CALIFORNIA

Constitutional Clauses/Language

(1) “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.”  Cal. Const. art. IX, s. 1.

(2) “The Legislature shall provide for a system of common schools by which a free school shall be kept up and supported in each district at least six months in every year, after the first year in which a school has been established.” Cal. Const. art. IX, s. 5.

(3) “From all state revenues there shall first be set apart the monies to be applied by the state for support of the public school system and public institutions of higher education.” Cal. Const. art. XVI, s. 8. (formerly art. XIII, s 15).

Major Court Decision: Serrano v. Priest (Serrano II), 557 P.2d 929  

Result: Financing System Overturned

Summary: The Serrano (II) court held that education in California is a fundamental right.  The funding system was reviewed under strict scrutiny and found to violate the state’s equal protection clause.  In the court’s strict scrutiny analysis, it found there was a direct connection between available expenditures and the level of education provided to school children.  Therefore, in a financing system based local property taxes, a school district with higher assessments in property value could provide a higher level of education than a school district with lower property wealth.

Key Quotes:

“We declare ourselves at a loss to understand how this provision can be said to mandate or authorize the creation of a system which conditions educational opportunity on the taxable wealth of the district in which the student attends school.”  Id. at 775.

“In applying our state constitutional provisions guaranteeing equal protection of the laws we shall continue to apply strict and searching judicial scrutiny to legislative classifications which, because of their impact on those individual rights and liberties which lie at the core of our free and representative form of government, are properly considered ‘fundamental.’”  Id. at 768.

“There is a distinct relationship between cost and the quality of educational opportunities afforded. Quality cannot be defined wholly in terms of performance on statewide achievement tests because such tests do not measure all the benefits and detriments that a child may receive from his educational experience. However, even using pupil output as a measure of the quality of a district's educational program, differences in dollars do produce differences in pupil achievement.”  Id. at 748.

 “Wealthier districts, being generally able to generate sufficient funds for capital outlay purposes within their bonding capacities, are often not required to levy permissive override taxes for the repayment of state aid loans, which is the only source of assistance for districts whose bonding capacity is insufficient to finance needed capital improvements.” Id. at 746.

“Concluding on the basis of the complaint that the case before us involved both a ‘suspect classification’ (because the discrimination in question was made on the basis of wealth) and affected a ‘fundamental interest’ (education), we proceeded to apply the latter standard.”  Id at 762.