The Supreme Court’s decision in Federal Way School District v. State of Washington is problematic

Posted on 16. Nov, 2009 by Mike.

(This post is written by Steve Miller, who is vice president and founding board member of the League of Education Voters and wrote statewide Initiative 728 and 884. He is a lawyer, vice chair of the Board of Trustees for Bellevue Community College, and previously served for 10 years as a school board member for Bellevue School District.)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Federal Way School District v. State of Washington is problematic. The ruling dealt with both sections of Article 9 of the Washington state constitution making education the state’s paramount duty: Section 2, the uniformity clause and Section 1, the ampleness clause.

Federal Way had won a superior court judgment and the State appealed. The trial court ruled that the State violated Section 2, the uniformity clause because it funded school salaries giving more to the employees of some districts than Federal Way, based on the grandfathering old local salary schedules in effect at the time of the adoption of the Basic Education Act of 1977. Federal Way argued successfully at the trial court that there was no basis for continuing these distinctions inherited from a system that was found to be unconstitutional.

The Washington Supreme Court decision limits its application of the uniformity requirement to the provision of an education program. The uniformity clause Article 9, Sec. 2 requires “uniformity in the educational program provided not minutiae of the funding. Such details- unless specifically mandated by the constitution- are the province of the legislative branch.” [Emphasis added] The Supreme justifies its conclusion implicitly by noting the differences in teacher pay to be a mere 4.9% less than the cost of living differences between different areas and down from 150%. It also says that Federal Way is trying to mandate “uniform salary figures statewide”, which was not an argument they made in either the trial court or on appeal. The characterization of the differences as minutiae and details made it easy to reach the conclusion that Federal Way did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. The Supreme Court breezed past the larger differences in administrative and classified funding or the cumulative result of a shortfall that adds ups to millions of dollars. And the Supreme Court ignores the absence of any rational basis for disparities in funding formulas, and merely concludes that Federal Way failed to prove that the funding formula disparities violated Sec. 2.

The court further held that Sec. 1 requirement of “sufficient funding” required by “a single passage” in the landmark Seattle school funding case [Doran decision] does not require uniform allocations or uniform formulas to be “constitutionally sufficient”.

The failure of the court to be even slightly concerned with the realities and real consequences of funding inequities in Washington public schools is unsettling. The hostility apparent in Justice Jim Johnson’s decision signed by all his colleagues was manifest in imposing possible new roadblocks to future challenges of education funding by individuals in an unnecessary and stringent analysis of standing.

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AP/TNT story on Federal Way decision

Posted on 13. Nov, 2009 by Mike.

Here’s a more detailed story about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a lower court’s ruling that pay disparities between school districts violate the state Constitution. An excerpt and link to the story is below. LEV will have more analysis on this ruling on Monday…stay tuned.

State Rep. Skip Priest, a Republican from Federal Way who served on the state’s Basic Education Funding Task Force, said he was more than surprised by the ruling.

“I’m not sure that surprised sums up my feelings,” Priest said. “Unbelievable disappointment would be closer.”

Priest said the court’s ruling is “superficial and appears to me to miss the point of the lower court ruling” - that if there are differences in funding between school districts, there needs to be a rational basis laid out by the Legislature for those differences.

Priest took special issue with the Supreme Court’s assertion that because Federal Way students do relatively well on statewide tests, they cannot claim unequal funding adversely affects them.

Federal Way schools Superintendent Tom Murphy said the Supreme Court essentially decided that treating children unequally through disparities in school funding is OK.

“I find that hard to believe,” he said.

“I’m extremely disappointed with their decision,” Murphy said. “I’m disappointed because apparently the Supreme Court does not believe that the constitution of the state provides equal protection for the children of the state.”

Click here for the full story.

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