Jonathan Pelto is first to report on an important ruling by a Superior Court judge in Connecticut. His post contains links to news stories in two major Connecticut newspapers.
More than a decade ago, a group of mayors, parents and education advocates in Connecticut filed a lawsuit claiming the state’s school funding formula was unconstitutional.
On behalf of the state’s children, teachers, public schools and taxpayers, the plaintiffs argued that Connecticut’s school funding formula failed to ensure that every child had access to a quality and productive education, as guaranteed by the state constitution.
Known as CCJEF v. Rell, the case will eventually make its way to the Connecticut Supreme Court before it is fully resolved.
However today, a former Democratic state legislator-turned-judge sought to tread a political and timid path by calling the existing funding system “irrational,” but stopping short of declaring that the plaintiffs were correct in their assertion that Connecticut must both increase its level of school aid as well as distribute that aid in a more equitable manner.
I hope to get further analysis by Wendy Lecker, a civil rights attorney who is reading the decision now.
Connecticut’s funding formula is based on property taxes, which advantages affluent districts and harms poor district.
The Hartford Courant reports:
In a sweeping ruling Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher declared that “Connecticut is defaulting on its constitutional duty” to fairly educate the state’s poorest children and ordered the state to come up with a new funding formula for public education.
Moukawsher’s unexpectedly far-reaching decision also orders the state to come up with clear standards at both the elementary and high school level and to improve the evaluation of teachers. Moukawsher did not address the level of funding for schools, but he blasted the General Assembly for recent cuts to public schools in the state’s poorest cities.
“So change must come. The state has to accept that the schools its blessing and its burden, and if it cannot be wise, it must at least be sensible,” Moukawsher said.
Reading his 254-page ruling for more than two hours, Moukawsher ordered the General Assembly to devise a new school spending plan within 180 days. He also found that “the state is paralyzed about high school graduation,” producing graduates in urban districts unready for “college nor career.”
The remarkable ruling orders the state to revamp virtually all areas of public education, from the hiring and firing of teachers to special education students to education standards for elementary and high school students.
Again, I await further analysis but it sounds as if the judge, in addition to chastising the state for its funding formula, also calls for more testing and test-based teacher evaluation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, it all sounds so special until the last paragraph. When will they ever see that the stinking test doesn’t provide any useful information except that the students who didn’t do well come from underfunded, poverty stricken areas?
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People who know very little about education think that testing helps students learn more, concentrates their attention.
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Typically, one of the ways that plaintiffs try to prove that funding is inadequate or inequitable is by pointing to disparate outcomes for students who attend inadequately or inequitably funded schools. And one of the disparate outcomes they typically point to is lower test scores.
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None of the matters, why? Because, just like in NY, there is no way to force the state to pay, so the politicians will just keep “screwing” the schools.
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This happened in Ohio in 1992, DeRolph decision. The legislature said that it would simply stay in court and even though the funding was deemed unconstitutional, absolutely nothing happened.
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What good is a court decision if it can be ignored? States need a penalty like the ACA. If the state fails to pay, then the governor and legislature loses some salary or benefits. They need consequences; otherwise, they will choose to stonewall. If an average person cannot ignore the law, why should state representatives get a free pass?
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Consequences and actions must follow; otherwise the court ruling is but a cosmetic redress and serves no one except those who believe in illusory and specious fairness.
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My read on this court decision is that it opens a very wide door for all kinds of reform/privatizer/etc types. You can bet they won’t be ignored.
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More Consultants In Heaven.
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Here’s my analysis of this decision:
In a Connecticut State Superior Court decision on September 7, 2016, Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher ruled that while the state of Connecticut is providing adequate funding for its school districts, the methods by which those funds are being distributed violates the state’s constitution. According to Moukawsher, “Connecticut is defaulting on its constitutional duty to provide adequate public school opportunities because it has no rational, substantial and verifiable plan to distribute money for education aid and school construction.” Moukawsher went on to claim,
…the state spends billions of dollars on schools without any binding principal guaranteeing that education aid goes where it’s needed. During the recent budget crisis, this left the rich schools robbing millions of dollars from poor schools…
Judge Moukawsher declared that a system that “allows rich towns to raid money desperately needed by poor towns makes a mockery of the state’s constitutional duty” in providing “a minimally adequate, free public education.” He gave Connecticut six months to devise a new funding formula that applies “educationally-based principles to allocate funds in light of the special circumstances of the state’s poorest communities.” Judge Moukawsher went on to apply his indictments of Connecticut’s education system to the U.S. public education at large.
In step with common corporate education reform mandates, this unelected judge also ordered state leaders to “link the terms of educators’ jobs with things known to promote better schools” by raising “standards for hiring, firing, evaluating and paying education professionals.” As part of this union busting agenda, Moukawsher also ordered the state to better define the purpose of elementary and secondary education based on the rationale of quantifiable education standards tied to tests that determine grade promotion, high school graduation and rationalize the high cost of special education.
Judge Moukawsher was appointed to the Connecticut of State Superior Court by Democratic Governor Dan Malloy, a committed education reformer. Prior to being appointed to the bench, Moukawsher spent years as a banking lobbyist as well as as special counsel to the Connecticut Senate Commerce Committee. It is therefore easy to assume that his ruling is based on the same interests and worldview as those who are driving education reform policies. Additionally, Moukawsher’s ruling has the potential to create more opportunities for charter schools and EdTech companies to grab more funds that will (supposedly) be directed towards Connecticut’s most impoverished school districts.
In his argument, Moukawsher identified local control as a long-standing problem that, while not law, is an American tradition that releases the state from taking more responsibility in guaranteeing an “adequate” education for “poor school districts.” To achieve his mandates, Moukawsher went on to decree that the “state’s responsibility for education is direct and non-delegable” and therefore “it must assume unconditional authority to intervene in troubled school districts.”
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