BIPPS Twists South Dakota School Funding Case

The Bluegrass Institute is at it again.

Self-styled education analyst Richard Innes has now turned to the law. He states in his post "Surprise – Quality Education Isn’t Constitutionally Guaranteed" (with the subtitle, "At least in South Dakota") that a South Dakota judge issued a ruling "concerning a school funding gambit much like the 1989 lawsuit that brought KERA to Kentucky."

In South Dakota, it looks like at least one judge understands the restrictions on what the judiciary can, and cannot tell the legislature to do with tax dollars. It’s a separation of powers issue – one that probably got violated here in Kentucky in 1989.

As is too often the case, Innes got some things right and some things wrong - but still ended up with the conclusion he wanted in the first place. No money for schools.

Separation of powers is an important issue - one that lead attorney Bert Combs took great care to avoid in the 1989 Kentucky case, Rose v Council for Better Education. The court was specifically asked to render a declaratory judgment only - that the educational system was unconstitutional - and did not ask the court to direct the legislature to do anything specific. That's up to the legislature - and that was the key to avoiding what Innes suggests "probably got violated." It never did.

No specific remedy was sought, so the legislature's authority to decide what to do about its unconstitutional school system was never in question. In fact, for a brief time, legislative leaders considered a constitutional struggle by ignoring the court - but soon thought better of it.

The reverse was true in Franklin Circuit Court with Judge Thomas Wingate's 2007 decision in Young v Williams, where the schools went back to court in an adequacy suit and asked for a specific remedy - to require the legislature to raise taxes. They got a summary judgment instead.

The Rose case argued equity and adequacy. The South Dakota case is an adequacy case. Both cases focused on the education language in their respective state constitutions - but the language is different for each state.

Based on the strength of the constitutional language in Kentucky, the Supreme Court declared that education is a fundamental right, that the General Assembly is solely responsible for providing sufficient funding for schools to reach their goals but never said how, or how much.

The South Dakota Constitution requires that the legislature establish and maintain a "general and uniform" system of public schools, adopt all "suitable means" to secure the advantages and opportunities of education, and set up taxes to "secure a thorough and efficient" school system.

The South Dakota judge noted that their state Constitution does not specifically require a "quality" education.

The constitutional language requires an education system that provides students with the opportunity for a free public education that is "adequate to allow students to be responsible and intelligent citizens," the judge said. However, adequacy does not require an education that prepares a student to find meaningful employment or qualify for higher education, the judge wrote. This is what passes for a solid decision at BIPPS.

Then without presenting any evidence of it, Innes proclaims,

South Dakotans are incensed by the million dollar waste this has caused to date.

There is, however, evidence of students going to school in trailers because school districts can't afford to build proper buildings, and the legal challenge is being supported by two-thirds of the state's 161 school districts. Some of those folks are probably incensed.

And of course, in the best scenario, the legislature would sufficiently support its schools as is its constitutional duty, and nobody would have to sue anybody.

In any case, this issue is going to be decided at the Supreme Court level, just like in Kentucky. This is South Dakota's first school funding challenge. Stay tuned.

A brief response to Mike Rebell in Education Week

Today's Education Week has an article from Mike Rebell titled "Sleepless after Seattle" where a connection is made between recent state "adequacy" lawsuits and the US Supreme Court decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. (Online yesterday here: subscription req'd) (I had written to Rebell on this issue several months ago but did not hear back.)

In the article, Rebell proposes the Adequate Education Remedial Oversight model. The model argues an approach that "adopts and regularizes the best practices" that state courts have used. He suggests that following his model will "promote effective cooperation among the three branches of government."

Wouldn't that be great?

Rebell suggests 5 planks to the model: Challenging standards, Adequate funding, Effective program implementation and accountability systems, A supportive political culture, and Improved student performance - all good stuff.

I resisted the temptation to assert that with a supportive political culture the rest of the problems can be quickly resolved. But I did not resist a response on the one piece of advice that appeared to be - at least for Kentucky - bad advice. Rebell's model states,

Courts must order states to, first, undertake detailed costing-out studies of the resources required to provide all students the opportunity to meet state standards, and, second, revise the state’s education finance system to ensure that this amount is actually made available to all school districts.

