Monday, March 19, 2007

Lawsuits lurk over cost of fixing schools

What constitutes and adequate system of schools? This question was recently thrown out of a Kentucky circuit court (Young v. Williams) over a technical issue regarding the separation of powers. So, it's back to the drawing board for Kentucky. But many states have similar actions pending.

In California "lawmakers now have more than 1,000 pages of research documenting loads of problems with the state's schools and estimating how much it would cost to successfully educate every child.

The landmark package of 22 studies released last week by Stanford researchers calls for at least a 40 percent increase in education funding and an overhaul of the way the state governs its schools.

...Lawyers call them "adequacy" suits -- and about 30 states have been slapped with them, said Molly A. Hunter of the National Access Network, a New York advocacy group that tracks litigation over school funding.

"What typically generates a lawsuit is school districts feel like they're not getting enough money from the state ... to do what the state is asking them to do," Hunter said.

And that usually means getting students to meet increasingly rigorous academic standards. Over the past decade, many states have ratcheted up their expectations of schools and students without giving the schools more money -- prompting the wave of adequacy suits."

This from the Sacramento Bee.

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