• Slavery Reparations • Funds Misdirected a National Campaign To Economic Agency History Goes Haywire C A R O L I N A “Going Broke by Degree” Statewide Edition A Monthly Journal of News, Analysis, and Opinion from June 2005 • Vol. 14, No. 6 JOURNAL the John Locke Foundation www.CarolinaJournal.com www.JohnLocke.org North Carolina Isn’t the Only State With a ‘Leandro’ Constitutional challenges Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, and Utah has had litigation over the constitution- filed in 44 other states ality of its K-12 funding. However, over the last 40 or so years, over their school funding the lawsuits have taken different forms with varying success. By PAUL CHESSER Associate Editor Education lawsuit history RALEIGH n Kansas, the plaintiff was Montoy. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. In Connecticut, it was Sheff, and Board of Education decision in 1954 was IBrigham filed the complaint in Ver- intended to end schools’ segregation of mont. blacks and whites, but real progress The Leandro lawsuit, in which the toward integration, especially in the state Supreme Court ruled that North South, didn’t develop until the early Carolina has a constitutional obligation 1970s. Many schools remained naturally to adequately fund education in its segregated because blacks generally poorer counties, has had sibling cases in lived in neighborhoods apart from 44 other states. That is because almost whites. every state in the union has a constitu- According to a documentary article tional provision similar to North by Michael A. Rebell entitled “Educa- Carolina’s, which promises a “sound tional Adequacy, Democracy, and the and basic education” for all its resi- Courts,” education reformers in the late dents. 1960s began to test legal theories in vari- According to the Campaign for Fis- ous state and federal lawsuits. Rebell is cal Equity, an organization that advo- cates for adequate public education The U.S. Supreme Court issued the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. funding, every state except Delaware, Continued as “There’s a History,” Page 2 Light-Rail Transit Systems Run Deep In the Red, Trends Show By BOB FLISS spiraling costs. when it got snubbed in President Bush’s This setback also came at a time Contributing Editor Nowhere is this more evident than budget recommendations, even while when TTA is also trying to grapple with RALEIGH in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, where Charlotte hit the jackpot with about $199 problems in its current cost structure. ven while North Carolina’s three the Triangle Transit Authority is the million. It also came out at the same The organization has been drawing largest metro areas try to boost lead agency for a regional light-rail sys- time that the Federal Transit Adminis- down its cash reserves to meet operat- E their “world class city” creden- tem that is supposed to cost about $630 tration had major questions about some ing expenses, and this trend has in- tials with new light-rail transit systems, million. of the ridership forecasting models used ridership trends suggest that such pres- TTA’s project got plenty of the by TTA and the other Triangle-area plan- tige projects will only aggravate already- wrong kind of attention early this year ning organizations. Continued as “Costs of Light,” Page 3 % NC Voters Who Are Conservatives The John Locke Foundation NONPROFIT ORG. 200 W. Morgan St., # 200 45% Contents U.S. POSTAGE 45% Raleigh, NC 27601 PAID 40% 39% State Government 4 RALEIGH NC 35% PERMIT NO. 1766 35% Washington Watch 6 30% Education 8 1998 25% 2002 Higher Education 12 20% 2004 Local Government 16 15% 10% Books & the Arts 20 5% Opinion 24 0% Parting Shot 28 Self-Identified Conservatives in JLF Polls C A R O L I N A C A R O L I N A North Carolina JOURNAL JOURNAL There’s a History Behind Education Lawsuits Continued From Page 1 Richard Wagner executive director of the Campaign for Editor Fiscal Equity, a nonprofit group that seeks education reform through in- Don Carrington Executive Editor creased, equalized spending for “disad- vantaged” public schools. CFE has liti- Paul Chesser, Michael Lowrey gated against New York State for years Donna Martinez, Jon Sanders over school funding adequacy, and the Associate Editors organization also closely tracks similar lawsuits in every other state in the coun- Chad Adams, Shannon Blosser, try. Andrew Cline, Roy Cordato, “Rooted in the traditional pattern Bob Fliss, David Hartgen, of local control of schooling in America,” Summer Hood, Lindalyn Kakadelis, Rebell wrote in his article, “most state George Leef, Marc Rotterman, systems required much of the funding Karen Palasek, R.E. Smith Jr., for public schools to be obtained from Jack Sommer, John Staddon, local property taxes, a method that in- Robb Leandro Judge Howard Manning George Stephens, Jeff Taylor, herently disadvantaged students who Michael Walden, Karen Welsh attended schools in areas that had low turned