I posted the following retort:

I love Mike Rebell's ideas on adequate funding. I wish they all worked.

If state courts continue to be where the action is, then the language of each state's constitution will make it difficult to develop one model that will serve all states well.

For example, in Kentucky - a state whose constitution contains relatively strong separation of powers language - one of Rebell's suggestions actually got a case thrown out of court. The summary judgment in Young v Wiilliams (2007) underscores the state court's own doubt that it can direct the legislature to do much of anything.

In the Kentucky landmark case Rose v Council for Better Education (1989) plaintiff's counsel Bert Combs was careful to seek only a declaratory judgment. Once that opinion was handed down the political culture and other factors kicked in. As Rebell correctly asserts, Kentucky children benefitted greatly.

Of course, trusting the General Assembly is disquieting for action-oriented plaintiffs who have witnessed years of legislative neglect. But there seems to be little alternative.

Perhaps in other states the court is on firm ground and can tell the legislature how much revenue to raise for education. But that sure doesn't seem to be the case in the Bluegrass state.

One plan does not fit all.

History strongly suggests that left to its own devises, the Kentucky legislature will not adequately fund the schools. Even when, as defendants, legislative leaders were aware that the schools were underfunded, the constitutional mandate was unpersuasive. Absent a public outcry for school support, the General Assembly will happily content itself with the status quo - and call it a victory because it isn't worse.

If the Council for Better Education turned around and sued the state again today, it would not be too soon in my opinion. They are right on the facts. But they need a new legal approach; one that differs from Rebell's model in that it seeks no specific remedy.

But still burned from their summary smackdown at the hands of Judge Thomas Wingate, I'm sure the CBE is giving the new Democratic majority some time to make things right - without litigation.

How's that looking by the way?

A half adequate education in Kentucky?

The Prichard Committee recently released a report that looked at funding for education in Kentucky since 1990 and the impact of benefit expenses on the delivery of educational services to students. The study suggests that the rising insurance and benefit costs for school employees have eaten into that funding that might have otherwise gone for programs that directly impact children.

The report authored by Susan Weston and Steve Clements offers a review of major trends in state funding from the earliest implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in fiscal year 1991 through the budget recently enacted for fiscal year 2008.

Susan Perkins Weston, an attorney, is the former executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Councils, now doing some consulting. Stephen Clements is the director of the University of Kentucky's Institute for Educational Research and a faculty member of the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation.

Weston and Clements note the resurgence of public conversation surrounding the funding of Kentucky’s public schools in recent years; a conversation that had languished for the previous decade and a half.

They also point to the state’s fiscal and budget crises from 2002 to 2005 and its impact on school funding: Cuts to extended school services and textbooks while regional service centers and school rewards were axed.

In 2004, teacher protests forced a special legislative session to commit extra funding to health insurance for state and school district employees.

In 2006, after state revenues had recovered, the General Assembly increased school funding substantially, targeting teacher salaries and adding two days to the calendar.

Their analysis revealed:

• Kentucky took a major step in state support for education efforts from 1990 to 1992.


• Those efforts continued from 1992 to 1996, completing start-up investments and adding funds to ongoing initiatives with limited additional dollars.


• New initiatives and an extra investment in technology were added from 1996 to 2000.


• Funding took a step backward from 2000 to 2004, reflecting overall state fiscal difficulties.


• An important recovery from 2004 to 2008 served mainly to keep up and catch up with growing costs for existing efforts.


• In every period since 1992, inflation and faster-than-inflation growth in benefit costs consumed a major portion of the total increases.

The study focused mainly on state funding since state dollars cover the bulk of P-12 schooling costs and are directly controllable by Kentucky’s lawmakers.

Funding is not the only element needed to provide academic excellence for Kentucky’s children, but it is one essential component deserving of steady attention and wide participation. And it is especially important to know how much of Kentucky’s education-directed resources are being spent on programs to improve student achievement and how much are being consumed by such areas as rising health insurance and benefit costs.

