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Dateline: Vieques, Puerto Rico

5/11/00 1:40 p.m.
An Ohio Court's Overreach
Do we really want judges running the schools?

By Kevin Holtsberry, freelance writer based in Ohio

f you are a Republican in Ohio, court rulings rarely mean good news. Today was no different. The Ohio Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, again held that the state's school-funding system is unconstitutional. The Republican leadership of Ohio's General Assembly has by now grown weary of court rejection of itsr policies, but in this case there is at least room for hope.

The school funding case, known as DeRoplh, has been hovering over Ohio's political landscape since 1991, when the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding brought suit against the state. The coalition claims that Ohio's school-funding system creates inequities among the 611 school districts and therefore violates the constitutional requirement for a thorough and efficient system of public schools. The state disagrees, but has nevertheless been pouring billions of dollars into the system in the hope of avoiding continued negative rulings in the courts.

I will not attempt to outline all of the various components of this debate, but there are three main issues at stake: 1) the basic state-funding formula that determines per pupil aid; 2) facilities funding; and 3) an overreliance on property taxes. In the initial ruling the state basically lost on all three issues (and some other issues as well). The good news in today's ruling is that the court recognized the progress the General Assembly and the Governor have made on these issues (significant increases in operating and facilities funding). The bad news is that the court is not satisfied, especially as it relates to the overreliance on property taxes. The court decided to retain jurisdiction, and give the parties a year to work on the issue and report back.

What does all this mean? In the short term, it is unlikely that we will see major changes. The Republican leadership will likely be satisfied with continuing to work on the issue behind the scenes in order to improve upon what they see as a workable system. The Democrats will likely bemoan the lack of response and remark on their disappointment that the court did not go further in its demands. The various newspapers will line up and pontificate.

The coalition is unlikely to be happy without a redistributionist system that forces wealthy districts to subsidize poor districts until all are funded on an equal level. As a result there will be an ongoing battle over how to change the property-tax system without losing local control and flexibility or creating, in essence, a socialized system. What is interesting and disturbing to note, however, is the court's willingness to intrude on legislative jurisdiction.

The court seems to believe that it has the right to judge the tiniest details of state education policy, from funding levels to accountability and standards, based on a vague phrase from the state constitution. Ironically, the court's fixation with the minutiae of school funding is unlikely to benefit Ohio's children. As is usually the case in these issues, the likely beneficiaries will be lawyers and bureaucrats.

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