smf background | compiled for 4LAKids: The framers of the Colorado State Constitution included a mandate that the state legislature “establish and maintain a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state.” In 2008-09, before the recession began, Colorado spent $1,809 less per pupil than the national average. [That year Colorado spent 94% of the national average per pupil, California 81.7%) In the last two years, as the 
The resulting impact on schools and students has been detrimental and systemic. For instance:
- Numerous districts in Colorado are unable to provide students with the coursework necessary to enter four-year colleges.
- Colorado districts are shrinking instruction time because of ongoing budget constraints. A higher percent of districts in Colorado are operating on a four-day week than in any other state.
- Colorado ranks at or near the bottom of states in funding special education. Everyone loses. Educational opportunities for the general student population are reduced to fund special education and resources for special needs children are below levels to meet their needs and federal mandates.
- Colorado children throughout attend schools that are crumbling, unsafe, unhealthy and technologically and educationally deficient. A statewide survey indicated a $17.9 billion backlog in school capital needs.
- There is no rational connection between what Colorado spends on public schools and what the state expects the schools to produce.
LABATO v. COLORADO is a lawsuit challenging education finance in Colorado.
The plaintiffs are parents and school districts from across the state of Colorado, representing a diversity of communities—urban, suburban and rural; affluent to low-income; various demographic and cultural backgrounds; special needs, gifted & talented, at-risk, and English Language Learners.
The defendants are the State of Colorado, the Colorado State Board of Education, the Commissioner of Education and Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Plaintiffs are seeking a declaration by the court that the current system of school finance established and maintained by the state legislature is not thorough and uniform and, as a result, it violates the Colorado Constitution and the substantive rights of Colorado students.
The court ruled last Friday for the plaintiffs.
- from Great Education Colorado | http://bit.ly/uAsOWH
Ruling a clean sweep for Lobato plaintiffs
Written by Todd Engdahl EdNewsColorado.org on | http://bit.ly/shm9vW
Dec 12th, 2011 :: A Denver judge’s ruling in the Lobato school funding case represents a sweeping legal victory – at least at the trial court level – for the parents and school districts that brought the case.
Site of Lobato trial in Denver City and County Building>
In fact, District Judge Sheila Rappaport’s 189-page decision, issued late Friday afternoon, incorporates word-for-word virtually all of a proposed ruling filed by the plaintiffs in late October.
It’s an established legal practice for lawyers to file documents called “proposed conclusions of law and findings of fact” in many complex civil lawsuits. Lawyers for the attorney general’s office filed their own 90-page findings-and-conclusions document, which could have formed the basis of a ruling in favor of the state, had the judge chosen that course.
Rappaport’s ruling also included small parts of the document filed by lawyers for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who represented a separate group of plaintiffs but whose claims were basically the same as those of the main group.
“It tracks it very closely,” lead plaintiffs’ lawyer Kathleen Gebhardt said of how the judge’s ruling compares to Gebhardt’s proposed document.
The Rappaport ruling even included plaintiffs’ language that was critical of defense witnesses, such as:
• “Dr. Hanushek’s analysis that there is not much relationship in Colorado between spending and achievement contradicts testimony and documentary evidence from dozens of well-respected educators in the State, defies logic, and is statistically flawed.” (That referred to Eric Hanushek, a Hoover Institution economist who was a central expert witness for the state.)
• “Some of the State’s witnesses hold extreme views on education and school funding that are inconsistent with the Colorado Constitution and/or state reform legislation.” (That referred to Republican former Senate President John Andrews, who also testified for the defense.)
The Lobato case generated tens of thousands of pages of documents, including exhibits, expert-generated studies, witness depositions, state agency documents and reports and even news articles. The trial started at the beginning of August and stretched until the Friday before Labor Day. (Get links to many case documents here, including daily transcripts from the trial.)
The proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law filed by each party essentially laid out their summaries of all that evidence and the conclusions they believed the evidence led to, providing the judge a choice of rulings without having to create one from scratch.
Inside the ruling
Denver District Judge Sheila Rappaport>
Rappaport’s ruling is big enough that it has a table of contents, but a chunk of the document is basically legal boilerplate and for-the-record material – including agreed-to facts, such as names of and information about the plaintiffs.
The bulk of the ruling – stretching for 160 pages – consists of summaries of witness testimony (cross referenced to pages of trial transcripts) and was taken word-for-word from the plaintiffs’ proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
The main topics covered in those summaries include the meaning of a thorough and uniform education system, the school finance system, the relationship between funding and a thorough and uniform system, the impacts of underfunding of education, the relationship of funding and educational quality, the effect of funding on education quality, Colorado student achievement, impact on special student populations, school construction and the impact on individual plaintiff school districts
The ruling also includes verbatim the plaintiffs’ take on the testimony of defense witnesses, including all the critical references.