In the end, expanded services need to reach the children who need them, if all are, indeed, going to achieve proficiency.

Weston and Clements chose the metaphor of a half-full glass (or was it half-empty?) to illustrate their view of Kentucky's school funding circumstance. I have tended to think of it as how much gas you have in the tank, because reaching any goal always depends on how far you want to go.

So what is an "adequate" education? Well...that depends, because it changes.

When Kentucky began its system of schools in 1837, a Kentuckian could be considered "educated" with a 4th grade skill set. The goal of the common school movement was free public grammar schools.

The industrial revolution needed more skilled workers, and by 1900, it became obvious that the new goal needed to be a high school education for Kentucky citizens. It took more funding to get there but with the new century came high schools in every county and a "nornal school" in every region. Americans were uncommonly proud of their schools; schools upon which a great democratic society was being built.

Kentucky is at a crossroads once again. The level of education among the workforce needs to be advanced if Kentucky is to continue to prosper. The global imperatives of the information age make the new basic level of education a college degree.

Anything less will be inadequate to keep pace with our competition.

Kentucky must travel the road that leads to more college graduates. But do we have the fuel to get us there?

At the p-12 level, we talk about this in terms of each and every child reaching "proficiency;" which opens the door to a college education for all.

Weston and Clements talk about adequacy this way:

Adequacy

Ultimately, the big question is: do Kentucky schools have the financial resources they need to deliver proficiency for all students?

Proficiency is the short definition of what an “efficient system of common schools,” as explicated by Rose v. Council for Better Education (the 1989 state Supreme Court decision that preceded KERA), should deliver.

Naturally, the question could be broken down into several parts: What efforts are needed to deliver proficiency? Are there special efforts needed for students with unusually intense learning challenges, including those with exceptional disabilities, those with grave poverty challenges and those with limited English?

What will it cost, on an ongoing basis, to deliver that mix of services?

What transitional costs are required to get there, such as added professional development, added or reconfigured facilities, and other help to retool in preparation for using use new approaches? Are the most appropriate mechanisms in place for ensuring that schools and districts make decisions that will most effectively lead to proficiency?

Is that revenue, in fact, being provided?

The Rose Opinion reads, "The system of common schools must be adequately funded to achieve its goals. The system of common schools must be substantially uniform throughout the state. Each child, every child, in this Commonwealth must be provided with an equal opportunity to have an adequate education."

"Proficiency" is indeed a short definition for an efficient system. Among the essential, and minimal, characteristics of an "efficient" system of common schools Chief Justice Robert Stephens included,
1. The establishment, maintenance and funding of common schools in Kentucky is the sole responsibility of the General Assembly.
2. Common schools shall be free to all.
3. Common schools shall be available to all Kentucky children.
4. Common schools shall be substantially uniform throughout the state.
5. Common schools shall provide equal educational opportunities to all Kentucky children, regardless of place of residence or economic circumstances.
6. Common schools shall be monitored by the General Assembly to assure that they are operated with no waste, no duplication, no mismanagement, and with no political influence.
7. The premise for the existence of common schools is that all children in Kentucky have a constitutional right to an adequate education.
8. The General Assembly shall provide funding which is sufficient to provide each child in Kentucky an adequate education.
9. An adequate education is one which has as its goal the development of the seven [enumerated] capacities...

SOUREC: Rose v. Council for Better Education, 790 S. W. 2d 186.

Several 2003 studies found that Kentucky’s 2002 education funding was falling short of needed levels, and a lawsuit brought by the Council for Better Education used those findings and data on student achievement progress to seek new legislative action. In 2007, the Franklin Circuit Court ruled that student progress was rapid enough to preclude a court ruling for more funding— but added that a suit might be proper if progress slowed down.

I find this analysis somewhat incomplete, particularly as regards the separation of powers argument. Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate said it was not the court's role to dictate to the legislature a specific method for determining whether the schools are being adequately funded. In the Rose case, lead attorney Bert Combs carefully avoided seeking a specific remedy for fear the whole case might fall - as it did in Wingate's court. Instead, Combs sought only a declaratory judgment that left solutions to the legislature.

