This week, lawyers sparred in state court over a lawsuit brought by a group of Kentucky high school students who say the state isn't providing a good education.
Students from across the state and the nonprofit Kentucky Student Voice Team are bringing the case against the state and the legislature.
Lawyers for the students describe it as a revival of the landmark 1989 Kentucky Supreme Court decision in Rose v. Council for Better Education. After the court made a declaratory judgment 36 years ago that the state's education system was constitutionally deficient, the state legislature enacted major reforms, known as the Kentucky Education Reform Act.
The first set of oral arguments hinged, not on the merits of the case, but whether the students have the right to bring the lawsuit at all.
Kentucky Public Radio's Capitol Reporter Sylvia Goodman and Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting’s Jess Clark break down the case.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
CLARK: We have this pretty big and kind of unusual lawsuit, led by students across the state and a nonprofit called the Kentucky Student Voice Team. They aren't asking for money, but for a finding that the state education system is constitutionally deficient. They're branding this lawsuit as a follow up to the landmark Rose versus Council for Better Education decision in 1989. Sylvia, break down Rose for us. What was that decision and what changes did it lead to?
GOODMAN: The Rose decision itself didn't say what needed to change in Kentucky education, per se, but it did lay out what makes for an “efficient system of common schools.” That's per Section 183 of the Kentucky Constitution. The Supreme Court in that case, laid out these seven competencies that they said made for an acceptable education, adequate education: literacy, math, civics, self knowledge in order to be able to lead a fulfilling life, vocational or academic training, recreation, creativity and social ethics. They said that the education had to be both adequate in and of itself and adequately funded, regardless of where a student lives or the economic circumstances of their community — for example, what the property values are.
CLARK: So the court decided that Kentucky was not meeting the standard in regards to all of these aspects or qualities, right?
GOODMAN: They basically made this declaration that it was not sufficient. They charged the Kentucky General Assembly to go back and come up with reforms. And that led to the Kentucky Education Reform Act, or KERA.
CLARK: Okay, let's talk about KERA. It's this massive bill. You and I are probably both KERA babies, which means we came into the school system in the era of KERA in the 1990s. That bill sought to remedy the issues found in Rose and during these legislative hearings over the interim between the Rose decision and the start of the 1990 legislative session, you had people coming in from all over the state to testify about problems in public education. Underfunding, which you mentioned, but also corruption and nepotism in local school systems. So out of Rose and those hearings came the Kentucky Education Reform Act, KERA, and this was seen as a national example. Schools would be held accountable for their students' performance through standardized testing. Keep in mind, this was more than 10 years before Congress enacted No Child Left Behind that made that more of a national program. And it also equalized funding across districts through the SEEK funding formula.
GOODMAN: And that funding formula is still in place. It's a huge part of the education budgeting process, and it was really designed to take into account the differences in property values that were such a big issue in the Rose decision — that these property poor districts were not able to spend as much as property rich districts on a child's education, and it created these huge gaps. SEEK is still in place today.
CLARK: So if SEEK is still in place, if we still have the school accountability system, if all these other KERA measures are largely still in place, why are students suing?
GOODMAN: The students are claiming that those reforms were effective and that things did get better after Rose, after KERA, but they claim that there was a turning point at some point in the last couple decades, around 2007-2008. That the same inequities that forced the Supreme Court to step in more than 35 years ago are back. In the lawsuit, they're pointing to things like our Nation's Report Card test scores that have declined pretty significantly since 2013. A lot of that, of course, is pandemic related. Per capita spending between property poor and property rich districts is greater, actually, according to some analyzes, than it was in the pre-Rose era.
CLARK: So the gap between how much rich districts are able to spend and poor districts are able to spend on their students is actually bigger than it was before the Rose decision, right?
GOODMAN: They're claiming that's because there's issues with how they're funding the SEEK formula — some pieces of it aren't funded to 100% for example — and more of the burden gets placed on school districts. Nearly one in four Kentuckians are functionally illiterate, so they're claiming that that shows that there's clearly something wrong with the education system. They're also pointing to other things that aren't exactly academic indicators, but they point to little to no mental health support in some schools, in some districts; severe shortages of certified English learner teachers; lower college going rates than surrounding states.
It should be noted throughout all of this, the Republican controlled legislature says that they have issues with some of the education system, that they do want to see some changes, but they really contest that the level of spending that they're doing is too low. They say that they're putting in record levels of spending. They have also wanted people to include them paying down pension liability as part of their spending, saying that it all goes into the education system and that it's unfair to say that they're underfunding education when they feel like they're putting a lot of money in.
CLARK: Both the Senate President and the House Speaker are named in the new lawsuit. Earlier this week, they asked to be removed, which brings us to the current status of Rose 2.0, if you will. Tell us about the oral arguments this week.
GOODMAN: It should be clear that we didn't hear about the merits of the case this week. This was very specifically an oral argument over the state's motion to dismiss on standing grounds, which doesn't have to do with necessarily the content so much of the case, but whether or not the students have the right to even bring this lawsuit. The attorney general's office argued that the students have to prove a very specific harm. They say that it's not enough to say they're generally harmed by being in a poor or failing school system.
The students’ lawyers push back on that, obviously. They say they're being denied a constitutional right that the state constitution says they have a right to an adequate education, and so all they need to allege is that they're not getting an adequate education in order to prove they have standing. There was also an argument that this is inherently a question of policy that the legislature needs to decide. Of course, again, the student's lawyers push back on that, that the initial Rose decision still stands, and therefore they have the right to bring this lawsuit once again.
CLARK: When do you think we'll get our next update?
GOODMAN: The Franklin County Circuit Court judge asked for another brief from both sides, and that has a one month deadline, so we won't see a decision on the standing argument of this case for at least another month.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