Do your homework
- Read the judge’s full ruling
- Cut to the chase – conclusions of law and judge’s order
- Plaintiffs’ proposed findings and conclusions
- EdNews full Lobato archives
Rappaport’s decision reaches these key conclusions:
• “The Court therefore concludes that the entire system of public school finance … is not rationally related to the mandate of the Education Clause.”
• “The public school finance system falls short of providing sufficient funding to meet the mandate of the Education Clause and standards-based education.”
• “Due to lack of access to adequate financial resources, the Plaintiff School Districts and the school districts where Individual Plaintiffs reside (collectively, the “School Districts”) are unable to provide the educational programs, services, instructional materials, equipment, technology, and capital facilities necessary to assure all children an education that meets the mandates of the Education Clause and standards-based education.”
• “The Court therefore concludes that Colorado public school children are not receiving the thorough and uniform educational opportunities mandate by the Education Clause.”
(Although the ruling doesn’t put it in these terms, it essentially says the legislature needs to pay for the education reforms it enacts, something it has not done for such major legislation as the 2008 Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids and the 2010 educator effectiveness act. In a sense, the Lobato ruling is the ultimate rebuke to the “unfunded mandates” that school district leaders constantly complain about.)
What’s next
Kathleen Gebhardt>
Gebhardt said at a Saturday news conference in Colorado Springs that the plaintiffs hope the state won’t appeal, which would create a big assignment for the 2012 legislature in starting to work on a new school finance system.
But it’s expected that the state will appeal. Gebhardt estimates it would take the Colorado Supreme Court a year to decide the case, based what’s happened with past appeals in major state public policy cases.
Beyond an eventual court decision is the question of whether the state can afford to increase education spending and continue funding other state programs. Most observers expect that would require going to the voters for a tax increase, as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights requires.
That raises the yet-bigger question of what happens if the voters say no, as they did in November to a proposed tax increase for K-12 schools and higher education.
For now, Gebhardt says enigmatically, “The voters can’t ignore a court order.”
Text of Rappaport’s order
The first paragraph was taken from the plaintiffs’ proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The remaining text was added by the judge.
The Court finds that the Colorado public school finance system is unconstitutional. Evidence establishes that the finance system must be revised to assure that funding is rationally related to the actual costs of providing a thorough and uniform system of public education. It is also apparent that increased funding will be required. These are appropriately legislative and executive functions in the first instance. Thus, the Supreme Court has directed that this Court shall “provide the legislature with an appropriate period of time to change the funding system so as to bring the system in compliance with the Colorado Constitution.” Taking these directions into account, the Court enters Judgment and Orders as follows:
Injunctive relief enters in favor of the Plaintiffs, and all of them, and against the Defendants, and all of them, as follows:
1. Defendants are enjoined from adopting, implementing, administering, or enforcing any and all laws and regulations that fail to establish, maintain, and fund a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state that fulfills the qualitative mandate of the Education Clause and the rights guaranteed to the Plaintiffs thereunder and that is in full compliance with the requirements of the Local Control Clause; including, without limitation the Public School Finance Act of 1994 in its entirety, categorical funding programs, and capital construction funding laws and regulations;
2. Defendants are further enjoined to design, enact, fund, and implement a system of public school finance that provides and assures that adequate, necessary, and sufficient funds are available in a manner rationally related to accomplish the purposes of the Education Clause and the Local Control Clause;
3. The Court hereby stays the enforcement of the injunctive relief set forth herein above in order to provide the State with a reasonable time to create and implement a system of public school finance that meets the mandates of the Education Clause and the Local Control Clause. This stay shall continue in effect until final action by the Colorado Supreme Court upon appeal of the Court’s decision; provided that if appeal is not perfected to the Colorado Supreme Court, this Court shall review the stay upon application of either party submitted no earlier than the conclusion of the 2012 legislative session. While this stay is in place and until further action by the Supreme Court or this Court, the present financing formula and funding may remain in effect.
- Link here to read the Judge’s Ruling.
- Read a statement from Great Education about the ruling.
- For background information and court documents, go to Children’s Voices.
- Updates, columns, and witness lists can be found on the Lobato Case website. Trial Transcripts are becoming available online. Find them here.
- Read an overview of the case. (En Español)
- Read commentary about the case on Twitter by searching the hashtag #lobatocase.
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