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School Funding System Declared Unconstitutional

Started by ravelkinbow, March 08, 2006, 01:40 PM NHFT

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ravelkinbow

http://www.thewmurchannel.com/news/7816374/detail.html?treets=man&tml=man_break&ts=T&tmi=man_break_1_01040103082006

School Funding System Declared Unconstitutional
Judge Calls Law Leads To Unfair Taxation


POSTED: 1:59 pm EST March 8, 2006
UPDATED: 2:15 pm EST March 8, 2006

NASHUA, N.H. -- A judge ruled the state's school funding law unconstitutional Wednesday, saying it fails to define or determine the cost of an adequate education and leads to unfair taxation.

The Londonderry and Merrimack school districts and about 25 communities sued the state over the 2005 law. They also complained that the law failed to hold the state accountable for providing an adequate education.

Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge William Groff said the law unfairly allows property-rich communities to retain and spend far more money on their schools than communities without strong tax bases.

Pamela Walsh, spokeswoman for Gov. John Lynch, said the governor had not yet read the ruling, but expected the state to appeal it.

In a separate, more technical ruling, Groff ruled the law unconstitutional based on differing property values used in calculating state aid. Nashua claimed it was shortchanged by about $2 million as a result.

The law largely eliminated "donor towns," property-rich towns that previously subsidized schools in all other towns. Donor towns raised more money through the state education property tax than they need to finance the constitutionally required "adequate education" for their own children and were required to turn over the surplus to the state.

Only three donor towns remain this year.

All other towns get to keep what they raise under the state tax. Wealthier towns get no additional state aid, while communities with smaller property tax bases get "targeted aid" from other state revenues.
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.




Kat Kanning

It's hard to figure out from this what the ruling was.  Is the robin-hood type funding unconstitutional?

Dreepa

CHeck this out:

Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge William Groff said the law unfairly allows property-rich communities to retain and spend far more money on their schools than communities without strong tax bases.

If you don't have a strong tax base then you don't spend money on schools.  Makes sense to me.

oh I forget you want me to pay extra for the 'poor people'.   Statists suck.

Kat Kanning


Rochelle

Oh, bullshit. Kansas courts did the same thing last year, and now the legislature is trying to find $500 million more dollars to adequately fund it. Per pupil spending is already around $8000 if memory serves me correctly. Don't fall into this trap! It's just another excuse to raise taxes.

FrankChodorov

how can you make an objective determination of the constitutionality unless someone first defines what an "adequate" education is?

Tunga

Unless one is interested in "screwing things up" then Tunga is living proof that an adequate education is not found in NH. Homeschoolers excepted of course. ;D

KBCraig

I wonder where it's ever been entered into the court record that "more money" equals "better education"?

If it has been, someone is a perjurer.


maxxoccupancy

Mass compulsory schooling is used by authoritarian regimes all over the world to indocrinate, brainwash, and dumb down the masses.  Most of those who claim that America's public school system is in wonderful shape have not actually seen them.  They are speaking from imagination.

Civillian disarmament, state run industries, forcible redistribution of earnings, mass compulsory schooling, command control economies, Soviet style urban planning policies?  These ideas go from academia to the public schools and media, and straight out to the masses.  They change the names, of course. "Public" instead of "state run monopoly." "Smart Growth" instead of "Soviet style urban planning."

--Max

GT

Quote from: FrankChodorov on March 08, 2006, 07:32 PM NHFT
how can you make an objective determination of the constitutionality unless someone first defines what an "adequate" education is?

NHCAfe.com which was the group who brought suit has never held a public meeeting that I know of. They have also not addressed anything regarding what "adequate" is. The only focus appears to be keeping the status quo. NHCafe also appears to be against any sort of voucher program. Statists at best.

free55

Quote from: Rochelle on March 08, 2006, 06:23 PM NHFT
Oh, bullshit. Kansas courts did the same thing last year, and now the legislature is trying to find $500 million more dollars to adequately fund it. Per pupil spending is already around $8000 if memory serves me correctly. Don't fall into this trap! It's just another excuse to raise taxes.

I believe the state is spending somewhere south of 3000 per student, not 8000.

tracysaboe

Not sure if this is really a good ruling.

It seems like they're ruling the tax isn't fair and what-not, but they're not saying the state-wide property tax is unconstitutional and should be abolished on priinciple.

