island, arguing for an education that prepares students for citizenship – an argument that draws directly on my own legal research and expertise as a scholar of education law.
When plaintiffs filed the first two cases in Detroit and Connecticut in 2016, the Supreme Court was set to shift significantly to the left. Hillary Clinton was a strong favorite to win the presidency and fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. What looked like perfect timing for plaintiffs in mid-2016 turned awful a few months later when Clinton lost. The questions now are why plaintiffs, including new ones, continue to press forward and whether they have any chance of winning. The answers lie in a strange and tangled confluence of events that include school funding shifts, new legal theories and evolving cultural challenges.
Steep declines in school funding
Schools’ real-world problems are first and foremost driving the litigation. Detroit’s schools, for instance, are among the most segregated, lowest performing and most financially strapped in the country. The net result, plaintiffs allege, are schools where “illiteracy is the norm.” Detroit’s problems, while severe, are not entirely unique. Public schools nationwide are suffering from increasing segregation and a decade of steep funding cuts.
State tax revenues have been up since 2012, but most states continue to fund education at a lower level than they did before the 2008 recession.
While many state supreme courts allow students to challenge educational inequality and inadequacy, about 20 do CONTINUE READING: Education Law Prof Blog
(Also see FY 2015 chart or FY 2014 chart.)
NOTE: Adult education, community services and other nonelementary-secondary program expenditures are excluded. Enrollments for state educational facilities and charter schools whose charters are held by nongovernmental entities are also not reflected in the totals. "Other" spending includes non-personnel related expenses, such as capital outlays and transfer payments to municipal entities.
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau 2016 Annual Survey of School System Finances
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau 2016 Annual Survey of School System Finances