Lawsuit: Florida Failed to Provide 'High-Quality' Schools

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A lawsuit filed today charges that Florida has failed to adequately fund education or to provide for a system of "high quality" public schools in violation of the state constitution.

A local advocacy group created by a trio of Orlando parents is one of the plaintiffs in the state lawsuit, which was filed in circuit court in Tallahassee.

The lawsuit charges that Florida's education budget is inadequate and that its low graduation rates and test scores show its public schools are not uniformly high quality.

An amendment voters added to the state constitution a decade ago says it is a "paramount" duty of the state to make "adequate provision" for education and to provide a "high quality system of free public schools."

The lawsuit argues Florida has failed to meet that constitutional requirement.

It aims to prove that "it's a law with teeth," said Kathleen Oropeza, an Orlando mother who helped start FundEducation Now, one of the plaintiffs.

Oropeza's group was formed during last year's state budget crisis by three parents with children at Blanker School. Since then, it has grown to become a statewide advocacy group for better education funding.

The plaintiffs want a court to declare the state has violated the Florida Constitution and to order state leaders to create a "remedial plan" for fulfilling that constitutional obligation.

"I hope it's a catalyst for change," said Thom Rumberger, one of the plaintiff's attorneys and a prominent Republican in Tallahassee. "Maybe we can get a clear ruling from an impartial court, this is what it is."

Then the Florida Legislature will need to find a way to fund schools adequately, he said..

"Some of the other programs may be wounded but what is more important than educating our youth? All of Florida depends on it," Rumberger said.

The amendment's language is "clear and unequivocal," he added, but it has not been followed in part because of "the failure of the people to demand that we have an education system that's worthy of our country."

Rumberger said it was not a partisan issue but one many in the state needed to address.

One of the other plaintiffs' attorneys is Jon Mills, a former Democratic speaker of Florida House, who helped craft the 1998 amendment on which the new lawsuit is based.

In the last decade, the lawsuit says, the state has been chipping in less and less for education, forcing local school districts to do the rest. The state portion of education budgets, for example, has dropped from 62 percent in 2000 to 44 percent this year, the lawsuit says.

Florida's low graduation rates and high percentage of students struggling on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test show its education policies are also inadequate and not part of a high-quality system. Tenth-grade scores on the FCAT reading exam, for example, have shown no improvement in the past 8 years, with less than 44 percent of the sophomores reading at grade level, the lawsuit says.

Florida's low-teacher pay, compared to the national average, and its misuse of FCAT scores to hold back students or deny them diplomas are other signs of a failing system, the lawsuit argues.

The other plaintiffs include parents and students from Duval and Pasco county and an Alachua County advocacy group. The defendants are the State Board of Education, Education Commissioner Eric Smith and the leaders of the Florida Legislature.

Vol. 29, Issue 13

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