California: Suit accuses state of unequal school funding

[alp227]

by Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 2010

A coalition of grassroots groups and families filed a lawsuit against the state Monday seeking to have California's educational system declared unconstitutional for failing to adequately and equally fund schools.

The suit filed in Alameda Superior Court is the second lawsuit filed this year over what plaintiffs say is a broken public school system - one that leaves too many children with less than a fair shot at a good education.

Plaintiff attorneys say they want the court to require the Legislature and the governor to address unequal and inadequate conditions within the schools, disparate conditions that more often affect low-income and minority students.

"We have to sue. Not only are we losing teachers and seeing class sizes skyrocket, but districts are eliminating librarians, nurses, school psychologists, core courses in art, music, PE (physical education) and electives," said Giselle Quezada of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a plaintiff in the new case. "Support for our schools needs to be kept at the level required for a high-quality education, and not just during good economic times."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/12/BA4D1ED4IO.DTL

"unconstitutional"...good calling out as funding inequities have contributed (among other things) to the culture of haves and have-nots and enabled to the pseudo-reformers to screw public schools even further by bilking taxpayer money to failed charters.

[Hannah Bell]

1. Sounds like a credible group who's doing actual organizing.

DEFENDING PUBLIC EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE & OTHER VITAL SERVICES BY REFORMING CALIFORNIA'S BROKEN FISCAL SYSTEM

California is in a cycle of financial crisis that creates a cycle of crisis in neighborhoods across the state. If we don't change we face a disastrous collapse in education, public services and infrastructure, sacrificing the very investments that made California so successful and that working families rely on for their path to self sufficiency.


http://www.calorganize.org/about/issues



They're looking for real volunteers to actually do things besides sign online petitions:

How Would You Like to Help?:
Make Phone Calls
Go Door-to-Door
Contribute
Work at Campaign HQ
Write Letters
Display a Yard Sign
Get a Bumper Sticker
Organize a House Party

http://www.calorganize.org/action/volunteer

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. I get the inadequate part, but not the unequal

The state took over providing the vast majority of school funding to end dramatically unequal funding. Nothing in the article really addresses inequality from a state level. Facilities are a long term issue, predating state takeover of funding. Teacher quality is a much harder issue to measure or address, Class size is a local vice state issue.

In CA, like in many other places, lower performing schools get more money overall than the higher performing schools. This is because of various government programs which seek to help lower performing students.

Another thing to be concerned about is Prop 4 which limits the top line of government budgets in CA. It does not have the notoriety that Prop 13 does, but it is the real villain, not Prop 13.