raised by the state beginning with the editor and why edward doesn't control here as the state contends as ron is no we've alleged a sea change in education since state ed good decision was rendered some but not all of the alleged changes are promulgation of the illinois learning standards of mandatory tests aligned to those standards and of a series of penalties  also allege that the collective effect of these changes is to erode local control over basic education so much so as to eliminate the rational basis that edgar was held to would justify the inequities to throw from the state's school funding system if these allegations are taken as true as we think they must be at this stage of litigation it follows  edgar decision does not buy in the way to a hearing in this radically different place but the state says the plaintiffs don't have standing to assert their on equal treatment claim interested persons from suing not to preclude a valid controversy from being with a gated and who if i may ask could possibly be more interested in the on equal treatment one is redress ability but in all opinion this is really a non issue for if the funding system would be clear invalid it would be the duty of the legislature to craft a new system the inequality complained of and that would be redress ability the second standing argument that is likewise in our opinion a non issue is that plate plaintiffs are treated unequally by the funding system that is unfairly up to that foundation level of per pupil funding the unfair treatment negatively affects their ability to quote go higher taxation than the foundation level because plaintiffs poorer districts have had to use up more of their tax cut passed city than wealthy districts to reach the foundation level and therefore whatever taxing rubber has chosen the infection so to speak of the on equal treatment up to the foundation level remains the final standing argument which is the one accepted by the appellate court that because school taxes are imposed by local taxing authorities not by the state the plaintiffs can trace their own equal treatment injury to the state's funding system the reason you honour's this view isn't correct is the principle that standing exists to challenge government action that is a but for cause of the complaint of injury even if the action of a third party is also a necessary cause of the injury it is true but the unequal treatment the plaintiffs complain of would never be visited upon them if their local  played if so residents of poor school districts property will poor wealthy property poor districts in order for those plays to reach for their students the per pupil level of funding that the state says is necessary for basic education they must tax themselves given that this state funding system is linked to the property tax at a given level other similarly situated taxpayers meaning they own property of equal value but in different and better and wealthier districts can reach that same level of funding per pupil by taxing themselves at a lower level than on a plate it's their goal the plaintiffs having to tax more than a similar that having to pay more taxes than a similarly situated taxpayer has to pay to reach the same level of funding the state designates is the injury on equal treatment aren't let me ask you this is it your position to turn on or stamp is it your position that the injury is it is a direct result of the statute it is you base you know what you just said or it does not have to be a direct result result of this that you because the statute classifies districts into poor and wealthy and as a result of the classification the statute further provides that's the basis for deciding how much money th because of the classification of districts as forthrightly stated in the statute mr pollack off yes i take it back to your answer on the question of justice thomas opposed about the injury and maybe i didn't hear you correctly but i thought you started off by saying referring to the students but as you explained it if i heard you correctly you're talking about the taxpayers not the students who have to pay higher and i may have misspoken apologize let me not her right but it is it is it really that the taxpayers who are injured it's correct your honor this is a taxpayer suit it's not the school district so well and it's not really the students were injured is what you're saying maybe they are you injured in the scheme of things but you're saying that the ones who are directly injured are the taxpayers exactly they are the plaintiffs and the unequal treatment that i meant to speak of if i misspoke again i apologize the on equal treatment is visited on the taxpayers because of the different taxi the consequence is that they don't reach the foundation level of funding for the pupils in their districts and we have as you runners know only a wedge that then they put themselves at risk of the penalty system that the state has imposed so there's a strong i do you mean this what is the penalty oh well there's a whole series of penalties laid out in the statute the ultimate penalty is the take over the school district the state may ultimately actually take over the school district want to emphasize that it's not the precise nature of the penalties that there's so most concern as the cases in the briefs indicate it's the risk of penalty be existence of that penalty creates a risk and that is the course of effect  indicated why i think that doesn't make any difference to the council the this is the state's funding of schools is not tied to how the school performs on the learning stand treatment i described in answer to your earlier question the unequal treatment exists whatever else ensues if the fit in fact the state makes in our view of the mistaken assertion that part of our standing problem is we have penalties have ever been opposed it doesn't matter whether penalties or have ever been imposed are not the risk of out there in the existence of the of the potential penalties is sufficient but the gist of the injury is the unequal returning to the standing argument that the appellate court made which emphasize that the tax was in fact imposed by local taxing authorities and not by the state and in the cases we've cite sort held