Courts and Kids: Pursuing Educational Equity through the State Courts

by Michael A. Rebell

Over the past thirty-five years, federal courts have dramatically retreated from actively promoting school desegregation. In the meantime, state courts have taken up the mantle of promoting the vision of educational equity originally articulated in Brown v. Board of Education. Courts and Kids is the first detailed analysis of why the state courts have taken on this active role and how successful their efforts have been.

 

Since 1973, litigants have challenged the constitutionality of education finance systems in forty-five states on the grounds that they deprive many poor and minority students of adequate access to a sound education. While the plaintiffs have won in the majority of these cases, the decisions are often branded “judicial activism”—a stigma that has reduced their impact. To counter the charge, Michael A. Rebell persuasively defends the courts’ authority and responsibility to pursue the goal of educational equity. He envisions their ideal role as supervisory, and in Courts and Kids he offers innovative recommendations on how the courts can collaborate with the executive and legislative branches to create a truly democratic educational system.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2009

About the author

Michael A. Rebell is the Executive Director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is an experienced litigator in the field of education law, and he is also Professor Law and Educational Practice at Teachers College and Columbia Law School.
Rebell was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. (CFE) v. State of New York, a school funding "adequacy" lawsuit that claimed that the State of New York was not adequately funding public schools in New York City. Rebell argued the case three times before the New York Court of Appeals, New York's highest court.
Prior to becoming involved in the CFE litigation, Rebell ligitated other class action lawsuits in the area of education, including Jose P. v. Mills, a case involving funding for education for students with disabilities. He also served as a court-appointed special master in Allen v. Park, a special education case in Boston.

Reviews

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful dissertation resource, although it seems like it's just a long law review article (or two) that got published by U-Chicago Press. The good:

1) A judicious handful of useful quotes from the voluminous body of literature on this subject.
2) Rebell offers one of the better non-federal constitutional amendment (unworkable, of course) solutions: a "single-remedy" model built on the continuation of judicial oversight of these cases (i.e., a refusal to terminate jurisdiction before meaningful change occurs).
3) A good section on "implementing successful remedies" that references 21st century cases and explains how certain state supreme courts have done a good job of managing these equity/adequacy suits.
4) Rebuttals for the work of Gerald Rosenberg (who argued in The Hollow Hope that courts have effected little to no social change in any respect, including with Brown v. Board) and Eric Hanushek (including quoting a brief authored by Hanushek where he concedes that more money could yield results, contrary to most of his published writings).
5) An excellent "separation of powers" dialogue in the appendix contains some of the most candid comments on record from jurists involved in these cases.

The bad:
1) This is a thin book, intended for use by advocates of this sort of litigation (come to think, is ANYTHING about this subject ever written by someone who doesn't have an opinion about it, or isn't involved in litigating or defending against this litigation).
2) The footnotes--which are quite good, and nearly as long as the book itself--contain much valuable information that should appear in the body of the book (various great sources, such as a recent article by WFU professor John Dinan about the "intentions" of delegates at constitutional conventions regarding education, are mentioned ONLY in this section).