In our last post, we pointed out that the Minnesota Supreme Court's recent Cruz-Guzman decision has radically, (but appropriately), refocused Minnesota's jurisprudence onto the central motivating purpose of our constitutional education clause: whether Minnesota's system of public education is providing a fully adequate public education system, one that "meets all state standards," to each student, and what Minnesota must do to deliver that adequate education. This refocus results because the Supreme Court held that our constitutional education clause cannot be used to integrate schools simply for the sake of integration: instead, the clause operates to require a system of thorough and efficient education that affords each student an "adequate education that meets all state standards."
Right now, as we speak, the Cruz-Guzman litigants are beginning to focus a laser beam on this question: What is a constitutionally adequate education? Who decides that question? If students, or some of them, are not receiving an adequate education, what relief should the courts provide to protect what the Supreme Court has held is a fundamental right. The answer to these questions will permanently impact the rights of families and students of color, lower income students, English language learners, the students that Minnesota's education system disproportionately fails.
The decision that the Courts are going to make in the next several years is way too important to be decided without public attention and public scrutiny. Other major constitutional issues: the second amendment regulation of guns, abortion, Presidential powers and accountability, all of these and more receive intense public discussion and scrutiny. But in Minnesota, public discussion and scrutiny of the constitutional right to an adequate education is not covered effectively by the media, nor is it the subject of active advocacy by the the organizations who speak to the needs of the impacted children.
And so, as time permits Jvonkorff on Education will blog on these questions. The blog is opened for moderated comments should you care to engage in dialog. This first post attempts to summarize, in non legal terms, how Minnesota's Skeen decision approached this central question: who defines the right to an adequate education, how is it defined, and how is the constitutional right to be enforced.
Background of the Skeen Decision. The Skeen decision was brought by a consortium of school districts with limited property tax bases. They were typically outside the MSP-St. Paul metropolitan area, with lower residential, commercial and industrial property values. As a result, they lacked the ability to pass high revenue producing operating referendums to supplement what the state provided them. Most of them did not have significant enrollments of students of color, lower income students, and English language learners. They did not claim that their students were disproportionately failing to meet state and local educational expectations: on the contrary, they simply claimed that their students should have the same revenue support, per student, as tax rich districts like Minneapolis, St. Paul and inner suburban ring districts. They claimed that the constitutional education clause, and the constitutional "uniformity" clause demanded equality of funding and of access to property tax referendum funding.
State's Position: Representing the State, its legislature and Department of Education, the Minnesota Attorney General took the following Position:
(1) Skeen Districts Already Provided an Education Meeting State Standards. The Attorney General argued that Minnesota provided a high quality of education to all students in the Skeen districts, and those districts themselves admitted that they were delivering an education to those students that was meeting all state standards. There was no occasion for the Court's to intervene in what is essentially the legislature's plenary authority. This stipulation--agreement by all parties -- that students were receiving an education meeting state standards played a central role in the Supreme Court's decision.
(2) Setting Standards-- Defining Educational Adequacy Not a Judicial Function. The Attorney General argued that the Constitution allocates the responsibility to decide what students should be taught, and what they should learn, was inherently a legislative function and "separation of powers" considerations required the that the judiciary should not be arrogating that function to itself.
(3) New Legislative Outcome/Proficiency Standards Under Way. The Attorney General told the Court that Minnesota's current minimal undemanding state standards were being replaced by a higher more demanding set of standards that would measure what students actually learn, not merely what they had an opportunity to learn.
This third position is critical to understanding the Court's Skeen decision. In urging the Supreme Court to reverse the trial court's holding that the Skeen districts deserved equal per pupil funding (including property tax referenda) the state said in two briefs:
The trial court recognizes but gives no weight to the fact that Minnesota is also a national leader in the implementation of outcome based education programs and learning methods.
Outcome based education, which focuses on what students need to know to function in society, is regarded by state and national educators as being essential to the success of students in the next century. .....there is uncontroverted testimony in the record that the state is moving rapidly toward being better able to use outcome based standards to compare districts and students, much the same as inputs measures were used to do ....
comparisons in the past
The Supreme Court Responded by Carefully and Sensibly Establishing the Constitutional Parameters and Apportioning Responsibility for Defining and Providing an Adequate Education'
The Supreme Court decision contains the following elements:
(1) The Court recognized that it is a legislative responsibility to determine what an adequate education must provide to Minnesota Students: Drawing from the parties' agreement that state standards--consisting of state statutes, state regulations and mandatory state policy-- define the minimum basic education that all districts must provide, the Court held that the dividing line between what the state legislature must fund for all districts was an "adequate education that meets all state standards." The Court did not establish a constitutional minimum: it had no occasion to. the state through the Attorney General and the parties recognized that the legislature had recently fulfilled its duty to establish high state proficiency based standards. Under Skeen, as long as those standards are not constitutionally suspect, the constitutional definition of an adequate education is not determined by the courts, but rather by the legislative standards applicable to all districts and students embodied in state law, state regulations and mandatory state policy.
