California: Suit accuses state of unequal school funding

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by Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 2010

A coalition of grassroots groups and families filed a lawsuit against the state Monday seeking to have California's educational system declared unconstitutional for failing to adequately and equally fund schools.

The suit filed in Alameda Superior Court is the second lawsuit filed this year over what plaintiffs say is a broken public school system - one that leaves too many children with less than a fair shot at a good education.

Plaintiff attorneys say they want the court to require the Legislature and the governor to address unequal and inadequate conditions within the schools, disparate conditions that more often affect low-income and minority students.

"We have to sue. Not only are we losing teachers and seeing class sizes skyrocket, but districts are eliminating librarians, nurses, school psychologists, core courses in art, music, PE (physical education) and electives," said Giselle Quezada of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a plaintiff in the new case. "Support for our schools needs to be kept at the level required for a high-quality education, and not just during good economic times."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/12/BA4D1ED4IO.DTL

"unconstitutional"...good calling out as funding inequities have contributed (among other things) to the culture of haves and have-nots and enabled to the pseudo-reformers to screw public schools even further by bilking taxpayer money to failed charters.