State wins school funding case

Supreme Court overturns ruling providing further aid to poorer districts

HARTFORD — The state Supreme Court has reversed a lower court ruling that Connecticut’s distribution of education aid violated the state constitution.

“It is not the function of the courts to eliminate all the societal deficiencies that continue to frustrate the state’s educational efforts,” the court determined in a 53-page decision Wednesday.

The battle pitted a coalition including a dozen school districts and municipalities, including Bridgeport and Danbury, that claimed insufficient funding and haphazard distribution were denying schoolchildren their constitutional rights to an adequate educational opportunity.

“Although the plaintiffs have convincingly demonstrated that in this state there is a gap in educational achievement between the poorest and neediest students and their more fortunate peers, disparities in educational achievement, standing alone, do not constitute proof that our state constitution’s equal protection provisions have been violated,” read the decision, written by Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers.

“The plaintiffs have not shown that this gap is the result of the state’s unlawful discrimination against poor and needy students in its provision of educational resources as opposed to the complex web of disadvantaging soci-

etal conditions over which the schools have no control,” she added.

In fact, it was pointed out that the trial court found the state does provide significantly more resources to poor districts.

A constitutional matter

During months of testimony in 2016, Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher heard of overcrowded classrooms in Bridgeport, a Danbury school budget with no money for textbooks and teachers left without classroom aides.

Moukawsher eventually found no fault with the overall amount the state spends, but he took particular issue with the rationality of the state’s Education Cost Sharing formula. The judge also ordered the state to create standards for what students should learn and know to graduate, to create a better teacher pay and evaluation system and to restructure how special education is organized and funded.

The Supreme Court concluded on a 4-3 vote that the lower court was right in deciding the state was providing minimally adequate educational opportunities but should not have gone on to apply a new constitutional test.

The high court was also not persuaded by stories of districts getting by with substitutes instead of certified teachers, school years being shortened or classes of 29 students.

“(While it) might not be ideal for needier students, we are unable to say that classes of that size render a school inadequate as a matter of law,” the high court ruled.

In a separate opinion, Justice Richard Palmer and two other justices said they agreed with the majority that the state trial court overstepped its mandate.

“I would have remanded the case for a new trial,” Palmer wrote.

That the majority did not send the case back deeply disappointed Jim Finley, a principal consultant to the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, which brought the case 12 years ago.

“None of the issues were remanded back to the trial court for clarification,” Finley said. “The Supreme Court chose not to provide a remedy but instead deferred to the legislative branch of state government to correct deficiencies.”

It the Legislature had done that to begin with, Finley said, a court case would not have been necessary.

“We were looking to state courts to be the ultimate backstop in protecting the state constitutional rights of our public school students, particularly poor ones,” he said.

The coalition is filing a motion to have the decision reconsidered, Finley said, acknowledge its options are few.

The effort to ensure education adequacy and equity continues, he added.

Acknowledging problems

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said in a written statement that the decision concludes the landmark case.

“We continue to believe that the state is obligated to ensure that funding is distributed in a rational manner based on student need, reflecting student poverty and demographic shifts in our communities,” Malloy said.

Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim said that while he was still reviewing the details, it appeared the court sided with the state and against the coalition.

“This is a disappointing outcome,” Ganim said. “We strongly believe that Judge Moukawsher was right . ... The way in which the state has chosen to distribute these resources is irrational, and unconstitutionally disadvantages students from poor and challenged districts such as Bridgeport.”

Ganim vowed the fight was not over.

Attorney General Jepsen, whose office represented the state, said he was grateful for what he called a careful and thoughtful decision.

“The court correctly determined that Connecticut’s public education system and its public education funding do not violate constitutional standards and that — absent such a constitutional deficiency — education policy decisions rest with the representative branches of government,” Jepsen said.

Still, Jepsen acknowledged the trial court’s identification of profound educational challenges.

“Nothing about today’s ruling should alleviate any urgency on the part of state lawmakers to address these challenges,” said Jepsen.

“Disparities in educational achievement, standing alone, do not constitute proof that our state constitution’s equal protection provisions have been violated.” State Supreme Court Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, in the decision