to have standing to attack a state law as we are doing here involving taxes that were imposed by local taxing authorities and not by the state itself that's exactly the situation we have here so we think amount basically to pointing out factual differences in the cases that they have no relevance for them but for a principle that i referred to a moment ago and i think your honor that but for principle is the essence of the standing issue and just there are no further arguments about it i'm going to move on to the remaining argument the state makes which is that we have failed to state a cause of action two reasons apart from the edgar decision i've already discussed  advanced by the state for its no cause of action argument the first is the assertion that some local control remains we've made detail delegations about the extent of erosion of local control from all th state is done we say the effect of that is to remove local control effectively and put it in springfield the state says all know there are there is local control we meaning maybe maybe not this is a factual question for a resolution at the lower courts not in this court your honor the state's second reason is that we haven't alleged deliberate or intentional discrimination but ignores the settled law that when a statute contains an express classification as this one obviously does no such allegation of deliberate or intentional discrimination is necessary your decision in the jacobson vs public aid case makes that quite clear so your honour's we think that the cause of action issue is as clear the answer to the cause of action issue is as clear as the answer to the standing issue and i urge therefore that the appellate court's decision should be reversed and that this court should rule the plaintiffs do have standing that they have pledged a good cause of action and that the case thank you good morning my name is paul burke's i'm an assistant attorney general and i'm representing the illinois state board of education the plaintiffs to invalidate state statute alleging it causes disparate property tax rates and statute a challenge to is the school funding statute which is not a tax statute at all but a subsidy statute it's a statute that's designed to cal to allow the general assembly to calculate the subsidies that's going to provide to each school district  provide public education so a quick quick description of the statute and then i'd like to turn to the two issues which is whether or not their injury is fairly traceable to the statute and whether the relief they request with redress that injury the standing issue and then second the merits issue whether they've stated a claim for equal protection in light of this court's decision in ag or and in light of the fact that the statute in fact provides vastly superior subsidies to the plaintiff school districts district and the way it does this is it puts together a committee to determine the amount of money that's sufficient to provide that adequate education and it works backwards from there it's looks at that amount of money and  local school district will tax its own people sufficiently to provide some of that money and if the school district doesn't have sufficient property wealth the state then ponies up enough money to get every school district to that level to that minimum it's what i see it assumes this local school district will provide enough money it doesn't mandate to the local school district provide enough money in fact section eight point zero five eight four specifically says no school district has to tax at any particular rate the state is merely using that to calculate its own commitment it's not looking to the school district to see to meet that commitment or to exceed that commitment or anything else it will provide the same amount of money based on that calculation regardless of what the school district difference if the school district said a parade of zero the state would still provide the exact subsidy calculated based on the statute because they assume a three percent rate but they don't mandate it so they would continue to provide the same amount of money so off says when he described his injury in response to justice thomas question is were from property poor districts we have to tax a higher rate to reach the foundation level this minimum level that the state uses in its own calculations and other districts don't have to tax that high level so let's look at that foundation level as i've said before if they don't tax to meet that level there's no direct penalties the state doesn't do anything about it so what the plaintiffs have done is they sort of gone down the road a little bit and said well if we don't tax at that level to happen is we're not going to be able to sufficiently educate our students in order to in order to pass state mandated tests and that then is going to lead to the school to the state coming in and taking over school districts so let's talk about whether or not in this and that's an indirect harm i don't see how that's not a direct time of the statute that's clearly in direct to what they're complaining about is that if they don't meet that level they're go indirectly home by a state by an ultimate eight years or ten years or whatever down the road and direct takeover of their school districts but even it may be an indirect time is maybe generous way to put it because how as a taxpayer harms if the state takes over the school district taxpayer suffers no harm at all who is harmed if that how the students are harmed the state the state takes over school district what the statute says is if you fail to meet standards for eight straight eight straight years to that then the state has the option of merging your school district you could take some pretty serious action at that point students are harmed they've been in a failing school district for at least eight years taxpayers are harmed they've been paying taxes and not getting their money's worth so there's no injury to these plaintiffs or to anybody except perhaps the school board members who are likely to be out of position eight years down the road so that's why we say that there are injuries to attenuate that's why we it's too interact it's too far down the line they're not home by