ILLINOIS

Constitutional Clause/Language

“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, s. 1.

Major Court Decision: Committee for Educ. Rights v. Edgar, 672 N.E. 2d 1178 (Ill. 1996).

Result: Financing system upheld

Summary: The court concluded that education is not a fundamental right in Illinois and that the plaintiffs did not constitute a suspect class.  The court also stated that the need to maintain “local control” was a legitimate state interest justifying intradistrict disparities.

Key Quotes:

“In our view... the framers of the 1970 Constitution viewed educational equality and ‘efficiency’ to be separate and distinct subjects. The framers of the 1970 Constitution grappled with the issue of unequal educational funding and opportunity, and chose to address the problem with a purely hortatory statement of principle. To ignore this careful and deliberate choice by interpreting the efficiency requirement as an enforceable guarantee of equality would do violence to the framers' understanding of the education article.”  Id. at 1187.

Equal Protection

“Section 1 of article VIII of the 1870 Constitution was a command addressed to the legislature, and it has been construed as a limitation also on its power to provide for the maintenance by local taxation of free schools of a different character from that named in the section. When we look for the limitations on that power we find these two, and these two only, which the courts can enforce: that the schools shall be free, and that they shall be open to all equally. The court has enforced these limitations when the occasion requiring the enforcement of them arose. There are no others to which the judicial power extends.”  Id. at 1190.

“Recognition that rights of expression and participation in the political process are fundamental-and thus safeguarded against unjustified governmental interference-does not necessarily translates into an affirmative governmental obligation to enrich each individual's personal capacity or ability to exercise these rights. In this regard it is significant that while the framers of the 1970 Constitution recognized the importance of ‘the educational development of all persons to the limits of their capacities,’ they stopped short of declaring such educational development to be a ‘right,’ choosing instead to identify it as a ‘fundamental goal.’”  Id. at 1195.

“While education is certainly a vitally important governmental function), it is not a fundamental individual right for equal protection purposes, and thus the appropriate standard of review is the rational basis test. Under the rational basis test, judicial review of a legislative classification is limited and generally deferential.”  Id at. 1193.

“To hold that the question of educational quality is subject to judicial determination would largely deprive the members of the general public of a voice in a matter which is close to the hearts of all individuals in Illinois... Members of the general public, however, would be obliged to listen in respectful silence... Nonexperts-students, parents, employers and others-also have important views and experiences to contribute which are not easily reckoned through formal judicial fact finding.”  Id at. 1193.

“In accordance with Rodriguez and the majority of state court decisions, and for all the reasons set forth above, we conclude that the State's system of funding public education is rationally related to the legitimate State goal of promoting local control. Plaintiffs' claims under the equal protection clause of the Illinois Constitution were properly dismissed.”  Id.