CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court halted an attempt by a consortium of school districts to use the courts to force the state to produce billions of dollars in additional education funding.
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, presented arguments. The case, docketed as Cahokia Unit School District 187 v. Pritzker, presented 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?
Justice Robert Carter wrote the unanimous opinion, issued Oct. 21. Justice P. Scott Neville issued a special concurring opinion.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Robert Carter
| Illinoiscourts.gov
On behalf of the school districts, attorney Thomas Geoghegan, of the Chicago firm Despres, Schwartz & Geoghegan, argued the state constitution compelled the General Assembly to fund public education at a level required to reach learning standards set by the state government. The 2017 Evidence Based Funding for Student Success Act incorporated a formula identifying how much a school needs to make sure students hit goals, and districts can face discipline if students fall short of the standards.
The plaintiffs, according to Carter, said the state’s new standards “now describe in great detail the knowledge and skills students must demonstrate at every grade level,” as opposed to broader guidelines of the past under which courts determined lawmakers were balancing local control of school and statewide equality.
The Illinois Attorney General’s Office, representing Pritzker, countered by arguing the districts lack standing to allege violations of students’ constitutional rights. The state lawyers added the governor isn’t the proper defendant, because the state's chief executive isn’t allowed to spend money without General Assembly appropriation.
Carter explained the “critical problem with” the school districts’ claim is the pursuit of a court judgment requiring the executive branch — rather than the legislative — to provide the extra money needed to hit learning goals. If a court were to issue that order, it would violate the state constitution’s separation of powers clause, which “provides that one branch shall not exercise the powers delegated to the others," Carter wrote.
The school districts also requested an order forcing the governor to put the additional funding in his annual budget and another declaring their constitutional right to the money. Carter, however, wrote the first request “is apparently an attempt to remedy the defect in their complaint” that also raises concerns about separation of power, while the second is “simply not” a proper relief request.
Neville noted his special concurrence shouldn’t “be construed as diminishing the significance of the need for equitable school funding.” Intending to “give voice to the magnitude of that issue,” Neville said the judicial branch should “acknowledge the extreme disparity in school funding across the state.”
Neville said the Supreme Court can’t actively fix that problem. And he acknowledged the 2017 law is “a step in the right direction."
But he said the state's collective "failure to take additional remedial action risks sacrificing the futures of Illinois residents. Such failure will deprive at-risk students of the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education, which would equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to secure gainful employment — and thereby disrupt the ‘school-to-prison pipeline.’ ”
Neville pointed to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court opinion Brown v. Board of Education and said Illinois' school districts haven’t realized the relief that decision envisioned. He cited statewide education and incarceration data as evidence of “the systemic failure of underfunded public schools that are forced to operate with overcrowded classrooms and a lack of resources,” which he said disproportionately affects minority and at-risk students.
“The legislature must recognize that the disparity between the funding for penitentiaries and the funds spent on public schools demonstrates that Illinois must rethink its spending priorities,” Neville wrote. “The Funding Act should be amended to make compliance with its funding goals mandatory and to impose consequences for violation of its terms.”