The question of whether Illinois' state government should be required to pump billions of more dollars into public schools statewide has landed once more before the Illinois Supreme Court.
And during oral arguments on that question, the justices of the Illinois Supreme Court questioned the contention of school districts that they hold the power to issue an order that could, ultimately, force Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to reconfigure the state budget to add hundreds of millions of dollars more annually, for the next six years.
On May 18, lawyers for a group of nearly two dozen Illinois school districts, primarily serving lower income downstate communities, and attorneys representing the Pritzker administration, squared off before the Illinois Supreme Court.
Thomas H. Geoghegan
| dsgchicago.com
The case, docketed as Cahokia Unit School District 187 v Pritzker, presented the state’s high court with two key legal questions: What obligations does the state government have to fund public education in Illinois? And, can those obligations be enforced by the courts?
Attorney Thomas Geoghegan, of the firm of Despres, Schwartz & Geoghan Ltd., of Chicago, argued on behalf of the school districts.
Echoing claims asserted in briefs filed with the court in the preceding months, Geoghegan again argued that the Illinois state constitution, when paired with learning standards established in recently enacted state law, requires the state government to massively boost the minimum levels of funding it sends to school districts statewide, and particularly those districts serving low-income communities.
Geoghan noted that under the state law, known as the Evidence Based Funding for Student Success Act (EBF Act), school districts can be sanctioned, or disciplined, if their students fall short of the learning standards.
“It may be rational not to have equal spending throughout the state, we accept that,” Geoghegan said. “But it’s not rational to have a system where you are requiring students to meet or achieve state standards that are detailed, and imposing consequences on those districts and students, and you are knowingly not providing the money that is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for meeting that.”
The state high court has grappled with questions of education funding levels in the past, under the state constitution.
However, in 1996, in a decision in the case known as Committee for Educational Rights v Edgar, the state Supreme Court left the question of sufficient education funding to state lawmakers, saying it didn’t have enough “discoverable standards” to know what the proper funding level should be.
When the case landed before lower courts, first in downstate St. Clair County and then at the Fifth District Appellate Court in southern Illinois, judges in both courts ruled in favor of the state, finding the precedent set in Edgar should not allow the school districts’ lawsuit any traction.
In his arguments, however, Geoghegan said the EBF Act changed the legal landscape set by Edgar. He said the new learning standards, coupled with “evidence” from school districts in Illinois and elsewhere, show the funding levels required to hire the right personnel and implement proper curriculum and programs, to help students of all income levels achieve those learning standards.
He noted the state had set a goal of providing more than $300 million more each year to education, to ultimately boost statewide public education funding by $7 billion by 2027.
However, the plaintiffs argued, Gov. Pritzker has largely ignored what they say is his constitutional obligation to budget for those funds.
Geoghegan called Pritzker “a major roadblock” in allowing the state to attain its “constitutional obligation.” While Pritzker inserted $350 million in additional education funding into his state budget proposal, Geoghegan asserted the governor only did so because "legislators were so upset" he had left it out of an initial version of the budget.
Geoghegan said the school districts are seeking a court order declaring the governor has a constitutional obligation to present lawmakers with a state budget that always includes the additional money for education.
In response, Richard Huszagh, of the Illinois Attorney General’s office, said the plaintiff school districts’ case has been doomed from the start.
The job of determining education funding levels, he said, falls not on the governor, but on state lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly, who are solely given the power under the state constitution to determine how much money will be spent, and where the money will be spent.
Huszagh noted the state already spends $8 billion per year on education.
The learning standards, he said, are “not an unfunded mandate.”
Should the high court side with school districts on these questions, they would effectively “commandeer” the education funding process, and usurp the power of the state legislature, Huszagh said.
He said the learning standards cited by the plaintiffs are not “requirements,” but rather “expectations” set by the state for students in Kindergarten through 12th grade.
Therefore, those learning standards don’t convert the “aspirational” right to public education contained in the state constitution into “some machine laying dormant,” waiting on just the right conditions to “come to life,” allow the court to reverse its previous position and now enforce a constitutional obligation to boost state education funding by billions of dollars.
“We urge the court not to step into this, and take on the responsibility of, taking control of funding of public schools” in Illinois, Huszagh said.
Justices repeatedly questioned both lawyers on what role the court has to play in what both sides admitted was a long-running political fight over determining proper public education funding levels statewide.
They openly pondered whether they are being asked to weigh in on what may be a “non-justiciable political question,” properly left to lawmakers and voters to sort out at the polls and in the state capitol.
They also pointed back to the Edgar decision, asking if they could even rule in favor of the school districts without first clearly overturning the precedent established 25 years ago.
The court will rule on the question in coming weeks or months.