Opinion ID: 3134250
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Ill 2d at 98; see also People ex rel. Carey v. Board of Education,

Text: 55 Ill. 2d 533, 535 (1973). In our view, the foregoing persuasively suggests that the framers of the 1970 Constitution viewed educational equality and efficiency to be separate and distinct subjects. The framers of the 1970 Constitution grappled with the issue of unequal educational funding and opportunity, and chose to address the problem with a purely hortatory statement of principle. To ignore this careful and deliberate choice by interpreting the efficiency requirement as an enforceable guarantee of equality would do violence to the framers' understanding of the education article. Plaintiffs insist that the rejection of the specific funding proposals merely represents the framers' unwillingness to prescribe specific funding ratios or formulas in the constitution. According to plaintiffs, the delegates generally spoke in support of the general ideal of equalizing educational opportunity. Be that as it may, we find no significant evidence in the convention record suggesting that the delegates believed that section 1's efficiency requirement related to these concerns. The mere utterance of sentiments favoring educational equality does not itself give rise to a constitutional guarantee. This court has noted: While statements and reports made by the delegates to the constitutional convention are certainly useful and important aids in INTERPRETING ambiguous language of the constitution [citation], they are, of course, not a part of the constitution. It would be improper for this court to transform statements made during the constitutional convention into constitutional requirements where such statements are not reflected in the language of the constitution. (Emphasis in original.) Village of Carpentersville v. Pollution Control Board, 135 Ill. 2d 463, 473 (1990). Reminding us that the meaning of a constitutional provision depends on the common understanding of the citizens who ratified the constitution, plaintiffs emphasize that with reference to the education article, the Address to the People accompanying the 1970 Constitution upon its submission to the voters explains that [t]he Convention was greatly concerned with improving and equalizing opportunities for education. 7 Proceedings 2676. The articulated concern is manifest in the purely hortatory features of the education article as described above and in Blase v. State, 55 Ill. 2d 94 (1973). The mere expression of concern does not describe an enforceable constitutional guarantee of educational equality. Finally, plaintiffs contend that several decisions from other states interpreting similar constitutional language have concluded that efficiency dictates fairness and parity in educational funding. See Abbott v. Burke, 119 N.J. 287, 575 A.2d 359 (1990); Rose v. Council for Better Education, Inc., 790 S.W.2d 186 (Ky. 1989); Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby, 777 S.W.2d 391 (Tex. 1989); Pauley v. Kelly, 162 W. Va. 672, 255 S.E.2d 859 (1979). For various reasons, these decisions provide no persuasive support for plaintiffs' argument. Pauley simply does not stand for the proposition for which plaintiffs' cite it. In Pauley, the court ultimately defined a thorough and efficient system of schools not in terms of equal opportunity, but in terms of various specific substantive educational goals. Pauley, 162 W. Va. at 699-700, 255 S.E.2d at 877. Similarly, in Abbott, the court stated that New Jersey's thorough and efficient clause required a certain level of educational opportunity, a minimum level, that will equip the student to become `a citizen and ... a competitor in the labor market.' [Citation.]  If, however, that level is reached, the constitutional mandate is fully satisfied regardless of the fact that some districts may exceed it. Abbott, 119 N.J. at 306, 575
decision the school finance statute was upheld as facially valid even though it guaranteed the continuation of substantial disparities in educational expenditures per pupil. Abbott, 119 N.J. at 308, 575 A.2d at 369, citing Robinson v. Cahill, 69 N.J. 449, 355 A.2d 129 (1976). Despite these statements, the Abbott court concluded that New Jersey was constitutionally required to ensure that education in poor urban school districts was funded at substantially the same level as in more affluent suburban districts. Abbott, 119 N.J. at 385, 575 A.2d at 408. The court reached this dubious result essentially by equating the constitutionally guaranteed minimum level of educational opportunity with the educational offerings in the wealthiest districts. See Abbott, 119 N.J. at 364, 575 A.2d at 397; see also Note, State Constitutional Law--Public School Financing--Spending Disparity Between Wealthy School Districts and Poor Urban School Districts, Caused By Reliance on Local Property Taxes, is Violative of the Thorough and Efficient Education Clause, 21 Seton Hall L. Rev. 445, 470 (1991). One writer has characterized the reasoning employed in Abbott as an intellectual shell game (21 Seton Hall L. Rev. at 477-78), and has suggested that the variance between the court's description of the thorough and efficient requirement and its ultimate holding is simply the imprimatur of result oriented jurisprudence cloaked in superfluous reasoning (21 Seton Hall L. Rev. at 480). The criticism is well founded, and we therefore decline to apply the Abbott court's analysis in this case. The other decisions cited by plaintiffs, Rose from Kentucky and Kirby from Texas, are of limited relevance because in each case the construction given the term efficient depended in large measure on historical conditions and considerations (see Rose, 790 S.W.2d at 205-06; Kirby, 777 S.W.2d at 395-96) which are not part of the history of our own constitution. While plaintiffs place major emphasis on Kirby, the historical basis for the court's analysis stands in sharp contrast to the history of our constitution. In Kirby, the court noted that in 1876, when the Texas constitution was written, economic conditions and educational funding were fairly uniform throughout the state, and the framers never contemplated the gross funding disparities that were later to develop as wealth grew at different rates in different districts. Kirby, 777 S.W.2d at 395-96. In contrast, as discussed above, the framers of the Illinois Constitution of 1970 were well aware of disparities produced under the local property tax based funding system. Indeed, inequality was a recognized feature of education in Illinois when the 1870 Constitution--which introduced the efficiency concept in Illinois--was adopted. As stated in Richards v. Raymond, 92 Ill. 612, 617-18 (1879): [I]t is a part of the history of the State when the constitution was framed, that there was a great want of uniformity in the course of study prescribed and taught in the common schools of the State. In the larger and more wealthy counties the free schools were well graded and the course of instruction of a high order, while in the thinly settled and poorer counties the old district system was still retained and the course of instruction prescribed was of a lower order. In view of all of the foregoing considerations, we agree with the courts below that disparities in educational funding resulting from differences in local property wealth do not offend section 1's efficiency requirement.
