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April 2004 INSIDE THIS ISSUE No Child Left Behind Rural Reforms
Beating the Odds: Small Size Benefits Alabama Students and Teachers
Wisconsin State Superintendent Rejects Consolidation
"Small Works"-The Series Summary ... Archives Rural Policy Matters
a newsletter of rural school and community action
Note from Missouri Committee for Educational Equality
By Tyler Laney
The Committee for Educational Equality filed suit in Missouri in January 2004 claiming the state's school funding system is unconstitutional. It was not the first time.
In the early 1990s, a small group of school superintendents in southwest and southeast Missouri initially organized the Committee for Educational Equality (CEE) to address the inequities and inadequacies of the state's school funding system. They enlisted 114 Missouri school districts in the committee.
The CEE filed the first lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the system for financing Missouri's public schools, claiming it violated Article IX, Section 1(a) of Missouri's Constitution which states: "A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within the ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law." In January 1993, Judge Byron Kinder ruled in favor of the CEE, ruling that public school facilities in Missouri ranged from "the golden to the God-awful." Kinder also said the Missouri Constitution requires that "a child living in a poor school district must have the same opportunity to receive substantially the same education as a child living in a rich district." Additionally, Kinder stated: "Money distributed outside of the formula compounds inequalities (and) those disparities are not because of differing student needs, but instead are associated with local property wealth or are simply irrational." | |
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