Milliken v. Green
| Decision Date | 29 December 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,1 |
| Citation | 389 Mich. 1,203 N.W.2d 457 |
| Parties | William G. MILLIKEN, Governor, and Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, in the name of and For the Use and Benefit of the People of the State of Michigan, Plaintiffs, and Leo G. Steers et al., Intervening Plaintiffs, and Thomas C. Walsh, Intervenor, and John H. King, Intervenor, v. Allison GREEN et al., Defendants. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Walter Shapero and Elwood Hain, Detroit, for Leo G. Steers and others.
Thomas C. Walsh, in pro. per.
Russell A. Searl, Richard R. Roesch, Asst. Attys. Gen., Lansing, for Allison Green, State Treasurer.
Dickinson, Wright, McKean & Cudlip, Bloomfield Hills, for Bloomfield Hills School Dist.
Butzel, Long, Gust, Klein & Van Zile, William M. Saxton, Robert M. Vercruysse, John B. Weaver, Detroit, for Dearborn City School Dist.
Hill, Lewis, Adams, Goodrich & Tait, Detroit (Robert B. Webster, Detroit, of counsel), for Grosse Pointe Public School System.
Ross, Bruff & Rancilio, Mt. Clemens, for Professional Personnel of Van Dyke.
Michael M. Glusac, Corp. Counsel, Robert Reese, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Detroit, for the City of Detroit.
Foster, Lindemer, Swift & Collins, Lansing, for Michigan Education Association, amicus curiae by James A. White, Clifford D. Weiler, Theodore W. Swift, Lansing, of counsel.
Before the Entire Bench.
This case will be considered in this opinion in eight parts. I, the dispositive issue. II, State control of public schools in Michigan and State responsibility for the public schools. III, the inherent inequality in school district property tax bases. IV, the school aid formula does not equalize property tax inequality. V, the inequality in the Michigan public school financing system denies equal protection of the laws. VI, limits of decision. VII, Defendants' arguments. VIII, order.
This case concerns the constitutionality of the Michigan public school financing system.
The nature of this action is a complaint for declaratory judgment brought October 15, 1971 in the Ingham County Circuit Court by the Attorney General and the Governor to test the constitutionality of the Michigan public school financing system on the grounds of violation of the equal protection clauses of the Michigan and United States Constitutions. The State Treasurer and the Bloomfield Hills, Dearborn and Grosse Pointe school districts, all with high state equalized valuation per pupil, were named Defendants.
The Governor having on December 3, 1971 addressed an Executive Message to the Supreme Court adverting to the above Subsequently, certain tax-paying parents of public school children in disadvantaged school districts intervened as plaintiffs and as representatives of the class of tax-paying parents of school children in disadvantaged school districts.
case or controversy as having controlling questions of public law of such public moment as to require early determination, this Court ordered the Ingham Court to certify such questions and take appropriate proofs, permitting the intervention and representation of school children in alleged economically disadvantaged districts.
On May 8, 1972 the Circuit Court filed its Findings of Fact.
This case is unique in this country in two respects. First, as one Defendant's brief points out, 'The Michigan Supreme Court, however, unlike all the courts in the foregoing cases (some finding constitutionality and some unconstitutionality) is presented with unrebutted evidence which destroys plaintiffs' assumption that the quality of a child's education is a function of the wealth of the school district in which he resides.' 1 Second, as will be immediately made clear, the basis for decision in this case need not be and is not the broad philosophical questions posited in the certified questions argued by both Plaintiffs and Defendants here and the dispositive issue generally speaking in the other cases in this area throughout the country and referred to in the Defendant's brief above.
The reason this Court need not consider the broad philosophical question posited in the certified questions is that the excellent briefs of all parties and the oral arguments make clear that the dispositive question in the case at bar depends upon the much narrower and objective question posed by the specific language of the Michigan Constitution which controls the Michigan public school financing system. Art. 8, § 2 of the Michigan Constitution reads:
'The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law . . .'
This is a very simple and direct mandate to finance schools without any room or necessity for speculation as to whether 'the wealth of the school district' affects 'the quality of a child's education.' The only real question this provision leaves open is whether or not the Legislature's action maintains and supports free public schools equally or, if not equally, with valid classifications.
As a consequence, the issue in this case is posited as follows. The language of the certified question is used for almost the whole predicate but new language is substituted for the verb and object. The new language for convenience is put in capitals and the old language not used is included in brackets afterwards. This is the issue considered by this Court and is a correction of the certified question:
'Does the Michigan public school financing system, consisting of local, general ad valorem property taxes and state school aid appropriations, by relying on the wealth of local school districts as measured by the state equalized valuation of taxable property per student which results in substantial INEQUALITY OF MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS, DENY the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by Article I, Section 2 of the Michigan Constitution? (disparaties of revenue produced per student, invidiously discriminate The facts in this case are not in contention and most of them are jointly stipulated to. As the quoted certified question indicates and no one denies, the Michigan public school financing system is a combined system of property taxes raised by school districts and a grant of state aid. It is incontrovertible that the differences in property tax bases create revenue inequalities among the school districts. The state aid formula from year to year has sought to equalize these inequalities and has reduced them. Substantial inequalities still remain, however. None of this is denied.
against and deny substantially equal educational opportunity to students in violation of).'
The State clearly has responsibility for financing public school education in Michigan. The 1963 Michigan Constitution, art. 8, § 2 reads:
'The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law . . .'
Const.1963, art. 8, § 2 shows that the State of Michigan through its Legislature has responsibility to 'maintain and support a system of free elementary and secondary schools . . .' This Court recognized that responsibility in School District of Lansing v. State Board of Education, 367 Mich. 591, 595, 116 N.W.2d 866, 868 (1962) in the following words:
Furthermore, public schools throughout the State are state schools and agencies of the State. We stated in MacQueen v. Port Huron City Commission, 194 Mich. 328, 336, 160 N.W. 627, 629 (1916):
'Fundamentally, provision for and control of our public school system is a state matter, delegated to and lodged in the State Legislature by the Constitution in a separate article entirely distinct from that relating to local government. The general policy of the state has been to retain control of its school system, to be administered throughout the state under state laws by local state agencies organized with plenary powers independent of the local government with which, by location and geographical boundaries, they are necessarily closely associated and to a greater or less extent authorized to co-operate. 'Education belongs to the state. It is no part of the local self-government inherent in the township or municipality except so far as the Legislature may choose to make it such. . . ."
Of like import is Child Welfare Society of Flint v. Kennedy School District, 220 Mich. 290, 296, 189 N.W. 1002, 1005 (1922) where this Court stated:
And in Collins v. City of Detroit, 195 Mich. 330, 335-336, 161 N.W. 905, 907 (1917) we emphatically stated:
'. . . We have repeatedly held that education in this state is not a matter In short, public education is a State matter and the financing of public schools is a State responsibility.
of local concern, but belongs to the state a large. . . .' 2
There is an inherent inequality in the school district property tax bases which A
creates unequal support for the education of Michigan children. The inequality has been recognized in legislation for years. Just a few...
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