Equality

The issue of inequality in funding of public education began with the first establishment of schools based on local funding and property wealth in the mid 1800's. Since education was not guaranteed specifically in the Bill of Rights, it was up to the local communities to provide the first public schools and there was no uniformity in funding or in available resources. The first step in uniformity began with the creation of educational provisions within the state constitution and the passage of legislation to "require local school district to tax themselves to support the public schools (Alexander and Alexander, 2005)". Since different school districts had varying levels of wealth, there was a tremendous inequality among different districts, even if they were neighboring school districts. The first wave of school finance litigation to address this inequality argued that the disparities created by local proptery taxation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In //Serrano v. Priest//, the California Supreme Court held that "California's school finance system, which relied heavily on local property taxes, violated the Equal Protection Clause (Green & Baker, 2002)". The court pointed out that the total system, including state and local funding, "created great disparities in school revenues and found that the system of finance was unconstitutional under the Fourteen Amendment and the California Constitution (Alexander and Alexander, 2005)". The end of this wave of litigation using the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to support equal public school funding occured in 1973 with //San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez.// In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas' reliance on local property taxation "did not violate the Equal Protection Clause and that education was not a fundamental right (Green & Baker, 2002)". Furthermore, the court held that the use of property taxes affirmed local control in determining how monies were spent decisions were made.

The end result of the court decision, //San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez// was to ensure that any litigation to address inequal funding had to be addressed at a state by state level, with no uniformity guaranteed between states.

Alexander, K. & Alexander, D. (2005). American Public School Law, Belmont, CA, Thomson West.

Green, P. & Baker, B. (2002). Circumventing //Rodriguez:// Can Plaintiffs Use the Equal Protection Clause to Challenge School Finance Disparities Caused by Inequitable State Distribution Policies? //Texas Forum on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, 7(2), pp. 141-165.//