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Courthouses Vs. Statehouses?, William S. Koski Apr 2011

Courthouses Vs. Statehouses?, William S. Koski

Michigan Law Review

Just over twenty years ago, the Kentucky Supreme Court declared the commonwealth's primary and secondary public-education finance system-indeed, the entire system of primary and secondary public education in Kentucky-unconstitutional under the "common schools" clause of the education article in Kentucky's constitution. That case has been widely cited as having ushered in the "adequacy" movement in school-finance litigation and reform, in which those challenging state school-funding schemes argue that the state has failed to ensure that students are provided an adequate education guaranteed by their state constitutions. Since the Rose decision in Kentucky, some thirty-three school-finance lawsuits have reached final decisions …


Can Allocation By Sortition Resolve The Connecticut Education-Financing Impasse?, A. E. Rodriguez, Lesley Denardis Jan 2011

Can Allocation By Sortition Resolve The Connecticut Education-Financing Impasse?, A. E. Rodriguez, Lesley Denardis

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

It has been over 40 years since Connecticut amended its Constitution to ensure citizens a right to a free public education. Despite the constitutionally prescribed right, dramatic inequities in educational conditions continued to characterize the state's K-12 educational system, especially between suburban/rural white and urban minority school districts. In the 1970s plaintiffs challenged the prevailing mechanism for allocating education funds with a host of court cases that tackled the thorny question of how much financial responsibility the state should assume to equalize the spending disparities between school districts. Prodded by court decisions, many formulas and approaches have been proposed by …