The Methodological Middle Ground: Finding an Adequacy Standard in Alaska's Education Clause

• Publication year: 2007

§ 24 Alaska L. Rev. 73. THE METHODOLOGICAL MIDDLE GROUND: FINDING AN ADEQUACY STANDARD IN ALASKA'S EDUCATION CLAUSE

Alaska Law Review
Volume 24
Cited: 24 Alaska L. Rev. 73

THE METHODOLOGICAL MIDDLE GROUND: FINDING AN ADEQUACY STANDARD IN ALASKA'S EDUCATION CLAUSE

CHRIS LOTT

II. OVERVIEW OF SCHOOL-FINANCE LITIGATION

III. MOORE V. STATE

IV. MOLLY HOOTCH: HOLDING AND INTERPRETIVE FRAMEWORK

A. The Holding

B. Analytical Framework

V. THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES

A. Explicit Guarantee

B. Historical Framework

C. Contemporary Views of Education

VI. CONCLUSION

FOOTNOTES

In Moore v. State, the plaintiffs argued that the state constitution promises each child in Alaska an adequate education. This Note suggests that there is support for finding an adequacy standard in the Education Clause of the Alaska Constitution, and it urges an approach firmly grounded in Alaskan precedent and educational exigencies which are necessary to meet the unique educational needs of the state.

I. INTRODUCTION

The Framers of the Alaska Constitution envisioned that "[t]he legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State . . . ." ^[1] The vision was a fairly simple one, placing control over education in the hands of the legislature and opening the schools to all children of the state. The simplicity of the clause has nonetheless left many unanswered questions. Does every Alaskan school-age child have a right to an education? If so, how specific is that right? Do Alaskan children have the right to a school in their hometown? Do they have a right to a certain standard of education? Or must the State merely establish and maintain something that resembles a school? Do those schools have to achieve certain outcomes, such as preparing students to operate in society?

The Alaska Supreme Court has settled some of these questions. It is clear that Alaskan school-age children have a right to an education and that the legislature has a concomitant duty to provide that education. ^[2] It is also clear that the right is not boundless. Alaskan children, for instance, do not have the right to [*pg 74] have a school in their hometown. ^[3] Schools do not have to be uniform, either. ^[4] Beyond that, however, most of the constitutional questions dealing with the Education Clause have been left unanswered. ^[5]

Moore v. State ^[6] seeks to clarify one of the uncertainties arising out of the Education Clause. ^[7] The plaintiffs in Moore asked the trial court to find that the Education Clause promises every school-age child in Alaska an adequate education and that the State has deprived them of this right by underfunding the schools. ^[8] In effect, the plaintiffs are asking the court to interpret the constitution to promise not only schools "open to all," ^[9] but also schools of a certain quality that provide a certain standard of education to every student in the state. The plaintiffs look largely to court decisions handed down in other states holding that each child has a constitutional right to an adequate education. ^[10] The State has duly responded that the Education Clause promises students only a minimally adequate education. ^[11] Qualitative educational decisions should be made by educators and elected officials, the State argues, not the courts. ^[12]

This Note lays out a middle ground between the approaches urged by the plaintiffs and by the State. Principally, it argues that [*pg 75] an adequacy standard above and beyond a minimally adequate education can, but by no means must, be found in the Education Clause. It should not, however, be found on the terms proposed by the plaintiffs, who advocate either adopting the standards created by other states or using current educational policy to determine what the constitution requires. ^[13] Instead, the approach should be, as suggested below, grounded in Alaskan precedent, principally the interpretive framework established by the Alaska Supreme Court in Molly Hootch v. Alaska State-Operated School System. ^[14] The trend in other states may be instructive, but the unique challenges facing educators in Alaska and the distinctive wording of the Education Clause necessitate a state-specific solution. ^[15]

