Posted on 08/15/2005 2:00:29 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
While agents of 51 school systems invite a Fulton County Superior Court judge to raise state taxes by up to $2.5 billion, a boost of about 15 percent, three parents who question the quality of education their children are getting have a different idea.
They don't want a tax increase. They want parents — not surrogates — "to control the education of their children." They believe, too, that while it's unconstitutional to fund k-12 schools with property taxes, "The proper remedy for the constitutional violations is parental choice, not a court-imposed tax increase."
The three parents, with children in Atlanta Public Schools, are asking that their complaint be merged with a suit filed last year on behalf of superintendents and school board officials who argue that the state is not giving them enough money to provide an "adequate" education.
The group of school officials, who filed the suit as the Consortium for Adequate School Funding in Georgia Inc., invite a judge to act as education expert, policy-maker and state Legislature, in divining that the 51 systems, individually and as a group, bear no contributing role in the insufficiency of the education children are being provided.
Without conducting 51 separate inquiries into how each system has managed the resources available, and whether local leaders have made decisions that strengthened or weakened the quality of instruction for all children, a judge is spectacularly incapable of acting as expert, policy-maker and legislator.
While some of those 51 self-selected systems already produce better learning outcomes than others, the judge is being invited to conclude that all fail to deliver a decent education for precisely the same reason — money.
And, having reached that conclusion, to arrogate the authority to levy taxes, a legislative function.
The consortium's president, former Atlanta school board member Joe Martin, finds "merit . . . in raising the state sales tax by one cent on the dollar to increase state support for education through the current formula." That's a tax increase of $2.5 billion.
Atlanta attorney Glenn A. Delk, arguing on behalf of the three parents, says the consortium is pursuing a case that belongs to parents. "The primary focus of the consortium's lawsuit is to obtain a court-ordered tax increase, which is not the primary focus of the parents," Delk said.
Their suit, he notes, is part of a national campaign to use the courts to raise taxes, as has been done in Texas and Kansas.
Parents argue that they have a fundamental right to control their children's education, and when students are assigned by ZIP code, low-income parents are effectively denied equal education opportunities.
Parents agree with the state that a court has no authority to mandate that the General Assembly raise taxes by $2.5 billion. "Parents do not ask this court to order more money be spent by the General Assembly; instead they argue that monopoly power over the money should be taken away from those entities who are violating their constitutional rights" and given to parents.
For a decade, the state has allowed parents to use public money to purchase pre-k services from "any public, private or religious pre-k program, without regard to resident," Delk noted.
"Furthermore, for 60 years, Georgia, other states and the federal government have given public funds to parents to enable their children to attend colleges or universities of their choice, public, private or religious."
Rights accorded parents of 4-year-olds and 18-year-olds should be given to all parents of children in between, he correctly argued.
Frankly, everything that's being asked of Senior Judge Elizabeth Long is in the wrong venue. The level of funding is a legislative responsibility.
Whether local officials are responsible for their failure to educate the children in their charge, or whether it's the state's fault for not giving them more money, are beyond the scope of the court's expertise, wisdom or knowledge.
But surely nobody can deny that parents have a right to the primary voice in this debate about what's best for their children, regardless of the forum.
— Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
"It was awful," said Reed, adding that teachers were starting to organize to home-school children who didn't want to attend Hearne schools..,..***
__________________________________________________
Texas school district under fire:
***....Bienski serves not only as the school district superintendent, but also as the principal of all three campuses. When the district began its aggressive building campaign in 1997, Bienski served as the general contractor, saving the district millions of dollars. The district owns all three campuses outright.
The school district stocked its computer labs by taking advantage of grant programs. When it launched its high school a few years ago, it focused on academics and avoided costly athletic programs such as football. ....*** Source
We have been down this court-imposed school funding road in New Jersey, and it ain't a pretty sight.
The NJ Supreme Court initially decided that it was unfair that "disadvantaged" urban school districts were not funded at the same level as suburban schools. So they mandated that state aid be given to urban districts to bring their funding up to the state average.
Of course, the money disappeared without a ripple with no change in performance.
Then the Court looked at school funding and decided that it was unfair that the urban districts were not on par with the best funded suburban school districts. So a cap was put on how much suburban schools would be allowed to spend, and a levy was collected to send enough money to the urban districts to bring their money-per-pupil to that ceiling level.
Of course, more money still made no difference. The underfunded failing urban schools just became overfunded failing urban schools. You would think that, at this point, the NJ Supreme Court would cut their losses and run, but nooooooooo!
Now the Supremos have decided that since urban schools are underperforming, they must have higher funding to ensure they can meet the special needs of the urban student. So now spending in urban districts will be boosted until they achieve results comparable to the State at large. As long as they continue to fail, their budgets are required to increase, in a classic example of a perverse incentive.
And you just know that if they ever do actually, by some miracle, bring the average urban school up to the standard of the typical suburban school, the Supremos will decide that it is still not fair until the urban schools perform at the same level as the top performing surburban districts.
So spending in urban districts is zooming past $20,000 per pupil per year, with no end in sight. There has been no appreciable increase in the quality of education. Suburban taxpayers are being whalloped with 20% increases in their property tax bills, year after year, with the money being packed off to Trenton to be redistributed, while actual per-pupil spending in suburban districts is declining, because there is a limited amount of money to go around.
It is a train wreck - a slow-motion disaster. And the crashing will continue for years to come.
Years ago Cal Thomas said that until conservatives abandon the public school system, nothing will change.
I'd love to find the column where I read that (thought I'd saved it) but it was over 10 years ago, and his arguments were as compelling then as they are now.
It's the only way to reverse the trend.
There is no way I would ever feed my child into the public school machine. But that does not mean they don't hit me with ever higher taxes in order to support the latest round of spending. They like it when you hold your child out, because it is less work for them. They still get your money.
We homeschooled, and they did get our property taxes, but now we're taking advantage of dual credit and I feel like some of my tax money is being recouped.
The "kid" got an AA at the community college during high school years, tuition free, it's a free program for homeschoolers, as well as public or private school kids. (although they still discriminate because public school kids don't have to pay for their books, but private or homeschooled kids do.)
Hahahahahaha! How naive. Courts have the primary voice. Next would be teachers unions and school boards.
Oh, and courts now set school budget terms as well.
Check the story in Post #1. Parents (and teachers) are fighting back.
Now is the time to start making noise about that!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.