Young v. Williams, No. 03-00055/01152 (Cir. Ct., Div. II., Feb. 13, 2007)
A state court has ruled that Kentucky’s system of funding public schools is a matter for the legislature rather than judiciary. The court ruled that the Council for Better Education (CBE), a coalition of school districts, had not established a clear constitutional violation in Kentucky's education system. "Ultimately, increases in education funding must be the product of political will, not judicial decree," the court stated in granting summary judgment to the state legislature. The court concluded that the plaintiffs had not produced evidence of constitutional shortcomings in regard to any actual inadequacy of Kentucky’s public school education.
CBE’s suit alleged that funding of Kentucky's schools is "inadequate and arbitrarily determined by the legislature." CBE filed a similar lawsuit in 1985, which resulted in the state's school-funding system being declared unconstitutional. That ruling led to the sweeping Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). While that case focused on funding inequities, the latest lawsuit focused on whether districts were receiving adequate funding to teach every student the skills and knowledge necessary to meet Kentucky's education standards. The suit claimed Kentucky schools were underfunded from between $1.08 billion to $1.2 billion in the 2003-2004 school year, and underfunded in other years. The legislature argued that the state's constitution "prohibits the judiciary from dictating to the legislature what levels of funding are appropriate and what process to use to determine how much funding education requires." The court found CBE had failed to present evidence "relating to the actual nature of school system inadequacy or poor student performance." Ultimately, the court ruled, the "determination of adequacy must be based on objective outputs, such as … testing scores and our performance relative to neighboring states," and not just on appropriations. The legislature "has created a system of common schools with tremendously enhanced results" and "KERA has produced dramatic progress toward excellence in public education," the court observed.
Young v. Williams, No. 03-00055/01152 (Cir. Ct., Div. II., Feb. 13, 2007)
[Full opinion]
[Editor’s Note: Press coverage of the ruling is available below. Marion County Schools Superintendent Roger L. Marcum, president of CBE, expresses disappointment with the decision but does not indicate whether his organization will appeal. "Kentucky has made a lot of progress in improving student achievement," he says. "We are ignoring the fact that a lot of that progress has been made from students that are least at risk. You're going to see that there are many subpopulations that we are not reaching and they are not moving forward toward proficiency. You can see that in a number of schools in the state, in a number of districts." For background on the suit, see the NSBA link.]
Lexington Herald-Leader
By Raviya H. Ismail and Art Jester
[Full story]
Kentucky Post
By Associated Press
[Full story]
[NSBA School Law pages on filing of lawsuit]