The CBE leadership chose not to appeal the decision. Whether in or out of court, the
debate on funding sufficient to support adequate education is sure to continue into the future.

Whatever the next steps in the academic debate, adequacy is also an issue for Kentucky’s citizens. However complex it may be to work out what our children need and however strenuous it may be to fund those needs, it is our shared duty to seek understanding and to work together to provide the learning that is right and good for the next generation.

Officials: School funding suit over

Superintendents won't appeal

As previously reported, the Council for Better Education - a coalition of 164 (of 175) school districts in Kentucky - has decided not to appeal a ruling by Franklin County Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate. This brings to an end the conjoined school funding cases CBE v Williams and Young v Williams.

Council President Roger Marcum said, however, that the group "will continue to lead efforts for adequate resources" for all Kentucky students.

"Our members continue to believe that Kentucky's academic progress is too slow," said Marcum, who added that the lawsuit kept "the issue on the front burner."

...Marcum -- superintendent of the Marion County school system -- left open the possibility of a future lawsuit...

The case was a followup to the Kentucky Supreme Court's landmark decision in Rose v Council for Better Education, in 1989, which has since been used nationally as precedent in more than three hundred cases. In Rose, inequities and inadequacies in the system prompted the court to declare the entire system of schools to be unconstitutional. That resulted in a re-working of Kentucky's school laws under the name, Kentucky Education Reform Act, or HB 940, which was signed by Governor Wilkinson in 1990.

But the Kentucky constitution contains particularly strong separation of powers language and the courts are reticent to direct the legislature to do anything in particular. This seems to be where Young v. Williams ran into trouble. When the Council asked the court to direct the legislature to use a “specific, systematic method to quantify the amount of money necessary to provide an adequate system of common schools,” Judge Wingate said they went over the line and he responded with a summary judgment for the defense.

After Wingate's ruling, the council filed a motion asking him to reconsider. He denied the motion May 30.

...He said it was not the court's role to dictate to the legislature a specific method for determining whether the schools are being adequately funded. And he said the legislature's method of using rising test scores as proof that schools are being adequately funded is constitutional.

As KSBA reported, the Council decided against an appeal since the best result would only continue the lawsuit.

“If we appeal, the result will not be for the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court to say, ‘You win, you get more money.’ It would only be to rule in whether to have a trial,” attorney Byron Leet of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs said. “A successful appeal would take at least two years to get back to Franklin Circuit Court through the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court.”

Leet and Marcum pointed to a bright side to Wingate’s ruling. “Judge Wingate said there is a genuine question about whether the legislature is meeting its constitutional obligation, and that’s a decision for a court to make,” Leet said. “He rejected the defendants’ argument that they were immune from being sued and left the door open for the council or someone else to come back to the court in the future.

Indeed, in the Rose case, the court ruled the system unconstitutional, but stopped short of telling the legislature how to fix it.

Wingate’s rejection of the Council’s legal theory in Young was, consistent with Rose, a stark refusal to step “onto the slippery slope by stipulating the manner by which the General Assembly must carry out its responsibilities.”

It now appears the only viable option for the Council for Better Education is to monitor the legislature to see if they will - despite a long history to the contrary - provide a level of support for the schools that will allow Kentuckly students to achieve the state's goals. Failing that, CBE may need to file a new case, with a new legal strategy.

In the meantime - despite widespread acknowledgement that the present system is underfunded by hundreds of million dollars - Wingate’s ruling will only reinforce the legislature’s natural tendency maintain the status quo.

What NOBODY wants to talk about is the legislature's other option. The General Assembly is empowered by the constitution to maintain present funding levels and simply lower the state's goals. If that were to occur, it would produce a crippling workforce circumstance that would harm the state for decades to come.

This from the Courier-Journal.

Kentucky's Whirlwind Campaign, 1907. Is history repeating itself?

On February 13th, Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate issued an order granting summary judgment to the legislative defendants in the school funding case, Young v. Williams. With that order the push for adequate funding of Kentucky's public schools was derailed. Getting the train back on track will require more educators to express (again) the courage of their convictions. But ultimate success will require even more support. It will require broad public outcry.

