San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) and Its Repercussions on Equality in Education

Traditionally, the American public school system has been funded by a combination of federal, state, and local tax dollars. In most states, nearly half of school districts’ funding is generated from local property taxes [1]. This type of school financing system has resulted in wide disparities in funding between different school districts. Although education is supposed to serve as a “great equalizer” [2], the school financing system has actually produced funding inequalities that disadvantage students from high-poverty schools [3]. School districts located in areas with higher concentrations of poverty tend to bring in less school funding through property taxes, yet they are the very school districts most likely in need of additional financial resources to support their students. Therefore, school districts in high-poverty areas have been and continue to be chronically underfunded. This problem has been exacerbated by events such as the 2007-2008 financial crisis, which saw severe budget cuts to most school districts [4], and more recently, by the COVID-19 pandemic. The current pandemic, which has forced the closure of schools nationwide, is expected to widen the achievement gap. School districts with high student poverty rates are struggling to provide their students with needed support and resources. To better understand why funding inequalities in education persist, it is necessary to examine the role of the law in education, specifically the landmark case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), and how its decision has posed challenges to school financing reform.

Encouraged by the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) [5], advocates of school finance reform began to challenge the school financing system in the early 1970s. San Antonio v. Rodriguez reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. It was a class action lawsuit brought by the parents of Texas students from a school district with a low property tax base, alleging that their state’s public school finance system violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause [6]. The parents argued that wide funding disparities between school districts -- one San Antonio school district contributed as little as $26 per pupil in local property taxes, while this figure stood at $333 for the richest district in the area -- meant that their children were being deprived of equal educational opportunities [7]. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that education was not a “fundamental interest” under the U.S. Constitution and that schools and school districts did not need to be equally funded [8]. Although the Court acknowledged the existence of “substantial” funding disparities in this particular case, it refused to hold that there was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause on the grounds that it would set a precedent for other locally funded public services to also become fundamental rights.

The San Antonio decision had profound implications for school financing reform because it shifted the fight for school financing reform from the federal to the state level. Although the Supreme Court’s decision meant that education was not a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution, most state constitutions contained education clauses. Therefore, proponents of school financing reform shifted their attention to equal protection guarantees under state law [9]. Despite the flurry of action brought on in many states, most state courts echoed the decision of San Antonio, and only four state courts struck down their current school financing systems: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, and Wyoming [10].

While many challenges to the constitutionality of existing school financing systems were being met with failure across state courts, an emerging approach was gaining success: an adequacy argument rather than an equality argument. The first successful example of an adequacy argument was made in Robinson v. Cahill (1973). The argument relied on the education clause in the New Jersey State Constitution, which established that the state legislature must "provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years" [11]. Instead of arguing for a school financing system that would ensure equal distribution of finances to schools, reform advocates focused instead on demonstrating that the current school financing system failed to provide a “thorough and efficient” education to all students [12]. 

The New Jersey Supreme Court held that the state’s school financing system was unconstitutional and ordered the legislature to revise it [13]. Since then, many reform efforts in other states have shifted from arguing for an equal school financing system to focusing on the right of children to an adequate and thorough education. This approach has led to more equitable school financing systems by mandating additional funding for the poorest school districts [14].

Despite the progress made in school financing reform since San Antonio, its lingering effects cannot be ignored. The refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize education as a fundamental right has resulted in increasingly wide disparities in school financing between states. Because the education adequacy argument hinges on the language within state constitutions and every state constitution uses different language with regard to the provision of public education [15], legal challenges to the existing school financing systems have had widely varying outcomes across the country [16]. In addition, state courts that have struck down their states’ school financing systems have taken a wide variety of actions: some have left the task of redesigning a more equal school financing system entirely to the state legislature, while others have assumed themselves the authority to determine what is necessary to provide an “adequate” education [17]. 

The influence of these disparities is evident in the current public education system: in 2011, the highest-spending state, Wyoming, had a per-pupil expenditure of $17,397, while the lowest-spending state, Idaho, had a per-pupil expenditure of $6,753 [18]. These disparities will likely become even more pronounced due to the financial strains posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, New York, the first state to announce its post-COVID-19 budget, announced significant cuts to education spending which disproportionately disadvantaged high-poverty districts [19]. In light of the unprecedented challenges currently facing the American public education system, it is particularly important now to reflect on the causes of inequalities in education and on the law’s responsibility to address them.

References

[1] Bruce Biddle and David Berliner. “Unequal School Funding in the United States,” ASCD, May 2002, http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may02/vol59/num08/Unequal-School-Funding-in-the-United-States.aspx.

[2] Horace Mann, “Twelfth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts School Board, 1848,” in American Educational Thought: Essays from 1640–1940, 2nd ed., ed. Andrew J. Milson et al. (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2010), 163–175.

[3] Bruce Baker, David Sciarra, and Danielle Farrie. “Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card.” Third Edition. Education Law Center, January 2014, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570455.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

[6] "San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez." Oyez. Accessed March 4, 2021. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1972/71-1332.

[7] San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, (1963).

[8] Ibid.

[9] Cochran, "Beyond School Financing."

[10] Ibid.

[11] N.J. Const., art. 8, § IV, ¶ 1.

[12] “New Jersey,” Education Law Center, Accessed 6 March 2021, https://edlawcenter.org/states/newjersey.html.

[13] Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473, (1973).

[14] Cochran, "Beyond School Financing."

[15] Emily Parker. "Constitutional Obligations for Public Education. 50-State Review." Education Commission of the States, 2016.

[16] Bruce Baker and Kevin Welner. "School finance and courts: Does reform matter, and how can we tell." Teachers College Record 113, no. 11 (2011): 2374-2414.

[17] Cochran, "Beyond School Financing."

[18] Baker, Sciarra, and Farrie. “Is School Funding Fair?”

[19] Drew Atchinson. "COVID-19 and the Squeeze on State Education Budgets: Equity Implications for New York State. Making Research Relevant." American Institutes for Research. May 11, 2020.