Opinion ID: 2011434
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Sufficiency of Count III

Text: The appellate court read plaintiffs' complaint as demanding equal educational resources and services among all school districts, and the same instruction in all schools. 267 Ill.App.3d at 21-22, 641 N.E.2d 602, 204 Ill.Dec. 378. However, it is important to identify what plaintiffs allege. Plaintiffs do not allege that the education system provision mandates equal funding among all school districts, or uniform instruction in all schools. Rather, plaintiffs contend that the state cannot provide a high quality education to some students, but not to others. Plaintiffs allege that the Illinois public school funding scheme creates significant disparities between the richest and poorest school districts in the quality of educational resources and services provided. Plaintiffs further allege that, due to these disparities, the state fails to provide students in poor school districts an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services. Ill. Const.1970, art. X, § 1. To the appellate court, plaintiffs' complaint did not allege that plaintiffs are being denied a minimally adequate education. The court read the complaint as resting not on the adequacy of education in a district, but on differences in benefits and opportunities offered from district to district. 267 Ill.App.3d at 21, 204 Ill.Dec. 378, 641 N.E.2d 602. However, plaintiffs' complaint clearly alleges that the disparities between rich and poor school districts cause children in poor school districts to receive an inferior education. Plaintiffs allege that educational resources and services in poor school districts are inferior not only in comparison to those provided in rich school districts, but are intrinsically so inferior and inadequate as to harm [e]ach of the plaintiff school districts and each of the plaintiff schoolchildren and to violate the education system provision. Further, the appellate court appears to have rejected plaintiffs' underlying correlation between educational resources and services and educational quality. The court concluded: To allege that certain educational resources are unavailable in poorer school districts, or inferior to those in wealthier districts, does not compel the conclusion that the funding provided by the State's financing system is insufficient to provide an adequate education. 267 Ill.App.3d at 22, 204 Ill.Dec. 378, 641 N.E.2d 602. I flatly reject such a conclusion. I presently accept the following propositions. A correlation exists between educational resources and educational quality or opportunity. Lesser educational resources, below a certain level, result in lower educational quality or opportunity. Conversely, the improvement of public education funding, up to a certain level, would correlatively improve educational quality and uniformity of opportunity. These propositions are widely recognized. See, e.g., Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby, 777 S.W.2d 391, 393 (Tex.1989); Board of Education, Levittown Union Free School District v. Nyquist, 57 N.Y.2d 27, 38 n. 3, 439 N.E.2d 359, 363 n. 3, 453 N.Y.S.2d 643, 647 n. 3 (1982); McDaniel v. Thomas, 248 Ga. 632, 637-38, 285 S.E.2d 156, 160-61 (1981); Note, State Constitutional Analyses of Public School Finance Reform Cases: Myth or Methodology?, 45 Vanderbilt L.Rev. 129, 129-32 (1991); J. Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools 40-82, 236 (1991) (discussing, inter alia, disparities in educational funding, services, and resources, and corresponding disparities in educational quality, between Chicago public schools and suburban school districts); see generally C. Tesconi & E. Hurwitz, Education for Whom? The Question of Equal Educational Opportunity (1974). Indeed, these propositions form the very premise upon which the Illinois public school funding scheme is based. The state's supplementary aid is designed to ameliorate in part the dollar disparities generated by a system of local taxation. Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473, 481, 303 A.2d 273, 277 (1973); A. Schwartz, Illinois School FinanceA Primer, 56 Chi.-Kent L.Rev. 831, 836-38 (1980). However, I acknowledge that these propositions are not universally accepted. See, e.g., San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 42-43, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 1302, 36 L.Ed.2d 16, 48-49 (1973); Hornbeck v. Somerset County Board of Education, 295 Md. 597, 639, 458 A.2d 758, 780 (1983); Lujan v. Colorado State Board of Education, 649 P.2d 1005, 1018 (Colo.1982). True, the mere allegation of lack of educational resources does not compel the conclusion that the public school funding scheme actually fails to provide an adequate education. Nonetheless, it cannot be said that count III is legally insufficient. It must be remembered that this case comes to us from the dismissal of plaintiffs' complaint. A complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it clearly appears that no set of facts could be proved under the allegations that would entitle the party to relief. Meerbrey, 139 Ill.2d at 473, 151 Ill.Dec. 560, 564 N.E.2d 1222; Ogle v. Fuiten, 102 Ill.2d 356, 360-61, 80 Ill.Dec. 772, 466 N.E.2d 224 (1984). After carefully reviewing count III, I conclude that the complaint states a cause of action. I would reverse the trial court's dismissal of count III of plaintiffs' complaint.