Education Week - January 23, 2013 - 17

EDUCATION WEEK

JANUARY 23, 2013

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

State Finance Lawsuits
Still Roiling Landscape
Rulings complicate policymakers’ choices
By Andrew Ujifusa
As state budgets slowly recover
from several years of economic
contraction and stagnation, significant court battles continue to
play a related yet distinct role in
K-12 policy, even in states where
the highest courts have already
delivered rulings on the subject.
This year, meanwhile, marks the
40th anniversary of a U.S. Supreme
Court decision that was a turning
point for the role of property taxes
in financing school districts and
that continues to complicate fiscal
decisions for state policymakers.
The 5-4 ruling, in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, held that the state did not
have to justify the higher quality
of education for wealthier districts
that might result from their local
property taxes.
In a 2008 article for the Virginia
Law Review, Judge Jeffrey Sutton
of the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 6th Circuit, based in Cincinnati, wrote: “For better, for worse,
or for more of the same, the majority in Rodriguez tolerated the
continuation of a funding system

that allowed serious disparities
in the quality of the education a
child received based solely on the
wealth of the community in which
his parents happened to live or
could afford to live.”
The 1973 decision has fragmented the fight over the intertwined issues of funding adequacy
and equity, said Wade Henderson,
the president and chief executive
officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights,
based in Washington.
“We are left to battle in the state
courts primarily over whether the
funding formulas used by schools
and by the states are constitutional in providing that kind of
meaningful access,” he said.
Since the 1970s, lawsuits filed
in 45 states have challenged the
constitutionality of school finance
systems, according to the National
Education Access Network, a research group that tracks lawsuits
related to education finance and
equity based at Teachers College,
Columbia University.
Texas’ current dispute is among
the latest—and largest. Following

School funding lawsuits continue to bedevil several states still
recovering from the economic downturn that began in 2007. The
suits are at various stages, and concerns about the courts’ role in
education finance have emerged.

On Jan. 15, the Arizona Court
of Appeals said that lawmakers
were wrong to deny school funding
increases to account for inflation. The
court ruled that legislators did not
follow a ballot measure approved by
voters in 2000 that mandated K-12
funding increases for inflation.

Texas
A District Court judge is presiding
over what began as four separate
cases brought by hundreds of
districts against the state after the
legislature cut $5.4 billion from
K-12 aid during its 2011 session.
Districts allege that the structure
of the current system creates
inequalities between school systems
based on wealth, and that the state
has not provided the “efficient
system” of public education as
mandated by the state constitution.

Kansas
State Republican lawmakers
indicated that they are considering
changes to the state’s constitution
in order to strengthen the state
legislature’s power over K-12

finance and limit the state supreme
court’s oversight. The move could
be a significant counterpoint to a
U.S. District Court ruling Jan. 11
that the state’s funding system is
unconstitutional.

Colorado
Lawmakers and others are waiting
for the state supreme court to rule
in the Lobato v. State of Colorado
case that could mandate an
increase in K-12 spending by
the state by anywhere between
$2 billion to $4 billion annually.

Washington
Less than a year after the state
Supreme Court ruled in McCleary
v. State of Washington that the
state’s K-12 funding system was
constitutionally inadequate and
needed to be fixed, the state’s chief
justice claimed lawmakers had not
done nearly enough to remedy the
problem. The impact of satisfying
McCleary on the court’s terms
could cost the state an additional
$1.4 billion in the 2013-15
budget cycle.
SOURCE: Education Week

PAGE 19 >

Stretched Schools Push to Extend Lifespan of Books
By Mike James
The Independent

Even as dwindling state funding for new textbook purchases
drives the search for alternative
sources of information—mainly
via the Internet, electronic databases, and licensing of e-books—
schools in Kentucky are making
do with the books they have,
stretching out replacement cycles,
and repairing worn volumes when
practical.
State funding has fallen from
$21 million in 2008 to nothing in
the current biennium, said Nancy
Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the
Kentucky education department.
The department and the state
board of education are lobbying for
more money the next time around,
but 2013 isn’t a budget year, she
said.
In 2001, when Matt Baker was
the principal at Lewis County High
School, his district received more
than $50 per student from the state
for textbooks, said Mr. Baker, now
districtwide-programs director for
the Greenup County, Ky., schools.
“It has been several years since
the state has financed the purchase
of books,” he said.
His district replaces books only
when “absolutely necessary,” a term

Mr. Baker said is up to teachers to
define. And when the district does
buy books, it uses money it otherwise would use for other purposes.
There is plenty of free online educational material, and Kentucky
provides resources through an
online database teachers can use
for free. Called the Continuous Instructional Improvement Technology System, it contains materials
for lesson planning and classroom
instruction in multiple subjects, all
of which conforms to current educational standards. It is available
only to educators, and teachers log
in to use it.

