Committee for Educational Rights v. Edgar

• Decision Date: 29 September 1994
• Docket Number: No. 1-92-2379,1-92-2379
• Citation: 204 Ill.Dec. 378,267 Ill.App.3d 18,641 N.E.2d 602
• Parties: , 204 Ill.Dec. 378, 95 Ed. Law Rep. 662 The COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Jim EDGAR, Governor of the State of Illinois; Illinois State Board of Education; and Robert Leininger, State Superintendent of Education, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 602

641 N.E.2d 602

267 Ill.App.3d 18, 204 Ill.Dec. 378,

95 Ed. Law Rep. 662

The COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Jim EDGAR, Governor of the State of Illinois; Illinois State Board of Education; and Robert Leininger State Superintendent of Education Defendants-Appellees.

No. 1-92-2379.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Fourth Division.

Sept. 29, 1994.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 2, 1994.

Hinshaw & Culbertson, Chicago (D. Kendall Griffith, William J. Holloway, Joshua G. Vincent and William Gleeson, of counsel), for appellants.

Roland W. Burris, Atty. Gen., and Rosalyn B. Kaplan, Sol. Gen., Chicago (Rita M. Novak, of counsel), for appellees.

Thomas J. Bamonte & Gary S. Caplan of Sachonoff & Weaver, Ltd., Chicago (Karen Berman, Ch'go Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc., of counsel), for amicus curiae, Chicago Urban League.

Robert L. Graham & Christine A. Picker of Jenner & Block, Chicago (Harvey Grossman & Jane M. Whicher, Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU, Inc., of counsel), for amicus curiae, ACLU of IL.

Justice CAHILL delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiffs challenge the way public education is financed in Illinois. The complaint addresses differences in taxable wealth among school districts and the effect of those differences on the ability of poorer districts to offer students benefits and educational opportunities equal to those available to students in wealthier districts. Under the Illinois school funding scheme the legislature establishes a minimum expenditure for each child in the State. To the extent local resources fail to generate enough funds, the State provides supplementary aid based upon a complex formula that is rereckoned and adjusted at each session of the General Assembly.

The questions presented on review are whether Illinois' statutory scheme for financing public education violates the education article (Ill. Const.1970, art. X, § 1) and the equal protection clause (Ill. Const.1970, art. I, § 2) of the Illinois Constitution of 1970. The constitutionality of the statutory scheme applied to economically disadvantaged students is also challenged.

The Illinois public school system is administered under the School Code (Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 122, par. 1-1 et seq.). Three sources combine to fund public education: federal aid, state aid, and local property taxes. Because property values differ from district to district, the money raised from local taxes and spent on each student varies depending on the district's wealth, the tax referendum decision of voters, and the policy decisions made by local school boards as they allocate money to pay for programs. Discretionary local spending creates spending differences among the districts which are only partly offset by the State's equalization aid and other assistance.

The plaintiffs are 37 school districts in Illinois, 11 parents, 11 students, and the Committee for Educational Rights. They sought a declaratory judgment that the School Code violated the Illinois Constitution of 1970. The trial court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action under section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 110, par. 2-615). We affirm.

To withstand a motion to dismiss, the allegations of a complaint must state a cause of action upon which relief may be granted. (Burdinie v. Village of Glendale Heights (1990), 139 Ill.2d 501, 152 Ill.Dec. 121, 565 N.E.2d 654.) When the legal sufficiency of a complaint is challenged, we accept as true all well pleaded facts, but do not accept conclusions unsupported by facts in the complaint. Burdinie, 139 Ill.2d at 505, 152 Ill.Dec. at 124, 565 N.E.2d at 657.

The plaintiffs first argue the School Code violates the education article of the Illinois Constitution "to the extent that the Statutory Scheme of School Finance fails to correct the differences in spending and educational services resulting from differences in local wealth."

Section 1 of the education article provides:

"Section 1. Goal--Free Schools

A fundamental goal of the People of the State is the educational development of all persons to the limits of their capacities.

The State shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services. Education in public schools through the secondary level shall be free. There may be such other free education as the General Assembly provides by law.