This has happened twice before in Kentucky's history. At the turn of the last century, public support for school reform flared...and within a decade, died out.

More recently, The Prichard Committee's 1984 Town Forum on KET helped launch the current reform effort. Now again, 17 years after enactment of the Kentucky Education Reform Act - has the flame died yet again?

This from Each Child, Every Child: The Story of the Council for Better Education, Equity and Adequacy in Kentucky's Schools.

John Grant Crabbe was elected Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1907. He brought to office an active imagination and boundless energy. In that year well over half of the school aged children were not enrolled in school. Only 311,192 or approximately 42% of the students enrolled were said to have maintained a satisfactory average daily attendance. In the first decade of the twentieth century, illiteracy in Kentucky was the highest in the southern states. Crabbe declared that the Kentucky school system was still beset with the deficiencies of the previous century.[1]

To underscore his observations and generate grassroots support for better schools, Superintendent Crabbe stumped statewide in what he called The Whirlwind Campaign. He called upon the Kentucky Confederation of Women’s Clubs, the Kentucky Commission for Improvement of Education and the teachers’ associations to visit every community in the state. The Press was a willing supporter of the movement.[2] “The campaign was a continuous cyclone bombardment against illiteracy and ignorance, for a period of nine days... Twenty nine speakers...[delivered] nearly three hundred public set addresses...The entire state was covered and every county was visited...”[3]

The campaign had the desired effect of publicizing and popularizing the need for improved schools. Crabbe called for an educational commission to make a thorough investigation of the school system. The commission was to make a report to the General Assembly including such suggestions, recommendations, revisions, corrections, and amendments, as its members deemed necessary.[4]

The General Assembly responded by passing the Sullivan Bill, more commonly known as the County School District law. The new law called for the establishment of a high school in every county, changed the name of Kentucky State College to Kentucky State University, increased collegiate appropriations, provided funds to normal schools to enhance teacher preparation, established a State Education Commission and charged it with the responsibility to make a report on the schools, instituted compulsory attendance for children in cities of the fourth class and larger, and passed a child labor law.[5]

The educational commission began a thorough study of the education laws of Kentucky and those of other states. The school laws already in force were rewritten, rearranged, codified and became the new school code. After consultation and deliberation with educational leaders, a code was outlined that covered the whole common school system of the state. This code was submitted to the General Assembly of 1910 as the report of the commission.[6]

The principal recommendations in the report were: (a) the ex-officio, three- member State Board of Education should be supplanted by a seven-member State Board of Education, consisting of the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and six experienced educators; (b) the powers and duties of the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction should be extended; (c) the examination of applicants for certificates and the grading of papers should be under the direction of the State Board of Education; (d) provisions should be made for the certification of high school teachers on the basis of training and for the issuance of certificates in special fields; (e) the powers and duties of the county Superintendent should be increased; and (f) institute instructors should be licensed.

Historian James Klotter, summarized Kentucky’s efforts in the early 1900s. “In 1900, Kentucky stood fourth in the South in per capita income devoted to education, and had the only compulsory education law in the South. The 1908 legislature required every county to establish a high school, strengthened attendance rules, and poured more money into the newly created teacher training colleges at Bowling Green (now Western Kentucky University) and Richmond (now Eastern Kentucky University). Legislators and education advocates launched a statewide campaign in support of education, and bright days seemed to lie ahead. But it was a false light that soon dimmed. Funding did not continue at an adequate level, and as Kentucky ambled toward education reform, other states ran ahead. By 1920, Kentucky's ranking had fallen from fourth to eleventh. The cost of this lack of progress was incalculable because it drove many of the best and brightest students and teachers out of the state.”

[1] Thomas D. Clark, in James C. Klotter, ed. Our Kentucky: A Study of the Bluegrass State (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 286.
[2] Thomas D. Clark, A History of Kentucky (Ashland, Kentucky: The Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1988), 367.
[3] Barksdale Hamlett, History of Education in Kentucky (Frankfort: Kentucky Department of Education, 1914), 200.
[4] Sessions Act 1908, Chapter 65, 171.
[5] Barksdale Hamlett, History of Education in Kentucky (Frankfort: Kentucky Department of Education, 1914), 205.
[6] Moses Edward Ligon, A History of Public Education in Kentucky (Bulletin of the Bureau of School Services, XIV no. 4, 1942.)