from a strategy of “equity” to Cases also drag out because both Contributing Editors property wealth.” “adequacy” under state constitutions. plaintiffs and defendants file challenges Jenna Ashley Robinson, Reformers in the early 1970s first The standards-based reform movement, under the decisions because they com- Paul Messino, Brian McGraw sought relief from the inequity through which blossomed in the mid-to-late plain that their legal opponents are fail- Editorial Interns the federal courts. A San Antonio case, 1980s, led many states to raise their re- ing to comply with standards set by the which claimed that Texas’ system for quirements for student promotion and courts. Many adequacy suits seem to financing education was discriminatory, graduation. It provided advocates for have no end. was found by the Supreme Court not to poorer schools a foundation upon which In Wyoming the Supreme Court said Published by have a legitimate legal basis in the fed- they could build cases that proved stu- that education costs, class size, and The John Locke Foundation eral constitution. Rebell quoted Justice dents in their districts were failing to teacher salaries should be reviewed ev- 200 W. Morgan St., # 200 Lewis F. Powell, Jr., who wrote in the receive an adequate education. ery five years, and inflation costs re- Raleigh, N.C. 27601 majority opinion, “[No] charge fairly “‘Adequate education’ was no viewed every two years. (919) 828-3876 • Fax: 821-5117 could be made…that the system fails to longer a vague notion that could be www.JohnLocke.org provide each child with an opportunity assumed almost in passing to describe Costing out or costing ouch? to acquire the basic minimal skills nec- any state education system,” Rebell Jon Ham essary for the enjoyment of the rights of wrote. “The concept now had substan- In Arkansas, the state Supreme Vice President & Publisher speech and of full participation in the tive content…” Court ordered the state to conduct a John Hood political process.” Since 1989, according to statistics “costing out” study to determine how Chairman & President But the court majority expressed an compiled by the Campaign for Fiscal much money was needed to provide understanding of the plaintiffs’ plight, Equity, 19 of 29 lawsuits argued on edu- enough resources for a “general, suit- Bruce Babcock, Herb Berkowitz, Rebell wrote, noting that Powell said cational adequacy grounds were won able and efficient system of free public John Carrington, Sandra Fearrington, “this Court’s action today is not to be by the plaintiffs. North Carolina’s schools” as its constitution requires. The Jim Fulghum, William Graham, viewed as placing its judicial imprima- Leandro decision, reached in 2004 by the findings released in September 2003 Lee Kindberg, Robert Luddy, tur on the status quo.” state Supreme Court, was among the determined that in order to provide William Maready, J. Arthur Pope, “The court clearly hoped that both successful cases. In addition, CFE said adequate resources for its students, Ar- Assad Meymandi, Tula Robbins, scholars ‘and the legislatures in the vari- courts in several states, including South kansas would need to raise education David Stover, Jess Ward, ous states’ would come up with ‘ulti- Carolina and Idaho, “reverse(d) or spending by $848 million, a 33 percent Andy Wells mate solutions’ to these complex prob- distinguish(ed) earlier cases in which increase over its current spending. Board of Directors lems,” Rebell wrote, paraphrasing the defendants had prevailed.” Arkansas was one of only five states court. in which the studies were ordered by its In the ensuing years, education ad- Court decisions not the end courts. Similar studies with varying for- vocates and their lawyers adopted the mulas and bases have been conducted Carolina Journal is a monthly journal of news, analysis, and commentary on state “fiscal neutrality principle,” which held Today, even if a state Supreme Court in 32 states, 21 of them initiated by the and local government and public policy is- that each state “has a constitutional ob- has ruled its education financing sys- states themselves and the rest commis- sues in North Carolina. ligation to equalize the value of the tax- tem unconstitutional, the legal wran- sioned by outside groups. able wealth in each district, so that equal gling over plans and funding still con- The findings are usually stagger- ©2005 by The John Locke Foundation tax efforts will yield equal resources,” tinues. ing, often calling for hundreds of mil- Inc. All opinions expressed in bylined articles according to Rebell. They succeeded in In New Jersey, Abbott v. Burke was lions of dollars in spending increases. A are those of the authors and do not necessarily some states, including California, un- filed in 1981 and has since seen 10 court state-ordered study in North Dakota reflect the views of the editors of CJ or the staff der that argument, which led some leg- decisions related to the case.