Tracy

cathleeninnh

No, this group has declared Lynch's reduction in state funding results in inadequate funding.

Cathleen

free55



Editorial from The Concord Monitor
 
High court must stand firm on school funding 

March 10. 2006 8:00AM

Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge William Groff stated the obvious when he ruled that the latest state school funding plan is unconstitutional. No plan for a constitutionally valid system can be crafted until the governor and Legislature define what an adequate education is. This they have refused to do.

Now it is up to the Supreme Court to reaffirm that it meant what it said in previous rulings: The state, not cities and towns, must pay for an adequate education for all children, and do so with a tax that is reasonable and proportional.

There should be no quiver in the court's voice on this one. School funding, the current court's predecessors said, is a fundamental right under the Constitution. The fundamental credibility of the court itself will be damaged if it fails to protect that right.

No member of the court that issued the first Claremont ruling remains on the bench. So the state, with no objection from Gov. John Lynch, who proposed an unconstitutional school funding plan of his own last year, plans to appeal in hopes that the new court will see things its way. It shouldn't.

The constant search by lawmakers for a way around the Claremont rulings has meant that school funding systems come and go with great frequency. The current system is largely the creation of Manchester Sen. Ted Gatsas. Like previous unconstitutional plans, it divides an inadequate pie unequally. It does do a better job than past plans of targeting aid to the towns that need it most, but it doesn't provide nearly what it costs to adequately educate children.

The plan also allows each town to keep all the money it raises with the statewide tax on its property. That means a community with lots of property and few children can afford to spend lavishly on their education while towns with many children and little property wealth can spend only what their local tax can raise plus whatever aid the state sees fit to give them.
Like other schemes concocted to prevent taxpayers in property-rich communities from having to pay to educate children in property-poor ones, the current system requires some taxpayers to pay more than others for the same thing. As Groff said, that is unconstitutional.

Groff couldn't say what is also obvious. The state isn't paying for an adequate education and never has, at least in modern times. Last year it distributed an average of $3,400 per pupil. That's $6,000 less than the average spent by the state's school districts, according to the Department of Education. Six thousand dollars!

Groff couldn't call the state's contribution inadequate because the Legislature never complied with the court's original order to define adequacy.

The new Supreme Court should uphold Groff's ruling and order the state to obey the law.

The order should come with a deadline by which lawmakers must say, in clear language, precisely what must be done to provide every child an adequate education. Until that's decided, it's impossible to say how much such an education costs.

The Legislature's longstanding position - that an adequate education can be bought with whatever the state feels like spending in a given year - has mocked the Constitution and wronged a generation of students. It will continue to do so unless the court stands firm.



KBCraig

Thanks for posting this, although I suspect we feel differently about it. I read it Friday in the Monitor, and meant to comment.

Quote from: free55 on March 11, 2006, 09:06 PM NHFT

Editorial from The Concord Monitor
 
High court must stand firm on school funding 

March 10. 2006 8:00AM

Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge William Groff stated the obvious when he ruled that the latest state school funding plan is unconstitutional. No plan for a constitutionally valid system can be crafted until the governor and Legislature define what an adequate education is. This they have refused to do.

Poppycock. The Supreme Court are the ones saying everything proposed thus far is inadequate. The governor and legislature have responded with plans they feel are adequate.


QuoteNow it is up to the Supreme Court to reaffirm that it meant what it said in previous rulings: The state, not cities and towns, must pay for an adequate education for all children, and do so with a tax that is reasonable and proportional.

See? Such circular reasoning!


QuoteSchool funding, the current court's predecessors said, is a fundamental right under the Constitution.

And of course, the (NH) Constitution says no such thing!

ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE, TRADES, ETC.

   [Art.] 83. [Encouragement of Literature, etc.; Control of Corporations, Monopolies, etc.]  Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country, being highly conducive to promote this end; it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools, to encourage private and public institutions, rewards, and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, sobriety, and all social affections, and generous sentiments, among the people: Provided, nevertheless, that no money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of the schools of institutions of any religious sect or denomination. ( . . . )


The "legislators and magistrates" have an obligation to "cherish", "encourage", and to "countenance and inculcate". Not a word in the Constitution about an obligation to fund, other than directing statewide lottery proceeds to education.

Kevin