Our Supreme Court's Education Clause Decisions-all state standards

As I talk to folks in the education community, I find that many are under the erroneous impression that the Minnesota Supreme Court's education clause decisions, Skeen and Cruz-Guzman, merely guarantee a mediocre "basic education," not the rigorous high quality education that state law requires.  Perhaps this misunderstanding results from a misleading description of the Skeen decision in the legislature's own official publication Minnesota School Finance, a Guide for Legislators annually published and widely circulated.  That publication wrongly implies that the education guaranteed by the Skeen decsion and the education clause itself merely requires a "basic education", but omits entirely Skeen and Cruz-Guzman's reference to an education that meets "all state standards."   The difference between basic and "all state standards" is a big deal.

We can understand why the legislature would favor a description of an amorphous "adequate" or "basic" education."  If the constitution merely requires a basic education, the legislature can contend that it can require districts to deliver costly special education, costly English language learner instruction, and can demand that the district assure that students who start out behind receive extra high quality differentiated education to become proficient, without paying for it.  However, if adequate education means an education that meets "all state standards," then the court is saying thorough and efficient and uniform means "if you mandate something for all students, you have to pay for it."   If adequate is not defined, why then the legislature can mandate all sorts of fabulous services, keeping interest groups satisfied, but fail to provide for the cost of those services, keeping anti-tax advocates happy. 

It stands to reason that some legislators would push hard against the "all state standards" language that is found in Skeen and Cruz-Guzman.  Recently in a brief submitted on behalf of the legislature and Department of Education by the Attorney General relayed their surprising assertion that the funding required by Skeen does not include what is described as

the "extra cost" of providing an education to "certain categories of students" including "students with disabilities, students of poverty, and English language learners."  

Somehow the legislature, and perhaps the entire education community has bought into the mistaken belief that Skeen decision, and now Cruz-Guzman, protect only advantaged students.  This post and following posts, will show that the legislatures' self-serving rationalization for evading its constitutional duty is dead wrong.   And, that the education community is abdicating its responsibility to Minnesota's students by letting the legislature get away with this gross distortion of Skeen.

Possibly, this mistaken view of Skeen has discouraged school districts, parents and other organizations who advocate for education from stepping forward to force the state to provide adequate funding to accomplish the educational mandates or standards  found in state law.  It is obvious, isn't it, that Minnesota is not providing enough funds to deliver the education that state law requires.   The shortfall in special education funding is about $750 million per year.  Special education is clearly a state standard.   If, as the state contends, the legislature can ignore the "all state standards" language of Skeen and Cruz-Guzman, then the legislature can pile on mandate after mandate, without having to worry about paying for them.

The shortfall in funding for mandated English language learner instruction is well over $100 million.   In the last several years, the legislature has passed dyslexia education mandates calling for screening and individualized dyslexia instruction, without allocating any money to that mandate. What causes educators to believe that this meets the thorough and efficient system description in the constitution?

There must be some excuse, because if the state systematically violated any other basic right, surely people would be up in arms.  If the state systematically violated freedom of speech in this way it would be sued immediately.   If the state took people's property without compensation, the same.   Yet, Minnesota has one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation, according to the Minnesota Department of Education, and surely a major reason for that is the failure to provide adequate funding.  Across the state, school districts and their constituents seem to treat that constitutional right as if it were a slogan, instead of a real right. What's going on? 

Are folks simply not reading the Court's decisions?  Are they carelessly listening to what the legislature has told them without checking.  In 1993, the Supreme Court in Skeen v. State held that the education clause of Minnesota's constitution guarantees a fundamental enforceable right to an adequate education.   The education clause is a mandate to the legislature, the Court held, and the clause's language is "sui generis" in that it operates as a mandate to the legislature like no other requirement.  That mandate can be analogized to freedom of speech and religion, or the prohibition against invasion of our homes without a warrant. The court's decision specifically held that the education clause requires the legislature to provide funding to all districts in

an amount sufficient to generate an adequate level of education which meets all state standards

In 2017-2018, the Cruz-Guzman case arrived at the Minnesota Supreme Court.   The plaintiffs in Cruz-Guzman wanted the Court to extend the rights protected by the Constitution to an integrated education.  For some reason, they did not also ask the court to provide what Skeen clearly demanded, that schools, integrated or not, must receive funding in "an amount sufficient to generate an adequate level of education which meets all state standards."  In its brief to the Supreme Court the legislature argued that the Cruz-Guzman claims should be dismissed, because (the Skeen decision notwithstanding) the courts had no business enforcing the rights guaranteed by the education clause.  Our legislature is so used to getting away with ignoring the constitutional right, that it actually thought that the Court itself might have forgotten what it actually decided in 1993!

Although the Cruz-Guzman case did not challenge the funding system directly, Justice Hudson's decision, written for the Court, hammered home a reminder of what Skeen really held.  The directness of that holding seems to be saying:  Its been 25 years since this Court made it clear that the constitution demands funding in an amount sufficient to generate an adequate education which meets all state standards.  Where the heck have you all been?  Let us remind you what we said! Cruz-Guzman begins by debunking the State's current position that the education clause only protects some students, or that the legislature can fund just any old education it wants to.  The opinion states:

“The fundamental right recognized in Skeen was not merely a right to do anything that might be labeled as “education” but rather a right to a general and uniform system of education that is thorough and efficient, that is supported by sufficient and uniform funding, and that provides an adequate education to all students in Minnesota.

The Court continued: 

We held in Skeen that “education is a fundamental right under the state constitution, not only because of its overall importance to the state but also because of the explicit language used to describe this constitutional mandate.” 505 N.W.2d at 313. We specifically stated that “there is a fundamental right, under the Education Clause, to a ‘general and uniform system of education’ which provides an adequate education to all students in Minnesota.” Id. at 315.

When advocates for the effort to render Skeen and the Education Clause meaningless make their case, they wrongly contend that the Court didn't define what an adequate education actually means.   But the Court actually tells us exactly what an adequate education is, that is, an education that meets state standards: In fact, the Court tells us that the constitution requires

uniform funding to each student in the state in an amount sufficient to generate an adequate level of education which meets all state standards,....."

This phrase "an amount sufficient to generate an adequate level of education which meets all state standards," was not written by the court accidentally or carelessly.  It resulted from a careful and thoughtful deliberation by the Skeen court on whether the constitutionally adequate education should be established by the Court, or whether adequate should be defined by what the legislature actually required school districts to do. In the next post in this series, we'll explain how the "all state standards" language came about, and we'll show that it was the state of Minnesota, the legislature and Department of Education that urged the Court to adopt that definition of adequacy. 

All State Standards, Part 2