Right to an Adequate Education--All States Standards (2)

In the previous post, I pointed out that the Minnesota Supreme Court's two education clause cases (Skeen and Cruz-Guzman) defined adequate education as one that meets all state standards. Minnesota's funding system would comply with constitution, the court explained, if provided uniform funding for all students in an amount sufficient to generate an adequate level of education which meets all state standards.  The opponents of a robust education clause often contend that these were just throwaway words, as if they were carelessly inserted into the opinion without intending to set an operative standard.  One powerful rebuttal to that suggestion is that the Supreme Court has used the all state standards phrase twice, once in Skeen, v State (1993) and the other when explaining Skeen in the Cruz-Guzman decision. 

Another practical rebuttal is the way in which the Supreme Court itself writes opinions.  Those opinions are the result of a careful deliberative process in which seven Justices and their law clerks pour over the language.  They know that they are setting precedent that will be followed by lower courts.   The author of the opinion must obtain the affirmative vote of at least three other justices, and they aspire where possible to gain unanimous support.  In an education case, they are writing for posterity on a topic that the Court itself regarded as one of the most important fundamental rights.  

There is further powerful evidence that the Supreme Court meant exactly what it said, when it equated a constitutionally adequate education with an education that meets all state standards. In this post, and the one that follows, we'll carefully describe the genesis of the "all state standards" requirement that appears in both Skeen and Cruz-Guzman.   We'll show that  the state of Minnesota itself invited the Court to use mandatory state standards as the test for constitutional adequacy, and the Court essentially accepted that invitation.  The proof lies in a review of the briefs and submissions to the Supreme Court in the Skeen case itself.

By 1993, when Skeen was decided, there had already been a series of funding equity cases and educational adequacy cases in Courts across the country.  In the funding equity cases, plaintiffs argued that some school districts serving lower income students were receiving far less money than those serving higher income students, a reverse Robin Hood system.  In adequacy cases, however, courts began to focus on the constitutional obligation to fund and provide an "adequate education." This judicial trend to hold that a "through and efficient" education must fund and provide an education that prepares students for success and citizenship corresponded with a national movement to upgrade the education provided to all students including students from lower socioeconomic status.  

In some of those adequacy cases, the State Supreme Courts determined that the legislature had not adopted usable guidance for what students must learn in the current economy. For this reason those courts  began to define "adequate education" as a constitutional matter.  Kentucky is the leading example.  In Rose v. Council for Better Education (1989).  The Kentucky Supreme Court defined a constitutionally required adequate education as follows:

A child's right to an adequate education is a fundamental one under our Constitution. The General Assembly must protect and advance that right. We concur with the trial court that an efficient system of education must have as its goal to provide each and every child with at least the seven following capacities: (i) sufficient oral and written communication skills to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly changing civilization; (ii) sufficient knowledge of economic, social, and political systems to enable the student to make informed choices; (iii) sufficient understanding of governmental processes to enable the student to understand the issues that affect his or her community, state, and nation; (iv) sufficient self-knowledge and knowledge of his or her mental and physical wellness; (v) sufficient grounding in the arts to enable each student to appreciate

his or her cultural and historical heritage; (vi) sufficient training or preparation for advanced training in either academic or vocational fields so as to enable each child to choose and pursue life work intelligently; and (vii) sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills to enable public school students to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states, in academics or in the job market.

The Minnesota state defendants in Skeen feared that the Minnesota Supreme Court might copy the Rose decision, and develop a judicial definition of adequate education.   As it happened, the Minnesota legislature had ordered the Department of Education to recommend new rigorous proficiency standards -- to be called "outcome based" education standards.  The governor and legislature wanted the setting of standards to reside with the legislature and the department of education, not the courts.  Consequently, they adopted the strategy of convincing the Supreme Court that the test of funding for the "thorough and efficient" uniform system of public education should be whether the state provided enough funding to meet all state requirements, or as the court ultimately decided "all state standards." This strategy made both logical and legal sense.   A system could not be thorough and efficient if it forced local school districts to deliver services and products without sufficient funding to accomplish those mandatory services and products.   In addition, the state defendants wanted the authority to set  educational mandates to lie with the legislature and the Governor and the Minnesota Department of Education.   And, as we shall see in the following post, this strategy allowed the State to "win" the Skeen case, by asserting that funding meets the constitutional mandate if it pays for the mandates set by the legislature and Department of Education. 

In the next post, we'll quote directly from the state's submissions to the Supreme Court and show how the state's position directly led to the constitutional standard that the Supreme Court set in Skeen.   

All State Standards Part 1