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SOUTH CAROLINA SCHOOL FUNDING DENIES STUDENTS CONSTITUTIONAL OPPORTUNITY
November 14, 2014
On November 12, 2014, in Abbeville County Sch. Dist. v. State (Abbeville II), the South Carolina Supreme Court declared that “South Carolina’s education funding scheme is a fractured formula denying students … the constitutionally required opportunity.”
The Court questioned “the prudence of creating school districts filled with students of the most disadvantaged socioeconomic background, exposing students in those school districts to substandard educational inputs, and then maintaining that nothing can be done.”
The Court also held that, “our State’s education system fails to provide school districts with the resources necessary to meet the minimally-adequate standard,” and “the cost of the educational package in South Carolina is based on a convergence of outmoded and outdated policy considerations that fail the students of the Plaintiff Districts.” (emphasis in original)
Responding to the Court’s ruling, co-counsel for the plaintiff school districts, Laura Callaway Hart, of Duff, White & Turner, LLC, said, “We are grateful that the South Carolina Supreme Court recognizes that all children, no matter where they live or how much money their parents have, must have access to meaningful opportunities to learn in school. We look forward to working with our state government on crafting an effective means of delivering those opportunities to them so that they will grow into adults who are productive and can contribute in positive ways to our state. As Chief Justice Toal wrote in the opinion, ‘there is no loser’ in this case. We have all won an important victory.”
The Court reviewed the record from the trial and found that the state’s teaching quality and certification regime led to: many uncertified and “substandard” certified teachers; high teacher turnover; and, even teachers without college degrees teaching core courses, such as math and science. Substandard certification is available to teachers unable “to meet minimal teaching-competency standards.”
The Court also concluded that poverty and poor transportation created major barriers to learning for students in the plaintiff districts. Evidence presented by both the Plaintiff Districts and the Defendants argued that poverty accounts for much of the shortfall in learning and test scores, and other expert analysis demonstrated that poverty caused many children to be behind in skills needed for school success even before their schooling begins. The record also showed two-hour bus rides, each way, and the Court held that “inadequate transportation fails to convey children to school or home in a manner conducive to even minimal academic achievement.”
In its overall conclusion, the Court criticized the State Defendants:
During this case the Defendants asserted that achievement may not be legislated and that this Court could not possibly review the Plaintiff Districts’ claims … . These arguments ring hollow when compared to the Defendants’ failure to comprehensively analyze the troubling issues preventing educational opportunity in the Plaintiff Districts.
Although the Court noted that the General Assembly has primary responsibility to cure the constitutional deficiency, it also said that its findings present “a new opportunity” to the parties to work together.
Moreover, the Court retained jurisdiction and directed both plaintiffs and defendants “to reappear before this Court within a reasonable time from the issuance of this opinion, and present a plan to address the constitutional violation announced today.” Similar to the Washington Supreme Court in the McCleary case, the Court gave leave to the parties “to suggest to the Court precisely how to proceed. In particular, we invite the parties to make additional filings suggesting a specific timeline for the reappearance, as well as specific, planned remedial measures.”
Interestingly, the Court wrote that “the Defendants may find the remedies fashioned by other states’ courts instructive,” explaining briefly the cost- and needs-driven remedies ordered by other state high courts, in CFE v State of New York (CFE II) and Campbell County v. State of Wyoming.
Amici in this appeal included the League of Women Voters of SC and the SC Conference of the NAACP, jointly, in a brief arguing for high quality preschool and written by Education Law Center (ELC).
Years earlier, in Abbeville I, the South Carolina Supreme Court denied the state’s motion to dismiss because plaintiffs had stated a valid claim under the state constitution’s education clause, which the Court interpreted to mean that the legislature must provide children with a “minimally adequate education.” This case then went to trial.
The trial court ruled that the state’s failure to develop and fund early education intervention programs through at least grade 3 denied plaintiff schoolchildren their right to a minimally adequate education. But, the trial court denied plaintiffs’ requested findings regarding quality teaching, which the Supreme Court has now overruled.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t understand. Does this pave the way for vouchers and charters or what?
