State's Attorneys Disclaim Constitutional Responsibility for Educating Poor Students

Jvonkorff on Education is in a grumpy mood this month.  In a recent submission to Stearns County District Court, attorneys for the state, writing on behalf of the Governor, Commissioner of Education and legislature told the Court that the Minnesota Constitution does not require Minnesota's education system to provide

"funding to help offset the extra cost of educating certain categories of students, including English language learners, students of poverty and students receiving special education services._ 

It is tempting to find some really sarcastic things to say about this rather amazing contention -- that seems to suggest that the constitution protects education for the fortunate, but not the extra cost for the less fortunate.  The State advanced this argument through the attorney general in St. Cloud Educational Rights Advocacy Council v Walz, one of Minnesota's two pending constitutional education suits.  The plaintiff -- which I represent -- there seeks to force the state to comply with the Supreme Court's 1993 Skeen decision.  Skeen demands that the state provide enough funding to provide to all students an education that meets "all state standards."   What does the state --Commissioner of Education, Governor and legislature mean by the assertion that the constitution does not extend its protection to the less fortunate among our children?  What really are they thinking?   Have they thought through the implication of that claim, and how did they come to sign off on it? 

Minnesota surely acknowledges that state law and policy requires school districts to close the economic and racial educational proficiency gap.  Minnesota Department of Education's World's Best Workforce "One-Pager" explains:

“For Minnesota to be competitive, we must have students who are career and college ready, poised to lead the state’s workforce. This is important for a number of reasons:

• Our population is aging. • Seventy percent (70%) of jobs will require more than a high school diploma by 2018. • We don’t have an adequate number of qualified candidates to fill many good-paying jobs. • The fastest growing segment of our future workforce is students of color, and they currently have the state’s lowest graduation rate. • Minnesota has one of the worst black-white achievement gaps in the country. “

The two ideas seem completely contradictory, don't they.  We have to close the achievement gap, as long as we don't have to pay the extra cost.  How do we square this statement with the Department's contention in Court that the state is not constitutionally responsible for the extra cost of meeting this key state standard-- of addressing one of the worst achievement gaps in the country.

If the Constitution does not require this of the state, then what really does the Supreme Court's decision mean when it demands enough funding to meet all state standards for all students?  Is the state contending, really, that the constitution requires the state to provide enough funding to provide an education that meets all state standards to advantaged kids only--the kids who are not "students of poverty," the children who are not-disabled, and the children who are fluent in English.   On the contrary, the Minnesota Constitution was written by a generation of Minnesotans who saw the constitutional education clause as primarily protecting those who lack an education because they were socially and economically disadvantaged.  

 The Supreme Court has clearly held that the constitution requires the state to provide enough funding to provide all students with an education that meets all state standards.   The state defendants also concede, as they must, that doing that entails an "extra cost."  A study by the Association of Metropolitan School Districts found that its member districts are spending about $100 million of unreimbursed costs per year for state-mandated English language learner education.   Minneapolis is spending $51 million of unreimbursed costs per year for state-mandated special education. Statewide, the total unreimbursed "extra cost" for state mandated special education is $750 million.   How can we square the contention of the Department of Education, the Governor and the legislature--advanced on their behalf by the Attorney General that the constitution protects only the advantaged, (if that is what they really mean.)

This strange admission -- that the state doesn't have to provide the "extra cost" of meeting state standards for the disadvantaged --goes right to the heart of what Minnesota is doing, and why we have one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation.   Certain districts, like Minneapolis, St. Cloud and St. Paul, have much larger populations of what the state calls "certain students."   The state disclaims funding for the "extra cost" of closing that gap, of giving these "certain students" the education that meets all state standards.  Somehow, our education establishment and our political establishment has rationalized two completely inconsistent ideas in the same time.   Every district is supposed to bring all of its students mentally capable of doing so to a proficiency level that meets state standards.  We are truly committed to closing that gap, just not committed to paying the extra cost that gap closing requires.

This, jvonkorff on education argues, is the most pressing issue facing Minnesota education.  The school finance task force appointed by Governor Pawlenty reported that funding these so-called extra costs is an essential precondition to providing an education that meets all state standards.  The funding formula must:

take into account the added costs included with relevant characteristics of each student (e.g., disabilities, poverty, school readiness, English language learners, and student mobility)....School funding should provide an
annual revenue amount sufficient to cover full dollar costs of ensuring Minnesota public school students have an opportunity to achieve state specified academic standards.

But state leaders lack the courage, the vision, and leadership to implement this recommendation and so have gotten to the point where they can rationalize their failure to lead by asserting that the state has  no constitutional responsibility to provide the extra cost of providing an education that meets state standards to "certain categories of students," the ones who most need those extra costs the most.