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David Rosen: This isn’t over.
Connecticut’s public school system might be imperfect, but it’s not unconstitutional.
That distinction — between what experts recommend and what the law requires — was at the crux of a split State Supreme Court decision released late Wednesday finding that an advocacy group’s crusading New Haven law firm hadn’t proven its case.
Without a constitutional violation, the justices in the majority concluded, they couldn’t do anything other than join with others in urging the legislature to fix a system that disadvantages students from tough upbringings.
It was the latest — and, for now, final — ruling in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding v. Rell, a 13-year-old case that shook the foundation of the state’s educational system and led to an order for the legislature to make dramatic changes in how it funds public schools.
In overturning a landmark ruling by a lower-court judge, the high court ruled that the plaintiffs hadn’t established any violations of students’ rights, as protected by the Connecticut Constitution, to justify that kind of interference by the judiciary.
“It is not the function of the courts … to create educational policy or to attempt by judicial fiat to eliminate all of the societal deficiencies that continue to frustrate the state’s educational efforts,” Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers wrote for the majority. “Rather, the function of the courts is to determine whether the narrow and specific criteria for a minimally adequate educational system under our state constitution have been satisfied.”
Based on the evidence presented at trial, all the justices agreed that the state’s funding to rich suburbs and poor cities is substantially equal.
But the justices split on whether the state offers a minimally adequate education to every child.
The problem came down to definitions.
In the majority opinion, four justices argued that the state does enough by providing the inputs needed for a proper schooling, like teaching staff, buildings, textbooks and pencils. They concluded that the state can’t be blamed if absent parents, poverty, homelessness, hunger or trauma interfere with a child’s education. The majority argued that Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher had erred in his previous ruling in the case, which led him to order state officials to recalculate funding formulas, set strict graduation requirements, revamp teacher evaluations and overhaul special education programs. Judge Moukawsher improperly invented a new test for determining what constitutes a constitutionally adequate public education, the court said.
Chief Justice Rogers wrote the 53-page majority opinion. (Read it here.)
“Although the plaintiffs have convincingly demonstrated that in this state there is a gap in educational achievement between the poorest and neediest students and their more fortunate peers, disparities in educational achievement, standing alone, do not constitute proof that our state constitution’s equal protection provisions have been violated,” Rogers wrote. “The plaintiffs have not shown that this gap is the result of the state’s unlawful discrimination against poor and needy students in its provision of educational resources as opposed to the complex web of disadvantaging societal conditions over which the schools have no control.”
The other three justices, including the one who developed the original test for how to define “minimally adequate” education, argued that the majority’s analysis was too narrow. Instead, they suggested looking at outputs, like whether students can demonstrate basic literacy and numeracy skills, to determine adequacy.
Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote the minority opinion. (Read it here.)
“It is not enough to seek success in some places for some children. Our schools must carry on in the faith that all students can learn, and our state must aspire to no less,” Palmer said in the partial dissent. “The educational system must be reasonably designed to achieve results in every district and neighborhood. Our state constitution simply will not allow us to leave our neediest children behind.”
Palmer’s minority opinion agreed with the majority that Moukawsher had erred, inventing new criteria to ground his decision.
But the minority argued that, rather than rule for the state, the high court should have sent the case back for a new trial, giving CCJEF another chance to prove students’ rights are being violated — because, in the minority view, the plaintiffs have a chance of making a winning argument with the right criteria.
“The trial court found, among other things, that some poor school districts consistently ignore or under-identify students with special educational needs and, therefore, fail to provide them with appropriate support services,” Palmer wrote. “In the face of such findings, I am unable to conclude that, if the plaintiffs were afforded the opportunity to prove their allegations under the correct legal standard, it is impossible that they could demonstrate that their right to a minimally adequate education has been violated.”
What’s Next
While the Supreme Court had the last word Wednesday on this particular lawsuit, the debate over educational equity surely isn’t over.
David Rosen, the career New Haven civil rights lawyer who led the CCJEF’s legal team, said it’s likely that his client will file another case.
“All I can say to you at this point is that we’re reading the opinion really, really carefully, and we’re going to figure out what our next steps are,” Rosen told the Independent. “I think nobody in the world would be surprised if we go back to the court to ask them to reconsider aspects of the decision, including of course, the bottom line: the outcomes.”
In a statement released after Wednesday’s release of the decision, George Jepsen, the state’s attorney general, who had filed the appeal on behalf of the state, said he believes that the high court had made the right decision, leaving education policy decisions to policymakers
”We argued in this appeal that the trial court exceeded its authority and that, therefore, the decision should be overturned,” Jespen said. “Absent such a constitutional deficiency, education policy decisions rest with the representative branches of government. That said,” Jepsen went on, “the trial court’s ruling in this case did identify profound educational challenges that deserve continuing significant and sustained action on the part of our state’s policymakers. Nothing about today’s ruling should alleviate any urgency on the part of state lawmakers to address these challenges.”
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, too, issued a statement both praising the decision and urging lawmakers to take action to make school funding more equitable.
One of those lawmakers who has pushed for more equitable and coherent school-funding policies, Hamden State Rep. Mike D’Agostino, called Wednesday’s ruling “disappointing, but not surprising.”
“Our current system remains inadequate, especially for our cities and ring suburbs,” D’Agostino told the Independent, promising to “continue to advocate that the state adopt a more equitable funding methodology.”
Click on or download the above audio file of a previous interview with Attorney General George Jepsen about, among other subject, why he pursued the appeal of Moukawsher’s decision.
Paul Bass contributed reporting.
A common sense ruling. The "minimally adequate" requirement is clear and while inner city schools are obviously struggling the fact that some kids do manage to succeed shows that they are at least minimally adequate, as the constitution requires.
While more must be done to help these students it is up to our elected representatives to figure out how (and more importantly how to pay for it given the State's finances). The fact that our State is broke and our lawmakers are incompetent still does not give the Courts the ability to make such far reaching decisions when no law is actually being broken and the existing law is clear.
As the opinions point out, most of the problems these kids face start in the home so therefore that would the logical place to attempt to fix these problems. Schools can't replace parents and families, regardless of how much we try to force it with our dollars.