The remaining question under section 1 of the education article pertains to its guarantee of a system of high quality educational institutions and services. There is no dispute as to the nature of this guarantee in the abstract. Instead, the central issue is whether the quality of education is capable of or properly subject to measurement by the courts. Plaintiffs maintain that it is the courts' duty to construe the constitution and determine whether school funding legislation conforms with its requirements and cite a number decisions from other jurisdictions in which courts have concluded that similar constitutional challenges are capable of judicial resolution. As explained below, however, we conclude that questions relating to the quality of education are solely for the legislative branch to answer. Historically, this court has assumed only an exceedingly limited role in matters relating to public education, recognizing that educational policy is almost exclusively within the province of the legislative branch. Section 1 of article VIII of the 1870 Constitution provided that [t]he general assembly shall provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools, whereby all children of this state may receive a good common school education. Ill. Const. 1870, art. VIII, §1. As discussed earlier, except in matters relating to school district boundaries, this court consistently held that questions relating to the efficiency and thoroughness of the school system were left to the wisdom of the legislative branch. This principle has likewise been applied with respect to the efficiency requirement in the 1970 Constitution. See Cronin v. Lindberg, 66 Ill. 2d 47, 58 (1976) (law reducing state aid to schools that failed to operate for a school year of a specified minimum duration was not reviewable under the efficiency requirement). More generally, it has been stated that section 1 of article VIII of the 1870 Constitution was both a mandate to the legislature and a limitation on the exercise of the [legislative] power. [Citation.] The mandate is to provide a thorough and efficient system of schools, and the limitations are that they shall be free to all children of the State and such that all children may receive a good common school education. People ex rel. Leighty v. Young, 309 Ill. 27, 33 (1923); see also People ex rel. Hepfer v. Price, 310 Ill. 66, 73 (1923). Yet, while the requirement that schools provide a good common school education was explicitly recognized to be a limitation on the legislature's power to enact public school laws, that limitation was not among those held generally capable of judicial enforcement. Fiedler v. Eckfeldt, 335 Ill. 11 (1929), illustrates this subtle but important point: [Section 1 of article VIII of the 1870 Constitution] was a command addressed to the legislature, and it has been construed as a limitation also on its power to provide for the maintenance by local taxation of free schools of a different character from that named in the section.  When we look for the limitations on that power we find these two, and these two only, WHICH THE COURTS CAN ENFORCE: that the schools shall be free, and that they shall be open to all equally. The court has enforced these limitations when the occasion requiring the enforcement of them arose. [Citations.] There are no others TO WHICH THE JUDICIAL POWER EXTENDS. (Emphasis added.) Fiedler, 335 Ill. at 23. In Richards v. Raymond, 92 Ill. 612 (1879), this court rejected the claim that a law providing for the establishment of public high schools exceeded the General Assembly's power to provide for schools where children may receive a good common school education. This court found no basis in the 1870 Constitution for limiting the discretion of the legislature in determining what a good common school education entails: No definition of a common school is given or specified in the constitution, nor does that instrument declare what course of studies shall constitute a common school education. How can it be said that a high school is prohibited by the constitution and not included within the definition of a common school? The phrase, `a common school education' is one not easily defined. One might say that a student instructed in reading, writing, geography, English grammar and arithmetic had received a common school education, while another who had more enlarged notions on the subject might insist that history, natural philosophy and algebra should be included. It would thus be almost impossible to find two persons who would in all respects agree in regard to what constituted a common school education.