The State has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public education." Ill. Const.1970, art. X, 1. The plaintiffs allege, "[s]pending differences translate into differences in the educational service levels and physical facilities, so that school children in low Wealth districts receive fewer educational opportunities than the children in high Wealth districts." They argue "that an efficient system of public school funding must be fiscally neutral," and because "the system is not fiscally neutral, it is unconstitutional." Plaintiffs define a "fiscally neutral" system as "one that does not base educational spending differences per district on the irrelevant factor of local property wealth."

Article X does not contain a "fiscal neutrality" mandate, and we are reluctant to read one into the efficiency clause and so limit the options of the legislature in adopting a school financing scheme. The State Board of Education sets minimum standards for educational services in each district and State aid is conditioned on meeting them. The complaint does not allege that the education offered in the plaintiffs' school districts falls below these minimum standards, or that plaintiffs are being denied a minimally adequate education.

The education article requires the legislature to establish an "efficient system of high quality education." While the complaint ties differences in educational opportunities to the way education is financed, the claimed constitutional violation rests not on the adequacy of education in a district, but on differences in benefits and opportunities offered from district to district. The education article does not mandate equal educational benefits and opportunities among the State's school districts as the constitutionally required means of establishing and maintaining an "efficient" system of free public schools. It does not make value judgments that foreign languages are subordinated to computer science or music to home economics. It does not require the same instruction in all schools. To allege that certain educational resources are unavailable in poorer school districts, or inferior to those in wealthier districts, does not compel the conclusion that the funding provided by the State's financing system is insufficient to provide an adequate education.

Elimination of disparity among school districts is a goal, but it is not required under the Illinois Constitution. "[T]he question of the efficiency of the educational system is properly left to the wisdom of the legislature." (Cronin v. Lindberg (1976), 66 Ill.2d 47, 4 Ill.Dec. 424, 360 N.E.2d 360.) We conclude plaintiffs have failed to state a cause of action that the method chosen by the legislature to finance public schools violates the education article of the constitution.

Plaintiffs next argue they have been denied equal protection of the laws. The complaint reads:

"The Statutory Scheme of School Finance operates to deny many school districts and school children the equal protection of the laws. These statutes discriminate against many school districts and many children by basing differences in spending for a child's education upon differences in the Equalized Assessed Valuation of the real property in the district. To the extent that children are denied, and school districts are denied resources to provide, educational services made available to others as a result of differences in Local Property Wealth, the Statutory Scheme of School Finance is constitutionally invalid."

An equal protection claim is well taken when an allegation is made that persons similarly situated are treated in different ways without a rational relationship to a legitimate State purpose. The government may differentiate between persons similarly situated as long as the classification bears a reasonable relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose: where no fundamental right or suspect class is involved, a legislative classification need bear only a rational relationship to a legitimate State purpose. (Mount Prospect State Bank v. Village of Kirkland (1984), 126 Ill.App.3d 799, 82 Ill.Dec. 69, 467 N.E.2d 1142.) Plaintiffs do not argue that they form a "suspect" class. Instead, they argue the right to an education is fundamental, rendering the School Code subject to strict scrutiny.

The constitution requires the State to provide free public school education through the secondary level. (Ill. Const.1970, art X, § 1.) But even if we concede for the sake of argument that the explicit right to a free public education through the secondary level may be characterized as fundamental, the benefits and opportunities that may flow from the educational experience--from magnet schools in our inner cities to olympic size swimming pools in our most affluent suburbs--are not fundamental in the sense plaintiffs use the word. There are different ways of insuring optimum educational experiences without suggesting that every student is constitutionally deprived if she or he is not attending a magnet school or swimming in uniform size pools.

Fundamental rights, as defined by our supreme court, are those that "lie at the heart of the relationship between the individual and a republican form of nationally integrated government." (Kalodimos v. Village of Morton Grove (1984) 103 Ill.2d 483, 509, 83 Ill.Dec. 308, 319, 470 N.E.2d 266, 277, citing People ex rel. Tucker v. Kotsos (1977), 68 Ill.2d 88, 97, 11 Ill.Dec. 295, 299, 368 N.E.2d 903, 907.) Plaintiffs do not...