{"id":689,"date":"2011-01-31T14:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T19:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=689"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:58:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:58:31","slug":"the-future-of-school-finance-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/01\/31\/the-future-of-school-finance-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of School Finance Litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #505050\"><em>Jay Willis<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">This week, the\u00a0<em>Harvard Law &amp; Policy Review\u00a0<\/em>published Aaron Tang\u2019s excellent\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110204203701\/http:\/\/hlpronline.com\/2011\/01\/reading-the-state-school-finance-litigation-tea-leaves-what-lies-ahead-for-plaintiff-school-children\/\">article<\/a>\u00a0on the landscape of litigation over public school funding.\u00a0 Tang briefly provides a snapshot of the history of such litigation, before highlighting some of its challenges. \u00a0As the author notes, the major problem with recent suits challenging the adequacy of state educational funding is that a court, if it finds in favor of the plaintiffs, must then necessarily define what level of school funding is \u201cadequate.\u201d \u00a0Determining appropriate thresholds for a policy decision as nuanced and complex as school funding is not a task traditionally left to the judiciary, and legislatures in Ohio, among other states, have bristled at courts\u2019 attempts to insert themselves into the policy-making process.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\"><span id=\"more-3033\"><\/span>Tang outlines the latest legal theory that plaintiffs will soon test in California, which is, in part, meant to sooth judicial fears of encroaching on legislatures\u2019 prerogatives.\u00a0 The \u201cbroken system\u201d theory alleges that the state\u2019s education funding has become \u201cso dysfunctional, so irrational, and so insufficient that it can no longer be considered a \u2018system\u2019\u2026\u201d Advanced by the plaintiffs in\u00a0<em>Robles-Wong v. California\u00a0<\/em>(see the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110204203701\/http:\/\/www.fixschoolfinance.org\/\">plaintiffs\u2019 web site\u00a0<\/a>for more information about the suit), the theory \u2013 in theory \u2013 requires the court to examine the sufficiency of the legislature\u2019s decision-making process, rather than the underlying funding scheme itself. \u00a0Tang argues that such a shift may be more appealing to judges hesitant about stepping on lawmakers\u2019 toes. \u00a0 He predicts that plaintiffs are likely to assert such arguments alongside more traditional \u201cadequacy\u201d theories in future school-funding suits.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">As Tang also notes, though, the current economic climate may play a significant role in judges\u2019 perceptions of either the process of creating school-funding schemes or the design of the schemes themselves, particularly in California. \u00a0The state\u2019s school-finance system\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110204203701\/http:\/\/www.ed-data.k12.ca.us\/articles\/article.asp?title=Guide%20to%20California%20School%20Finance%20System\">(succinctly outlined here<\/a>), framed by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110204203701\/http:\/\/www.ed-data.k12.ca.us\/articles\/article.asp?title=Proposition%2013\">Proposition 13<\/a>, relies much more on state-level funding than on revenue from local property taxes.\u00a0 Given California\u2019s budget crunch, it comes as little surprise that Superintendent of Public Education Tom Torlakson recently\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110204203701\/http:\/\/articles.cnn.com\/2011-01-07\/us\/california.education.emergency_1_schools-face-school-districts-state-superintendent?_s=PM:US\">declared<\/a>\u00a0California schools to be in a \u201cstate of emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Even if a California court is sympathetic to the plaintiffs\u2019 theory in\u00a0<em>Robles-Wong<\/em>, it will be difficult for it to compel the state legislature, which the court knows to be stuck between a budget crunch and Prop 13, to suddenly conjure up a sensible, coherent (and adequate) funding scheme.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see if the legislature preempts the prospect of such a daunting order by reforming or reshaping the meaning of the state constitution\u2019s school \u201csystem\u201d through statute.\u00a0 If the court does find in the plaintiffs\u2019 favor, add the overhaul of the state\u2019s education funding system to the long list of challenges that California lawmakers could face in an already cash-strapped environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jay Willis This week, the\u00a0Harvard Law &amp; Policy Review\u00a0published Aaron Tang\u2019s excellent\u00a0article\u00a0on the landscape of litigation over public school funding.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-b7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}