'Education reform is beginning to work'
Excerpts from yesterday's 5-2 ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court that Massachusetts is meeting its constitutional duty in funding schools in lower-income communities:
Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, in the court's majority opinion, wrote:
''Public dollars for public education are now being allocated to where they are the most effective: defining core educational goals for all students, evaluating student performance toward those goals, and holding schools and school districts accountable for achieving those goals. . . .
''No one, including the defendants, disputes that serious inadequacies in public education remain. But the Commonwealth is moving systemically to address those deficiencies and continues to make education reform a fiscal priority. It is significant, in my view, that the Commonwealth has allocated billions of dollars for education reform since the [1993 Education Reform Act's] passage, and that this new and substantial financial commitment has continued even amidst one of the worst budget crises in decades. . . ."
''The legislative and executive branches have shown that they have embarked on a long-term, measurable, orderly, and comprehensive process of reform to provide a high quality public education to every child. . . . They are proceeding purposefully to implement a plan to educate all public school children in the Commonwealth, and the judge did not find otherwise. They have committed resources to carry out their plan, have done so in fiscally troubled times, and show every indication that they will continue to increase such resources as the Commonwealth's finances improve. While the plaintiffs have amply shown that many children in the focus districts are not being well served by their school districts, they have not shown that the defendants are acting in an arbitrary, nonresponsive, or irrational way to meet the constitutional mandate.
''Implementation of change, fundamental, sweeping change, such as that mandated by the Education Reform Act, is seldom easy. . . . The evidence here is that the Commonwealth's comprehensive statewide plan for education reform is beginning to work in significant ways."
Justice John M. Greaney, in a dissenting opinion, wrote:
''I would adopt the . . . recommendation that we order the department promptly to conduct a study to assess the actual costs of effective implementation of the educational programs intended to provide an adequate education in the four focus districts. No persuasive consensus exists regarding how much spending is necessary to provide an 'adequate' education. Actual spending levels strongly suggest, however, that the formula now relied on by the department to reflect the minimum amount each district needs to provide an adequate education to its students does not reflect the true cost of successful education in the Commonwealth, at least in the focus districts.
''The governor has, correctly, identified the education crisis facing our schools as the civil rights issue of our generation. Public support is already behind this task. . . .
''Practically everyone involved in this case assumed that the court was going to use this litigation to order the Legislature to appropriate money to remedy the severe problems identified. This assumption is incorrect. . . . But the remedy I propose has nothing to do with orders for the appropriation of money. The remedy takes full advantage of the exhaustive and excellent work of the Superior Court judge and brings to bear on the problem the voice and aid of the court as an integral part of the joint enterprise I have described. If money is needed, and is not forthcoming, there will be ample time to discuss the matter of appropriations later in a cooperative and nonadversary way.
Compiled from material provided by the Associated Press and State House News Service.
