CEA calls on state leaders to address unequivocal funding mandates in Lobato Decision

On December 9, Denver District Court Judge Sheila Rappaport ruled in favor of students, parents, and school districts, finding that Colorado’s entire system for funding public schools is “irrational, arbitrary, and severely underfunded” and therefore violates the Colorado Constitution.

The Court’s decision came just three months after a five-week trial in August that pitted school funding advocates and students and parents from San Luis Valley and other school districts against the State of Colorado.

In her 183-page decision, Judge Rappaport found that Colorado’s public schools are so underfunded that students are denied an adequate education in violation of the state constitution’s mandate of a “thorough and uniform” system of public education. She cited a $2-$4 billion deficit in state education funding.

 

The Court recognized that because of this historic underfunding, districts are unable to provide the programs, services, instructional materials, equipment, technology, and facilities necessary to ensure that all children get an education that meets the mandates of the state’s constitution and standards-based education system. The Court also found that districts are being denied their constitutional right to exercise local control over instruction because of insufficient funding.

Judge Rappaport ordered that the State design, fund, and implement a system of public school finance that enables all students to graduate with the knowledge and skills necessary for citizenship, post-secondary education, and participation in the workforce. She gave the Legislature until the end of its coming session in May 2012 to address her findings, but she does not have the authority to order a specific remedy.

 

The State, as the defendant in Lobato, has 45 days to appeal the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court, which it will likely do. Our Association, the plaintiffs, and the many organizations involved in the case would then ask the state’s highest court to uphold the District Court ruling.

 

It is important to understand that while the Court ordered the Legislature to address Colorado’s terrible school funding problem, this is not a school funding issue – but a state fiscal issue. Colorado has an outdated, underfunded tax system that does not raise enough revenue to make our state competitive and attractive to businesses, thus impeding economic development and job growth. Plus, competing constitutional mandates and legal requirements limit how much the state can collect from taxpayers – even in good times – to pay for essential public services including public schools.

 

While neighboring states and others have invested in the past in schools and colleges, transportation and infrastructure, and health care, Colorado has fallen appallingly behind – into the bottom third of all states in nearly every measure of people’s quality of life. Our Association has been emphasizing this for a long time, initiating our Believe in a Better Colorado project in 2007 and partnering with labor and business to identify ballot initiative remedies. In the last few years, as the recession hit the economy, jobs, and families hard, we have continued to urge the Legislature to seek ways to raise revenue.

 

It is time to find a solution that supports good schools and colleges, model transportation systems, and unmatched health care. The Lobato decision may pave the way to that solution.

 

Our Association believes that our state can rise to meet the Lobato ruling’s challenge while maintaining state budget integrity. This week CEA offered ideas to help shape the conversation toward four essential steps on a path to not only restoring state education funding, but conquering our state’s fiscal crisis. We publicly asked our elected state leaders, including Governor Hickenlooper and the Legislature, to act with integrity and intensity and to set aside partisan bickering for the good of public school families and all Coloradans.

 

We demand no additional cuts to state education funding. While this may seem self-evident from the Lobato ruling, we underscore that further cuts to state school funding are simply not acceptable.

 

Elected officials must also resist adding further unfunded mandates on educators, schools, and districts that only serve to exacerbate the funding crisis and force districts to cut critical existing programs.

 

We ask the Legislature to pursue every possible short-term funding solution as part of matrix of fiscal remedies, including examining policies such as special interest tax breaks and loopholes; stabilization of the state-to-local school funding ratio; tax increment financing; and the manner in which state budget priorities are set.

 

To the issue of state tax revenues, CEA seeks a restructuring of our tax system to reflect the needs of a state with more than five million citizens and nearly 900,000 public school students.

 

We will doggedly pursue this agenda in the coming months through our legislative activities and our work with labor and business coalition members, just as we worked with other leading public educa-

tion advocates on the Lobato lawsuit.

CEA was extensively involved in the lawsuit since its initial filing in June 2005. Our Association helped fund the lawsuit through the Children’s Voices coalition, providing over $20,000 in seed money and financial support for the thousands of hours of attorney time as the case progressed. CEA attorneys provided assistance in the preparation of the case and, in the August 2011 trial, funded the appearance of a key witness, Linda Darling Hammond. Hammond, nationally renowned expert in the statistical analysis of factors related to student performance, learning and achievement, and teacher effectiveness.

 

Our members were involved in the case, as well. CEA asked members to provide their personal stories about how a lack of adequate, sustainable school funding impacts their students, their ability to provide quality instruction and materials, their schools, and their students families. Our members rose to the occasion many times, telling the same story that was told by the plaintiffs in the Lobato case – and the same story that Judge Rappaport told in her ruling:

 

“There is not enough money in the system to permit school districts across the State to properly implement standards-based education and to meet the requirements of state law and regulation. This is true for districts of every description – rural, suburban, urban and those with small or large student populations. There is not one school district that is sufficiently funded. This is an obvious hallmark of an irrational system.”

 

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