From equity to adequacy: the legal battle for increased state funding of poor school districts in New York.

• Author: Nickerson, Brian J.

INTRODUCTION

Lawsuits challenging New York State's public elementary and secondary school funding formulas have followed, in several respects, the school finance litigation trends in other state and federal courts. The most notable linkage lies with New York plaintiffs' incorporation of doctrinal developments from successful litigation attacking public school funding systems in other states. As this Article demonstrates, the first New York school finance case, Board of Education, Levittown Union Free District v. Nyquist (1) ("Levittown") commenced after victorious public school funding cases in California, Serrano v. Priest, (2) and New Jersey, Robinson v. Cahill. (3)

The Serrano and Robinson cases provided a useful litigation blueprint for raising legal challenges to state public elementary and secondary school funding systems based largely upon "equity" principles and arguments. (4) Equity-based challenges in school finance litigation rely primarily upon state constitutional equality or equal protection provisions. (5) The most typical equity argument raised by plaintiffs is that a state public school funding system, which relies largely upon local property taxes, is inherently unfair or impermissibly disadvantages poorer school districts. (6) Plaintiffs also frequently point to specific provisions within state financing practices benefiting wealthier public school districts at the expense of allocating more funds to poorer districts. (7)

Although the Levittown litigation was eventually unsuccessful, (8) in 1989, school finance reform advocates and interest groups were encouraged by three successful cases in Montana, (9) Kentucky, (10) and Texas. (11) These cases provided a related, but newer, legal argument revolving around a theory of "adequacy" to challenge state public elementary and secondary school finance practices. (12) Adequacy-based challenges revolve around the interpretation of education articles or guarantees found in respective state constitutions whereby plaintiffs argue that children in poorer school districts are deprived of a legally "adequate" level of education. (13) Plaintiffs frequently cite numerous inadequacies in education services, such as school facilities, lack of textbooks and qualified teachers, inferior computers, etc., to bolster claims that a state fails to meet its burden of providing an adequate public education to all school children in a given state. (14) Consequently, plaintiffs commonly assert that more state funding needs to be diverted to poorer school districts to address any inadequacy. (15)

Both the development in the 1989 cases and the New York Court of Appeals' recognition in Levittown that they could entertain future claims of a "gross and glaring inadequacy" in public education currently provides New York education finance reform groups with a new angle from which to challenge the state's public school funding formulas. (16)

Part I of this Article evaluates the influence of federal courts' school finance cases on the New York school finance groups' decision to litigate in the New York courts. Particular attention is paid to the holding, rationale, judgment, and legal claims of interest groups in relevant school finance cases decided by the United States District Court and the United States Supreme Court in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, (17) which effectively closed the federal courts' door to school finance claims.

Part II analyzes the importance of other states' legal precedents in school finance cases as a factor influencing interest groups in New York to challenge the state's public education funding formulas.

Part III discusses in detail the progression of public elementary and secondary school funding formula litigation in New York, beginning with Levittown, up to the most recent case, Campaign for Fiscal Equities, Inc. v. State of New York. (18) The discussion focuses on the legal arguments raised by various interest group-plaintiffs and traces the development of those arguments to school finance cases in other states. Finally, the conclusion highlights the potential course of school finance reform in New York State.

1. FEDERAL SCHOOL FINANCE CASES

   The equity ideas upon which the first public school finance cases relied upon begins in some respects with the decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. (19) During the 1950s, "Jim Crow segregation" laws discriminated against African-Americans in places of public accommodation, including public schools. (20) During the early 1950s, a number of African-American students in Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia, through their legal representatives--the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons ("NAACP")--filed suit in order to racially integrate public schools using the argument that segregated schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. (21) A three-judge panel of the United States District Court denied the relief sought by the plaintiffs, relying on the "separate but equal" doctrine established in 1896 by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. merguson. (22)

   All four state cases made their way to the United States Supreme Court and were heard together. (23) In delivering the unanimous opinion of the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren began by recognizing both the importance of public education to society and trial evidence demonstrating inequality in facilities, curricula, and salaries of teachers between African-American schools and white schools. (24) The Court determined that segregation of public schools based upon racial classifications violates the Equal Protection Clause. (25) It is generally understood that Brown served as a catalyst for many civil rights cases, including education reform litigation involving school finance in state and federal judiciaries.

   In the summer of 1968, Demitro Rodriguez and a group of other Mexican-American parents--whose children attended elementary and secondary schools in the Edgewood Independent School District (an urban school district in San Antonio, Texas)--filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas against the Board of Education, the Commissioner of Education, the Attorney General of Texas, the Bexar County Board of Trustees, and seven local school districts in the San Antonio metropolitan area. (26) At trial, a great deal of evidence was introduced surrounding the Texas system of school finance, the foundation of which was traced back to the late nineteenth century. (27)

   The Texas Constitution provides for the establishment of a system of free schools. (28) The constitution was amended in 1883 to empower local school districts to levy ad valorem real property taxes with the consent of local taxpayers for the maintenance of the free system of public schools. (29) Locally raised funds were supplemented by revenue from the Available School Fund, a state-run program funded through a state ad valorem property tax and other state taxes. (30) The Texas legislature responded in 1947 to growing disparities in the value of assessable property between local districts. (31)

   They appointed an eighteen-member committee composed of legislators and educators, to explore alternative systems used in other states and to propose a funding scheme guaranteeing minimum educational services to each child in Texas that would overcome interdistrict disparities in taxable resources. (32) The efforts of the committee resulted in the enactment of the Gilmer-Aikin bills establishing the Texas Minimum Foundations School Program, (33) which was the system challenged by the plaintiffs in Rodriguez. (34)

   The Texas program provided for local and state contributions to a fund earmarked for teacher salaries, operating expenses, and transportation costs. (35) The State, which supplied funds from its general revenue, financed approximately eighty percent of the program's cost, while the local school districts, acting as a single unit, financed the remaining twenty percent. (36) The latter's share, referred to as the Local Fund Assignment, was apportioned among the school districts under a complex formula designed to reflect the relative local real property taxpaying ability of each district. (37)

   The plaintiffs challenged this system on the ground that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution by discriminating against school children residing in poorer districts, while favoring those residing in more affluent districts. (38) At trial, the petitioners compared their neighborhood, the Edgewood Independent School District (one of the poorest in the San Antonio area), with the Alamo Heights Independent School District (one of the most affluent in that area). (39)

   Approximately 22,000 students, of which ninety percent were Mexican-American, were enrolled in twenty-five elementary and secondary schools within Edgewood Independent School District at the time of the trial. (40) The average assessed property value per pupil was $5,960 and the median family income was $4,686. (41) As a result, Edgewood district taxpayers contributed only twenty-six dollars per pupil for the 1967-68 school year. (42)

   On the other hand, approximately 5,000 students, who were primarily white, attended the six elementary and secondary schools within Alamo Heights Independent School District. (43) Only approximately eighteen percent of the student population was of Mexican-American descent. (44) The average assessed property value per pupil at that time exceeded $49,000 and the median family income was approximately $8,001. (45) As a result, the district contributed $333 to the education of each child for the 1967-68 school year, which was $307 more than the Edgewood District. (46)

   The plaintiffs relied upon an affidavit submitted by Professor Joel S. Berke of Syracuse University's Educational Finance...