Source: http://www.childrenslegalrightsjournal.com/childrenslegalrightsjournal/volume_34_issue_1?pg=97
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 15:54:32+00:00

Document:
46 Id. at 20. The Court’s focus on the income level of individual persons or family units, however, seems misguided. The thrust of the plaintiffs’ argument was that they were discriminated against as residents of property-poor districts. Rodriguez v. San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist., 337 F. Supp. 280, 281-82 (W.D. Tex. 1971), rev'd, 411 U.S. 1 (1973). Regardless of variations in individual wealth amongst residents of a given district, the overall property-wealth of the district is quantifiable and easily comparable to that of other districts, and creates a clear member class of citizens negatively impacted by the state funding system. See infra Part IV-A (arguing that, within Illinois, making wealth comparisons between districts is easily facilitated by public financial data as well as the state’s own method of classifying districts within its funding system).
47 Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 20-24 (finding that the plaintiffs’ lack of “personal resources has not occasioned an absolute deprivation” of education). The Court distinguished the plaintiffs’ case from other “wealth class” cases where it believed poor parties were being wholly deprived of some benefit or right. Id. In Williams v. Illinois, for example, the Court struck down criminal penalties that imprisoned indigents if they were unable to pay a fine. Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 236-38, 245 (1970). In Bullock v. Carter, the Court invalidated a filing-fee scheme for primary elections in Texas that required potential candidates to pay very large sums of money to get on the ballot, effectively precluding the poor from participation. Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 135-36, 149 (1972). 48 Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 23.
49 Id. at 28-29 (“The system of alleged discrimination and the class it defines have none of the traditional indicia of suspect-ness: the class is not saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process.”).
50 Id. at 35-36. Education, the plaintiffs argued, is necessary for the proper exercise of voting and free speech rights; as such, the right to education is implicitly protected by the Constitution. Id.
51 Id. at 29-30. In Brown, the Court noted that “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.” Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954).
52 Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 35 (“[T]he key to discovering whether education is ‘fundamental’ is not to be found in comparisons of the relative societal significance of education.”).
53 Id. In one of the most famous—and for education reformers, infamous—lines of the majority opinion, the Court emphasized that it could not guarantee citizens “the most effective speech or the most informed electoral choice.” Id. at 36. Note that the Edgar court largely adhered to the Supreme Court’s fundamental rights analysis in Rodriguez, emphasizing that even critically important rights may not be fundamental. Comm. for Educ. Rights v. Edgar, 672 N.E.2d 1178, 1194-95 (Ill. 1996); infra Part III-C (summarizing Edgar and Lewis E.).
54 Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 36.
55 See id. at 41-50 (applying rational basis review to the Texas funding system).
56 Id. at 44. Curiously, the majority nonetheless criticizes plaintiffs for not suggesting an alternative system of funding. Id. at 41 n. 85 (“Those who urge that the present system be invalidated offer little guidance as to what type of school financing should replace it.”). Given the Court’s steadfast refusal to rule on state education issues, it is unclear what value such a proposal would have had.

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