the statute which doesn't require any particular tax rate they're not harmed by the learning standards which don't have any coercive effect and some wait until many many years down the road when only to the worst most failing school districts and that coercive effect doesn't affect the plaintiffs it doesn't harm them in any way so that's why we say that their injuries to attenuated to confer standing now  second concern about their standing argument is and again to go to work how mr pollock off explained his injury we have to tax at a higher rate to meet the foundation level than another wealthy or property rich school district but that might make sense if they came in and the claim was we want to tax it two and a half percent right but we won't reach the foundation level and less we're forced to tax a three and so you forced us to tax the three of us that maybe that's a claim but if you come in and say we tax at seven percent and we won't reach the foundation level and you force us to tax it at least three but we voluntarily chosen to tax itself in how how how is that injury traceable to the state the state even if you accept the foundation level as as a as a on line as some kind of a mandatory line and for the for the reasons i've stated it's not in response to justice tomei i said they taxes erode they still get the same amount the state but even if you accept that the foundation level is a goal is that some golden line it has to be reached how can the state which suggests three percent danger of a property tax payer whose local property tax in district is local school district is tax and it's seven percent that injury isn't traceable to the state's funding formula which is which is calculated based on the three percent and i use the three percent i'm talking about a unified school district the rates are lower for a high school district or free or for a middle school or elementary school district so that is in essence our standing or quite our standing argument is that there are no penalties for not taxing at the at the suggested rate  and third they don't tax at the foundation level that they're legit injured i'm sorry they're legit injury of being forced to tax at least a foundation level is not in reality what they allege they tax at twice the foundation level so that is the core of our standing argument as to the merits turning to the merits i would like to make two points on the merits of the of the plaintiff's claim and the first is that the classification in the statute between property poor districts and property wealthy districts benefits property poor districts so the numbers that they used in their own complaint which they got from the only state board of education's website show that the home with frost more school district where one of the plaintiff resides in place taxes receives approximately three thousand dollars per student in the year that the complaint was filed and the and the school district to which they're comparing themselves a new trailer which they claim to be favored receives two hundred sixteen dollars per student the same goes for cairo which is a unified school district the other plaintiff lives there and the documents that they cite show that cairo receives from the state seven seven seven thousand seven hundred dollars per student and the supposedly benefited school district the one that's advantaged under the statute is receiving three hundred seventy nine dollars per student from the state so they sued the state and they said the state record has caused us injury but if you look at what the state statute does it does is it bolsters their tax money it tries to mitigate the effect of male distributions of wealth on educational opportunity in th now it may not to a good enough job but maybe more subsidies are required i don't i honestly don't know but you cannot look at this statute and say that it discriminates against property poor districts it doesn't discriminate against them it subsidizes them and whether that subsidy is enough we really feel is not something that's judicially cognizing that's a legislative determination whether more redistribution is required  and that's the only i mean maybe not the only remedy but that seems to be the principal remedy for the for the harm that they're that they've alleged is more subsidies right because if the state gave them more money they could their local districts could could if they chose to tax  lower rate but the state already does give them more money and so then the question is should how much more should they give them and and in that regard we think as an equal protection claim it fails to state a claim for disparate treatment for unequal treatment because what it's really saying is we were getting beneficial treatment in the sense of state subsidies but we but we need more and that's not an equal protection and then the second point i would like to make on the merits unusual but it said better than i think i could so i will quote from agger page i think thirty nine of that decision the general structure of the state system of funding public schools through state and local resources and the particular amounts allocated for distribution as general state aid represent legislative efforts to strike a balance between the competing considerations of educational equality and local control that's the statute that they're talking about the exact same statute and it goes on to say reasonable people could differ whether it should favor equality more local control more but our court speaking of this court has deferential review it only has to be rational to be upheld and there's no basis to conclude that is so irrational as to offend equal protection the statute now what's the difference between one thousand nine hundred seven and today the status promulgated the illinois learning standards right and in the documents that they cited and that i've attached in my appendix and they've cited in their complaint the only learning standards are goals  outcome based and the local school districts continue to hire teachers develop pedagogically methodology to fulfill that and there are no allegations in the complaint to the contrary and in fact to the extent there's an allegation that these illinois learning standards have