The Court would have understood that those standards included proficiency-outcome based standards, because the Attorney General told the Court that those were the best standards, because they set learning requirements, and that the legislature was now moving aggressively to implement best-in-the nation proficiency based standards.
(2) The Court rejected decisively the Attorney General's proposal that the legislature was free to fund the provision of those standards as it saw fit, without any role for the Court. On the contrary, the Supreme Court held, the right to an adequate education that meets all state standards was a fundamental right, just like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from racial discrimination. Having established state standards, the Constitution demanded that the legislature provide districts with enough funding to afford each student with an education that meets all state standards. The Court rejected soundly the claim that all districts must receive equal funding, and held instead, that funding must be sufficient to provide an education to each student that meets all state standards. That meant that districts serving large enrollments of students with higher educational needs were entitled to increased funding to meet their needs.
Under Skeen, the definition of adequate education is determined by statutes and regulations that determine what districts must provide. The Court quite properly rejected the contention that the judiciary should decide whether students should be required to demonstrate the ability to factor quadratic expressions, or remember who was the third President of the United states, or what caused the civil war. Nor should it decide whether all students should graduate with 8th grade, or 10th grade reading skills. Adequacy is defined under Skeen based on what the expectations of districts and their students established by state standards.
Funding, on the other hand, is not exclusively a legislative responsibility under Skeen. The legislature must provide enough funding for districts to provide each student with an adequate education meeting those state standards. The state is not allowed to set high standards and attempt to force districts to meet them through a policy of public humiliation for their failure. What the legislature sets as state standards must be correspondingly funded: if some districts need more funding to meet those state standards, then state must provide those funds.
State standards, under this regimen include the LEAPs Act (ELL's), the Special Education laws (students with disabilities); the Worlds Best Workforce Act (WBWF), and the rigorous proficiency standards set by state learning standards and the Minnesota comprehensive assessments. Now, translating these standards into educational operational requirements is not a simple matter. But under Skeen, the Cruz-Guzman parties should not be hiring experts to tell the Court whether students need to do algebra, understand civics at a particular level, or read and speak academic English on graduation. State standards answer that question.
In the context of Cruz-Guzman, it is crystal clear, undebatable, that Minnesota is failing to deliver an adequate education that meets all state standards. It would be tragic indeed, if the Courts spend the next five years focusing on the narrow question of what role racially isolated schools play in delivering the education that the constitution requires, or nitpicking over whether doing algebra is a required component of an adequate education. To some extent, the Cruz-Guzman is being conducted upside down and backwards. Instead the Court should grant summary judgment to the class that the class representatives must advocate demanding that the state submit a credible properly financed plan to provide an adequate education that meets all state standards to each student:
- The Real Summary Judgment Issue: The class plaintiffs and intervenors should be moving for partial summary judgement establishing that the State and the impacted districts are not delivering an adequate education to each students, and that that problem falls disproportionately on lower income students, English language learners and students of color. The funding system is clearly a causative element. Other elements are responsible as well, and they all need to be fixed if the state is going to meet its constitutional requirements.
- Partial Summary Judgment Order: The Court should then issue an order requiring the State of Minnesota to present a comprehensive, visionary plan, with all of the necessary elements, to transition to an education system that meets all state standards for each student, including funding, staff development, sufficient learning time, staff support and all the rest. An integration remedy is not good enough. An adequate funding remedy is not good enough. The state should be required to prepare a truly transformational education plan, adequately funded, as it must be, with guardrails to demand necessary systemic reforms.
In our next posts, as time permits, we'll explore which elements of Minnesota's broken education system need to be addressed.
- Let's Look at the Skeen Case to understand Minnesota's Constitutional Education Clause
- Education and the Constitution (3): State Minimum Proficiency Requirements Fundamentally Changes the Cost of Education
- Minnesota's Education System Is Unconstitutional--the Change in State Minimum Basic Education
- Minnesota's Education System is Unconstitutional Part I
What's Your Opinion. Feel free to post respectfully in the moderated comments below.