Umm, talk to Bill Phillis, in Ohio. I believe in 1995 Ohio’s school funding was declared inequitable. 19 years later it is still the same. Little if any action has been taken, but now Ohio legislators want to, rather than fund public schools better, find a way to leave their 5 of 8 rule out of the law. This would allow districts already struggling to provide complete services to their students to save money by avoiding providing these services. That is how I read it anyway.
On another point, they also wish to save money by not having a required teacher pay schedule floor. Districts could save even more money by following the “business model” which encourages employers to stick it to the workers, lowering salaries, laying off people, and dumping more work on less employees. It is the plan of the day. We’ll see what happens. Our governor has no respect for public schools, or for that matter, public servants.
So, good luck.
South Carolina claimed that “achievement cannot be legislated,” but it can be apparently blamed in the “bad teacher” narrative. I hope there is something specific that forces the state to increase funding on a per student basis.
I read this as a declaration by the court that the public schools in South Carolina are inequitably funded. The court calls on the state to remedy these inequities.
Courts ordered Ohio’s legislature to have funding equity for schools, too, but it hasn’t occurred.
What is most important is the understanding by the court that poverty matters and that equitable funding has to take into consideration that when a district is poor, it cannot provide the same type of education as a wealthier district. Folks, it is money and not some magic teacher that creates a sound education. Obviously, if one provides a teacher with the resources needed, the teacher will be more effective. No,Mr. Bloomberg, an effective teacher cannot teach a class of sixty, but any decent teacher can do a great job with a class of 20. But that takes money and the will to admit that poverty matters.
I think (but am not sure) that this is similar to the long-running Leandro lawsuit in North Carolina. This appears to declare the state’s school funding formula inequitable. I can’t tell from this post, but the SC formula is probably based on property taxes, and poor counties can’t generate enough because the property value is so much lower. So the ruling orders the state to find a more equitable process. Where they go from here isn’t clear. Leandro has been in the courts for 20 years…
This decision is some twenty years in the making. But what’s interesting is that the state (GOP) legislature inadvertently paved the way for making equitable funding. In 2007? They passed legislation removing (real) property taxes, which are local, from the education funding stream. So through sales, income, and other state taxes, rural area which generate far less in property taxes can and should be funded equitably.
This case is important, not no much because of what happened but because of what DIDN’T happen.
The prosecution tried to make a case for the constitutional right of children to not have substandard teachers a la Vergara. The court saw through the smokescreen and named the problem: adequate funding in poor districts and poor teacher training, presumably in the state colleges and credentialing programs. They basically said the problem isn’t mediocre teachers, rather inadequate resources to make these teachers more effective, reduce turnover, or attract teachers with more experience.
In credit to the Court, they placed the burden of acting unconstitutionally onto the shoulders of the lawmakers not the teachers. Now that the courts are overseeing the allocation of proper resources, it is possible that there will be some precedence pursuant to the relationship between increased funding and increased student success, any new charters in these districts that fail or misappropriate public funds. There may also be some legal foothold in the HUGE PROBLEM of charters taking away money from the public schools.
The public schools need some good lawyers, strong PR, and community backing for this, because the courts can’t carry the ball all the way to the end zone. Their revisitation may include analyzing the next SC Assembly budget to ensure that it reflects this ruling. We shall see…Deb makes a good point that the next step for SC would naturally be to evade these responsibilities and sabotage progress with dubious business practices.
Marshall Tuck ran is bid for California State Superintendent of Education on the premise that the Vergera case was “the only good thing that has happened for education.” He lost. Even though Vergara is still up for appeal, the voters are a step ahead. They are not fooled and it appears neither apparently are other high courts across the nation.
It is funny, they contend that the failure they wish to attribute to us, teachers, can not be blamed on them because “performance can’t be legislated,” yet they do exactly that to us through test based evaluations of schools and teachers. Maybe they will abandon some of this foolishness and focus on providing the tools the schools need. They can’t claim on the one hand, poverty is the cause (and it certainly mitigates against performance), yet claim teachers can fix that. Meet the student needs and we can help them reach their potential, we can’t work miracles.
Ohio has nothing but foolishness … and Kasich wants to run for President. Lord help us if he does. I wouldn’t vote for him to clean out port-a-potties.
But maybe I should…