Costs Drive Policies
For students to access and use
information electronically, districts
still have to spend money, either to
license some e-books or to buy computers and other devices.
In some cases, that means developing new policies. The state’s
Russell district is doing that so
students can use their own smartphones and tablets, said Chief Academic Officer Debbie Finley.
Doing so will require protection
against misuse, such as equipment to filter inappropriate sites,
she said.
In the small and decidedly un-

wealthy Fairview district, As- new life to books without resorting
sistant Superintendent Brant to homemade duct-tape fixes.
Creech ordered bookbinding supMiddle school students, in parplies he and some teachers have ticular, seem to be hard on books.
Teachers learn to be aware of the
condition of the books their students are carrying.
Mr. Creech’s district also tries
If you’ve
to stretch the life of books beyond
their typical replacement schedule.
got a book a
That doesn’t mean Fairview demiddle school
pends entirely on books. The district has bought e-book readers,
student has
and Mr. Creech sees that, along
with licensing copies of texts, as a
jammed in a
long-term trend.
Some, like Ms. Finley, foresee an
locker, and it’s
all-electronic text future. But Ms.
only two years
Finley predicted licensing prices
would remain steep.
old, it should
Electronic texts have one advantage—currency, she said. Because
still be in good
there is no lag time between writshape.”
ing, design, printing, and distribution, the contents are more up to
BRANT CREECH
date when they arrive in schools.
The future is likely to be a comFairview School District
bination of texts and teacher-generated resources, said the Ashland
district’s curriculum coordinator,
used to fix battered books.
Richard Oppenheimer. “A good
“If you’ve got a book a middle teacher teaches beyond the limits
school student has jammed in a of the textbook anyway,” he said.
locker, and it’s only two years old,
it should still be in good shape,” he Copyright © 2013 McClatchy-Tribune
said. Book-repair supplies bring Information Services

“

www.edweek.org

POLICY
BRIEF

DOCKET UPDATE

Arizona

Hawaii Moving Ball
On Race to the Top
Well past the midway point of
the original $4 billion Race to
the Top grant program, Hawaii
is still officially in trouble
with the U.S. Department of
Education over its struggles in
carrying out its plans for teacher
and principal evaluations. But
save for that one big thing, the
state has made notable progress
in delivering on the promises
it made to win its $75 million
grant in 2010.
In fact, the state has
completed 90 percent of the
tasks outlined in its grant
contract with the federal
Education Department,
according to its latest progress
report. And in an interview,
state Superintendent Kathryn
Matayoshi said she feels
Hawaii’s work improving its
data system and implementing
the Common Core State
Standards is particularly strong.
■

The vast majority of the work
Hawaii had to do was frontloaded in the first two years of
its Race to the Top proposal.
But that also means that in the
last half of the grant period, the
focus changes.
“We are really focusing now
on implementation in the
classroom,” Ms. Matayoshi said.
“These next two years are about
how are we supporting teachers
and principals with all of these
different initiatives. It’s about
really scaling it up and really
doing the work.”
She said one priority is
getting the “complex area”
superintendents for Hawaii’s
single, state-run district more
professional development to
help implement the Race to the
Top plan. She said that task is
especially challenging because
professional-development days
are scarce to nonexistent.
But the big missing piece in
Hawaii’s Race to the Top plan is
an approved teachers’ contract,
which is needed to put teeth into
a new teacher-evaluation system
that’s being expanded from a
small pilot phase to include all
schools.
Although Hawaii believes it
has the authority to implement
the new evaluations, it needs
an approved, long-sought
contract—which is mired in
negotiations that resumed this
month—to tie those evaluations
to such decisions as salaries.
The question remains: Is a
90 percent completion rate
enough to get at least part of
Hawaii’s Race to the Top grant
out of the federal department’s
“high-risk status”? A site visit by
federal officials in April will help
determine the answer.

—MICHELE MCNEIL

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - January 23, 2013

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