Equal time

National Review, Sept 14, 1998 by Andrew Peyton Thomas

In 1994 the Tennessee Supreme Court signed off on much of the legislature's attempt to address the court's school-finance ruling. However, the court withheld its imprimatur in Tennessee Small School Systems v. McWherter because the legislature failed to raise teachers' salaries in underprivileged school districts. (Cynics will wonder who needs the National Education Association when a court will give the unions' demands the force of law.)

aaIn 1993, the New Hampshire Supreme Court struck down the most localized school-finance system in the nation. The court held that the state was violating an amorphous constitutional duty "to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools" (seminaries were conveniently left out of the ensuing analysis). Acknowledging that New Hampshire's school-finance system had existed since the infancy of the Republic itself, the court nevertheless used a Massachusetts Supreme Court opinion as sufficient precedent for overturning the system. The Massachusetts constitution, the New Hampshire court noted, has a "nearly identical provision regarding education" -- and, for some reason never fully explained, the Granite State was obliged to follow the jurisprudential lead of its liberal neighbor to the south.

All these rulings, of course, boil down to judicial attempts to obtain more money for public education. The judges evidently have not picked up one of the signal lessons of public policy over the last three decades: money does not guarantee educational success. It is a stubborn fact that while education spending rose almost 600 per cent nationally between 1972 and 1997, SAT scores actually declined by 2 per cent. Indeed, on average, students in the top five states in per-pupil expenditure (Alaska, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island) fare worse on the SAT than students in the bottom five states (Utah, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi).

Nor is there any evidence that greater state control over school funding improves educational performance. In fact, the evidence suggests that students in states with greater local control do better. Students in the five states with the highest percentage of state contribution to education spending (Hawaii, Washington, Kentucky, Alabama, Delaware) have lower average SAT scores than students in the five states with the highest percentage of local contribution (New Hampshire, South Dakota, Vermont, Michigan, Virginia). Local accountability works.

Having seen the public grow cool to judicial activism in many areas (criminals' rights, abortion, etc.), judges with an activist streak have nonetheless concluded that the public will put up with their excesses in the name of education. Until the recent vote in Ohio, there was little evidence that they had concluded wrongly. Those who care about controlling government spending, defending the rule of law, and safeguarding local control of education must denounce equalization rulings without compromise. To do otherwise is to enter a Faustian bargain with judges whose pet causes have nothing to do with improving education.