Mandell also said that the lawsuit challenges discrepancies in funding but does not seek to do away with the state’s private voucher program. Instead, his clients simply want to ensure that public schools receive the funding that they deserve.
Conservative lawmakers in Wisconsin have asked a court to dismiss a school funding lawsuit.
According to The Milwaukee State Journal, the Republican legislators named as defendants in the lawsuit cited a state Supreme Court decision that upheld the current school-funding system as constitutional. The Journal notes that the system was last challenged in 2000.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 19 plaintiffs, including the Wisconsin PTA. It argues that the legislature is no longer “meeting its constitutionally mandated obligation to provide all children with an equal opportunity for a sound basic education.”
The Republican defendants have since started to push back. Earlier this month, on April 13, they told the court that the lawsuit makes “sweeping constitutional claims against Wisconsin’s school finance system, while asking the judiciary to take over the Legislature’s constitutional role in funding primary and secondary education.”
“For all Plaintiffs’ sky-is-falling assertions, the school finance system that Plaintiffs challenge here is the same system that the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld against similar (indeed, mostly identical) constitutional claims in Vincent v. Voight, 2000,” they wrote.
“The Supreme Court reached this conclusion notwithstanding various complaints relating to test scores, school facilities, teacher staffing, and the like—complaints that are materially indistinguishable from those that Plaintiffs raise here,” the lawsuit alleges.
Wisconsin Public Radio notes that the lawsuit broadly alleges that recent declines in student reading and math scores are tied to a declining education fund. It also suggests that some state congresspeople broke the law by using taxpayer dollars to private voucher schools while failing to provide proper support to public schools.
Jeff Mandell, general counsel for Law Forward, the group that is representing the plaintiffs, said that the Wisconsin Constitution is clear on Congress’s duty toward education.
“We filed this lawsuit because families, educators, and communities across Wisconsin are seeing firsthand that the current system is not meeting the promise—forcing schools to rely on referendums, widening inequities and leaving too many students without the resources they need,” Mandell said.
Mandell told Wisconsin Public Radio that the Republican request to dismiss the lawsuit was expected; he expects it will take several months, at least, for the court to issue a decision.
Mandell also said that the lawsuit challenges discrepancies in funding but does not seek to do away with the state’s private voucher program. Instead, his clients simply want to ensure that public schools receive the funding that they deserve.
“Our case asks for no relief, against no changes in the voucher programs or the school choice programs in this state,” he said. “Our case is really focused on how the legislature funds public schools, which is an obligation that the legislature has had since the founding of our state in 1848 and it’s not being met.”
Sources
Wisconsin Republicans ask court to toss school funding case
Wisconsin Republicans seek to dismiss public education funding lawsuit
Join the conversation!