overwhelmed or taken over the the states the local school districts ability to to control education though those allegations are simply contrary to the statute if you look at section three point two exactly what the state would do if for two years you don't reach the only learning standards the stable give you more money it will provide technical assistance and tutoring for four years if your school district doesn't meet the illinois learning standards then the school board the local school board should develop a restructuring plan which the state will review if for five years you don't meet the illinois learning standards then the school local school board again should develop a reorganization plan and for eight years eight straight years members that kind of thing that's what the statute says so if that's the process for implementing the learning standards and if the standards are not a curriculum but merely outcome based how it can't be the case  conclusory to say they've taken over they've allowed to that their allegation has to be accepted as true that they've taken over the local school districts are those running standards which are set forth in statute and the implementation set forth the statute is that such a radical change from what existed in one thousand nine hundred seven that what i read to you from ag or is no longer the law and i don't think it is i mean i think edgar really it says the legislature is going to determine the the boundaries of equality and local control and it's going to move you know different times the legislature may may seek more equality and in school funny different times in my seat more local control but if every time they make a modification or a or amend the statute in some way or change education policy a new equal protection claim arises because now there's less local control or there's less equality that's not what edgar said edgar said this is principally a question for the legislature the way the legislature has made modifications they've added the only learning standards they've also added additional subsidies for low income students and for property poor districts they're constantly making modifications but that the holding of agger which said let the legislature balance these things unless it's so beyond  pale that it's completely irrational what they've done in the bed the court won't get involved that still holds true the legislatures impose a learning standards but they continue as i pointed out to subsidize property poor districts to the tune of ten to twenty times what they give to property rich districts and that is not a rational it remains a rational system for funding school education and i've covered all my points if there are no questions i think i will rest here thank you thank you described the situation and quoted from edgar i think it suffices as he's done i think it suffices to say in rebuttal we have alleged that there's been a major change not a minor change we're not here urging that every little incremental change in the school system produces a change in local control that requires your honour's to look at it again we have alleged a sea change a results in early roshon of local control sufficient to change the legal situation that the funding system the inequity in the funding system no longer under these change spectral circumstances can produce a third of the ring of local control which is the edgar rational basis we are entitled to a trial on those allegations they should be taken as true and the essence of what mr burke is saying is that he's asking you to be the trier of fact to decide whether those elevations about the size of the sea change and the legal consequence of a sea change erasing work of intro is true or not factual question not for your resolution  next point on the merits that mr burke made had to do with the mount of money but the state gives total poor districts which is roger he says then it gives to the richer districts and that's true but your honors we are still left with the inequality the unequal treatment which is the essence of the complaint here up to the foundation level and that infects the total tax taxing ability of the district and it affects what happens to the taxpayers who are the plaintiffs it remains true not withstanding that the state gives more money to poor districts them to rich districts it remains true that if the poor districts don't tax at the assume great they do not reach foundation level of funding the basic per pupil level of funny work as wealthy districts it remains true can get there without having to tax at the assumed rate that's the unequal treatment and the consequence of the unequal treatment is that the tax energy if you will of poor districts is exhausted by reaching the foundation putting a fifty pound backpack on the back of one of the runners because of the unfairness i've already described on equal treatment i've already described i'm pretending that that's a fifty found backpack so in the first stage of the race running up to the foundation level one of the runners is a real disadvantage as compared to the other then that the second stage the rules go back to fairness we eliminate the unfairness that applied at the first stage contending that running the second stage eliminates the first stage unfairness is a non sequitur and that's in effect what mr burke's arguing he's arguing that because we tax at higher than the level assumes necessary to get to the foundation level where we have no injury we have their injury of having run the first stage with a fifty pound backpack and having to run anything further with taxpayers are paying money for the schools for their students this is not a situation in which the taxpayers are paying money for some other purpose they're paying it for the schools they're giving them money to fun education for their children and if the consequence is that the state's funding system and learning standards and tests and penalties visit upon their district is a consequence that visited upon the objective for which further questions appreciate your indulgence thank you thank you pollack offer arguing the rebuttal based on the rebuttal point very good and mr burke thank you for your argument as well case number one one three four one floor car