Lawyers representing a public school student in Lincoln County have filed for a state Supreme Court review of whether the state’s current education funding system is unconstitutionally inadequate and unfair.
The filing led by attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union-West Virginia asks the justices to mandate that the Legislature and state officials reform the entire public school funding system to eliminate statewide funding inequities.
“There’s no question under the West Virginia Constitution that students have a right to an education. There’s no question that the state has a duty to provide it. In any just world there would not be a question as to whether the system we have currently falls short,” said Aubrey Sparks, legal director for ACLU-West Virginia.
“If the state genuinely believes that this is the best we can do for our children, then it has abandoned any confidence in our children’s ability to succeed, and we will feel the effects of that abandonment for generations to come.”
Article XII, Section 1 of the West Virginia Constitution explicitly states, “The Legislature shall provide, by general law, for a thorough and efficient system of free schools.”
“The West Virginia Constitution does not, and should not, allow this profoundly important constitutional right to wither on the vine,” lawyers wrote in the filing.
ACLU-West Virginia gave 30-days notice in August that it would file a lawsuit challenging whether the state is meeting that responsibility on public school funding, and now the roughly 50-page filing has dropped.
The case was filed as a straight shot to the West Virginia Supreme Court, asking the justices to force other state officials to fix school funding.
“The facts provided herein paint an undeniable, and alarming, portrait of West Virginia’s educational adequacy: by nearly every metric, the State is failing to provide adequate education to children,” the lawyers wrote.
“When students do receive an adequate education, it is because of local wealth that is able to fund adequate systems in the absence of sufficient state funds.”
The particular sixth grader at the center of the lawsuit, identified only as M.D., provides an example of the real-world effects of West Virginia’s school funding structure. The lawsuit is brought by her mother, a former middle and high school special education teacher in Lincoln County.
The filing spotlights Lincoln County as a primary example of constitutional failure.
It outlines that more than 70% of Lincoln County students are not proficient in math, nearly 62% are not proficient in reading, and the county faces an annual $5 million deficit because of over-formula staffing needs.
“Petitioner respectfully requests that this Court determine whether the education provided in Lincoln County is constitutionally adequate and whether the current funding formula comports with equal protection requirements,” wrote the lawyers in the filing.
“The evidence is clear — the education received by Petitioner and other Lincoln County students is not adequate, is the result of inequitable funding, and these |unconstitutional results are being replicated across the state.”
The filing has parallels with West Virginia’s 1982 Recht Decision, a landmark court ruling that declared the state’s public school funding system unconstitutional because it created severe financial inequalities between rich and poor counties.
That case also had a Lincoln County plaintiff at the center.
The original 1975 class-action lawsuit was filed by Janet Pauley, a Lincoln County parent who argued that children in low-income counties were denied the “thorough and efficient” education guaranteed by the West Virginia Constitution.
The 244-page opinion by Recht, a circuit judge in Ohio County, found that reliance on local property taxes for school funding resulted in drastic funding disparities across West Virginia’s 55 county school systems.
The decision mandated that the state overhaul its public school financing, upgrade substandard facilities and establish equal, high-quality educational opportunities for all students regardless of where they live in the state.
“The Recht Opinion found the funding formula, as it existed at that time, to be both unconstitutionally insufficient and inequitable. The current funding formula was intended to resolve both deficiencies, but unfortunately, it has resolved neither,” wrote lawyers in the new school funding lawsuit.
“West Virginia’s current funding formula produces unconstitutionally deficient funding and exacerbates inequity to a far greater degree than that already declared unconstitutional by Recht.”
The lawyers went on to conclude that today, whether a child’s school stays open or closed, whether students are proficient in basic academic subjects and whether they receive necessary special education services depends largely on whether their county has a sufficient tax base to fund its operations in spite of insufficient state funding.
“Our Constitution does not |permit this outcome,” they wrote.
In recent years, West Virginia has again faced widespread school funding shortfalls, driven largely by an enormous deficit in special education costs and leading to school closures and consolidations all over the state.
Education officials have warned that 8 to 20 schools face closure or consolidation across West Virginia in the coming year.
“The boat’s getting ready to hit the rocks, and I can’t make anyone in two of the branches of government to understand that,” state school board President Paul Hardesty said in a briefing with state government reporters earlier this summer, referring to the executive and legislative branches.
“Therefore it might rely on the third to get some clarity to the situation, just like it did 40 years ago.”
Lawmakers have discussed replacing the enrollment-based funding formula with an updated needs-based tiered system, but all of their proposals have crashed out the past couple of legislative sessions.
As this past regular session neared its conclusion without a chance for passage of any of the several proposals for school funding, Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady made her frustration clear in comments to statehouse reporters.
“Speaking of frustrations, none of the school funding bills we passed in the Senate Education are going to make it to the budget so I’m perfectly fine adjourning sine die,” Grady said in a hallway interview near the session’s end, both laughing and grimacing.
In the off season, lawmakers have focused several interim committee discussions on possibilities for reforming the school aid formula.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey has taken a reserved approach to West Virginia public school funding, with his administration maintaining that simply injecting more money into the system is not the solution.
“I would argue the problem isn’t spending. It’s how our system is structured and managed,” the governor said in a briefing earlier this year, “and I think there’s a better way that we can have more accountability for our kids and make sure our kids are benefiting from the many dollars that are spent.”
The lawsuit by ACLU takes the issue to the courts.
The filing contends that the West Virginia Legislature and state education officials have failed their duty to provide a “thorough and efficient” system of free schools.
The lawyers cite dismal academic outcomes, insufficient special education funding and regressive staffing allowances.
Citing a $10,000 per-pupil spending gap between wealthy and poor counties, the lawsuit contends that the state’s financial neglect violates equal protection guarantees.
“Access to a quality education is part of the bedrock of our democracy, and the decision by the Legislature to turn their back on their constitutional obligation to fund schools will have cascading effects on students, and on our communities, unless the Court intervenes,” said ACLU-WV Executive Director Eli Baumwell.