JEFFERSON CITY - More than 100 superintendents from school districts around the state gathered in the Capitol Rotunda Tuesday morning for a press conference announcing the filing of a lawsuit against the state of Missouri. The group, Committee for Education Equality (CEE) is challenging the state's funding system for public schools. Lawyer Alex Bartlett filed the lawsuit Tuesday morning in Cole County Circuit Court on behalf of 243 school districts in Missouri.
TYLER LANEY (Superintendent, Crane R-III; Chairman of the Commitee for CEE)
Lawsuit filed at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in Cole County Circuit Coury to challenge the state's foundation formula for public school funding.
More than 240 school districts have joined the suit, which included "about 341,000 children" represented in those districts.
More than 100 superintendents were on hand at the press conference.
Laney said the two issues at hand were "equity and adequacy" of Missouri's public schools, and that the gap between the highest spending and lowest spending districts was becoming much too wide. "The gap is increasing and will continue to increase," he said.
Laney said it was "bewildering" that the state and federal government were demanding higher standards of education, without adequately funding them. "A business would never market a product without taking into account the needs of the consumer," he said. The consumer in this case being the student.
Laney said he believed the Missouri legislature had a "constitution obligation to deal with the equity and adequacy of the education funding." "It's the responsibility of the state legislature," he said, saying the suit was brought in part because of "their collective failure to act."
He said he hoped "the filing of this suit will force the Missouri legislature to do what they would not voluntarily do."
ALEX BARTLETT, lawyer for CEE
Bartlett said with his previous lawsuit -- "last time, most of the districts were south of the Missouri River." But this time, there were districts from 88 of the 114 Missouri counties.
The state is the primary defendant, and "I assume the Attorney General will be defending this."
In terms of equity, Bartlett described what he termed "vertical equity" -- taking into account certain types of children who are more difficult, and thus expensive, to educate. These included at-risk children, children in special education programs and also children for whom English is a second language. Bartlett said Missouri has many schoolchildren whose native language is not English, beyond just Spanish-speakers. He said the statistics don't reflect the growing presence of children from countries like Bosnia and Romania, who in surveys are usually counted as simply "caucasion."
Bartlett also said the foundation formula itself has a major flaw. "The current system of funding doesn't take into account inflation," he said.
Bartlett cited a Kansas case that also recently challenged that state's system of school funding. The judge in that case, Terry Bullock of the District Court of Shawnee County, Kansas, at Topeka, issued a preliminary order on Dec. 2, 2003. He found that the Kansas system was inequitable, and in violation of the Kansas constitution. The judge estimated the shortfall as possibly as much as $1 billion. The implementation of that ruling was delayed pending appeal.
Bartlett said he wasn't looking to ciphon money away from the rich districts to give it to the poor ones.
"We're not trying to do a 'Robin Hood' approach," he said. "We're not trying to take away from the districts with better systems." Barlett also said he "is not here to do battle with the hold harmless districts," either. "We want to bring UP funding of the schools," he said.
As for Clayton, Bartlett said it was "an efficient district," and that probably explained why it didn't join the lawsuit. He noted a lot of counties in St. Louis are "a little bit better off," and that they were not as dependent on state funding. He noted that Hazelwood, a district in the St. Louis area with close to 20,000 students, had joined the suit.
Bartlett said he hoped to work with the government to "proceed in an orderly fashion." He said he didn't want to get into a "scorched-earth policy battle with the state."
Bartlett did say that tax increases might be necessary to make the changes CEE was seeking in the suit. "It may come to that," he said.
"I think voter support would be there for a spelled-out proposal to increase taxes for education."
BOB TAYLOR, Superintendent from Festus
"We have one of the lowest per-pupil expenditures in the state," he said. "Where are we going to cut?"
Taylor motioned to the balcony above him. "Some of us are close to jumping off the balcony," he said. "Some are a couple of steps away."
Taylor rallied the crowd of superintendents, declaring this issue was serious, and "I choose not to be on the side against children."