Part I begins by offering an overview of school-finance litigation across the country. Part II then explains the specific claims and counterclaims in Moore, highlighting the plaintiffs' and the State's arguments for and against finding an adequacy standard in the Education Clause. Part III examines the Molly Hootch case, both in respect to its holding and to the interpretive framework it establishes. Its holding will be important in assessing the adequacy claim in Moore, but the more essential point is the interpretive framework the court established for defining rights and duties under the Education Clause. Part IV then applies the Molly Hootch interpretive framework to the adequacy claim in Moore, pointing out some of the arguments against finding an adequacy standard under Molly Hootch but centering most of the effort on justifying why an adequacy standard should be found. Part V concludes by offering some thoughts on the possibility for success and the consequences if an adequacy standard is found. ^[16]

[*pg 76]

II. OVERVIEW OF SCHOOL-FINANCE LITIGATION

Ever since the United States Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, ^[17] litigation has increasingly been used as a tool to achieve equal educational opportunities. ^[18] Brown's legal mandate, ordering the states to end de jure segregation of African-American students, ^[19] has led to years of protracted litigation, and the remnants of this litigation still exist today. ^[20] However, Brown's more ethereal promise, that "education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments . . . which must be made available to all on equal terms," ^[21] has been the imprimatur for litigation in a variety of educational settings.

School-finance lawsuits have been the most visible equal educational opportunities challenges. Foreclosed on the federal level by San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, ^[22] school funding challenges have been creatures of state constitutional law, ^[23] and they have been brought in two separate waves. Starting in the mid-1970s and lasting until the late-1980s, lawsuits focused primarily on the disparate allocation of resources that resulted from state funding formulas that relied heavily on local community dollars to fund public education. ^[24] Generally, plaintiffs argued under state equal protection clauses that the [*pg 77] education clauses in the state constitutions made education a fundamental right and that the state could not advance a compelling interest with narrowly tailored means to justify the vast funding disparities. ^[25] Courts initially accepted such arguments, ^[26] and they provided a broad array of remedial solutions -- from mandating the state legislature to take action to equalize funding between the schools ^[27] to ordering states to comply with complex equalizing formulas for funding. ^[28] By the late 1980s, however, it became clear that the so called "equity" cases were failing to achieve educational equality. ^[29] Solutions were either too impractical, too politically impossible, or both. ^[30] Courts began rejecting, and litigants stopped bringing, lawsuits demanding strict equity in resource allocation. ^[31]

The failure of equity lawsuits led to a new era of equal educational opportunity litigation focusing on adequacy [*pg 78] standards. ^[32] The ultimate goals of adequacy lawsuits are still exposure and amelioration of resource inequalities. ^[33] However, adequacy litigation takes a more nuanced approach, focusing on three questions. ^[34] The first two, around which this Note will be centered, deal primarily with the question of educational outcomes. First, litigants ask the court to recognize that the Education Clause confers on each child in the state a broad right to a certain level of education -- adequate education. ^[35] The broad right to education may be found in the constitutional text, ^[36] or it may be found implicitly by reference to the commonly-held notion that every child has the constitutional right to an education that will prepare him to be a productive member of the democracy. ^[37] For instance, in Leandro v. State, ^[38] the North Carolina Supreme Court used a [*pg 79] number of factors -- previous court decisions, the explicit guaranty of the constitutional provisions, and the contemporary policy judgments of the legislature -- to find that the state's constitution promises every student the opportunity to receive "sound basic education." ^[39]

Second, adequacy litigants urge that the broad standard must have some substance, answering the essential question: what skills should an educated student learn? ^[40] In Leandro, the court defined a sound basic education in the following way:

(1) sufficient ability to read, write, and speak the English language and a sufficient knowledge of fundamental mathematics and physical science to enable the student to function in a complex and rapidly changing society; (2) sufficient fundamental knowledge of geography, history, and basic economic and political systems to enable the student to make informed choices . . . ; (3) sufficient academic and vocational skills

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