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.

The Courts' Opinion in Young v. Williams

by Richard Day

On February 13th, Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate issued an order granting summary judgment to the legislative defendants in the school funding case, Young v. Williams. Summary judgment is the court’s equivalent to a blocked dunk shot; where the case is thrown out of court without a trial because “it appears impossible” for the Council for Better Education “to produce evidence at trial which would effect a favorable judgment.”

Swat; into the cheap seats.

Given the importance of this case to Kentucky’s children and our future economy, I was shocked by the decision. Certain inadequacies are so glaring that I assumed summary judgment wasn’t even a possibility. I spent a couple of weeks brooding before driving to Frankfort over spring break to review the case file; and it’s a big honker. It took the clerk three trips to deliver the arm loads of evidence, depositions and motions – and cost me $60 to photocopy a small fraction of the files. But the biggest shock was yet to come.

Judge Wingate was appointed to the Franklin County circuit bench by Governor Ernie Fletcher last June as former Judge William Graham was retiring. There has been more than a little speculation that certain executives at the state and federal level are making efforts to stack the courts with restrained jurists who may fail to act at times when they should redirect the other branches of government; and I’m just skeptical enough to believe it could be true. So, I was ready for a fight. But as I scoured the case file I came to a surprising conclusion. As much as I hate to say it, I think Wingate’s summary judgment was constitutionally correct. This is a big deal because the action effectively halted the Council for Better Education, a collection of 164 Kentucky school districts, in their effort to challenge the adequacy of the present school system to meet its legislated goals – a cause I fully support.

When former Governor and federal Judge Bert Combs argued Rose v. Council for Better Education before the Kentucky Supreme Court, he was very careful to tip-toe around any suggestion of a legislative remedy. The Council’s legal theory was that no district in the state was over-funded. As Co-counsel Debra Dawahare argued, “Possibly, as compared to Connecticut, we're all a mess.” But they stopped short of suggesting what should be done about it.

Combs wanted the court to direct the legislature to exercise their authority and proceed “as far as they can” to enact an efficient system of public schools. How far is that? Combs told the court, that they could say to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, “You can exercise your authority to propose legislation that is constitutional.” That would leave them knowing what the law is, and the governor would know, and the General Assembly would know. Combs noted that nowhere in the original circuit court ruling did Judge Raymond Corns’ direct the General Assembly to pass any particular laws, or derive school funding from any particular source, or to adopt any particular system. The circuit court went as far as it could go.

Apparently in the Young case, specific remedies were suggested that violated the “Constitutional bar” and would render the court powerless to enforce its own ruling. Expert witnesses and a handful of studies confirmed the present inadequacies. But when the Council asked the court to direct the legislature to use a “specific, systematic method to quantify the amount of money necessary to provide an adequate system of common schools” they went over the line. Judge Wingate responded with a swat; don’t bring that specific remedy into my house.

House Speaker Jody Richards told the Herald-Leader that Wingate’s ruling, “…vindicates our position that we have made an attempt to adequately fund education.” Of course, the ruling does no such thing. The constitution requires more than an attempt from the legislature. Wingate also rejected claims of sovereign immunity advanced by Richards and Senate President David Williams, and their request that the court “dismiss the legislative defendants” was flatly denied. Don’t bring that legislative immunity stuff into my house either.

Wingate’s rejection of the Council’s legal theory in Young was, consistent with Rose, a stark refusal to step “onto the slippery slope by stipulating the manner by which the General Assembly must carry out its responsibilities.” Because of this, it’s hard to see how a motion for reconsideration, or an appeal of the present case, can win. It looks like the only viable option for the Council for Better Education is the initiation of a new action - and I hope they get to work on that right away. Wingate’s ruling will only reinforce the legislature’s natural tendency maintain the status quo.