Opinion ID: 1205046
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Merits of plaintiffs' claims.

Text: (3a) The trial court expressly found [t]here is a reasonable probability that plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of their case. The court agreed with plaintiffs' claim that the equal protection guaranties of the California Constitution (art. I, ง 7, subds. (a), (b); art. IV, ง 16, subd. (a)) require State intervention to ensure that fiscal problems do not deprive a local district's students of basic educational equality. [9] The court also accepted plaintiffs' preliminary showing that the effect of the District's crisis on its students' educational rights was serious enough to trigger the State's constitutional duty. The State, supported by amicus curiae Pacific Legal Foundation (Pacific), [10] assails these conclusions on multiple grounds. At the outset, the State does not claim it lacks any and all constitutional role in local educational affairs. Instead, its reasoning proceeds as follows: The State fulfills its financial responsibility for educational equality by subjecting all local districts, rich and poor, to an equalized statewide revenue base. [11] Unless a district fails to provide the minimum six-month school term set forth in the free school clause (Cal. Const., art. IX, ง 5), [12] the State has no duty to ensure prudent use of the equalized funds by local administrators. Even if local mismanagement causes one district's services to fall seriously below prevailing statewide standards, the resulting educational inequality is not grounded in district wealth, nor does it involve a suspect classification such as race. Thus, strict scrutiny of the disparity is not required, and the State's refusal to intervene must be upheld as rationally related to its policy of local control and accountability. Even if strict scrutiny is appropriate, the local-control policy is compelling enough to justify the State's inaction. Under the unprecedented circumstances of this case, we cannot accept the State's contentions. We set forth our reasons in detail. Since its admission to the Union, California has assumed specific responsibility for a statewide public education system open on equal terms to all. The Constitution of 1849 directed the Legislature to provide for a system of common schools, by which a school shall be kept up and supported in each district.... (Cal. Const. of 1849, art. IX, ง 3.) That constitutional command, with the additional proviso that the school maintained by each district be free, has persisted to the present day. (Cal. Const., art. IX, ง 5.) In furtherance of the State system of free public education, the Constitution also creates State and county educational offices, including a Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education. (Cal. Const., art. IX, งง 2-3.3, 7.) It authorizes the formation of local school districts ( id., งง 6 1/2, 14), requires that all public elementary and secondary schools be administered within the Public School System ( id., ง 6), establishes a State School Fund (Fund) ( id., ง 4), reserves a minimum portion of State revenues for allocation to the Fund ( id., art. XVI, งง 8, 8.5), guarantees minimum allocations from the Fund for each public school ( id., art. IX, ง 6), specifies minimum salaries for public school teachers ( ibid. ), authorizes the State Board of Education to approve public school textbooks ( id., ง 7.5), and permits the Legislature to grant local districts such authority over their affairs as does not conflict with the laws and purposes for which school districts are established ( id., ง 14). (4) Accordingly, California courts have adhered to the following principles: Public education is an obligation which the State assumed by the adoption of the Constitution. ( San Francisco Unified School Dist. v. Johnson (1971) 3 Cal.3d 937, 951-952 [92 Cal. Rptr. 309, 479 P.2d 669]; Piper v. Big Pine School Dist. (1924) 193 Cal. 664, 669 [226 P. 926].) The system of public schools, although administered through local districts created by the Legislature, is one system ... applicable to all the common schools.... ( Kennedy v. Miller (1893) 97 Cal. 429, 432 [32 P. 558], italics in original.) ... In view of the importance of education to society and to the individual child, the opportunity to receive the schooling furnished by the state must be made available to all on an equal basis.... ( Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 876, 880 [31 Cal. Rptr. 606, 382 P.2d 878].) [M]anagement and control of the public schools [is] a matter of state[, not local,] care and supervision.... ( Kennedy v. Miller, supra, 97 Cal. at p. 431; see also Hall v. City of Taft (1956) 47 Cal.2d 177, 181 [302 P.2d 574]; California Teachers Assn. v. Huff (1992) 5 Cal. App.4th 1513, 1523-1524 [7 Cal. Rptr.2d 699].) The Legislature's plenary power over public education is subject only to constitutional restrictions. ( Hall v. City of Taft, supra, at pp. 180-181 [302 P.2d 574]; Tinsley v. Palo Alto Unified School Dist. (1979) 91 Cal. App.3d 871, 903-904 [154 Cal. Rptr. 591].) Local districts are the State's agents for local operation of the common school system ( Hall v. City of Taft, supra, at p. 181; San Francisco Unified School Dist. v. Johnson, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 952; California Teachers Assn., supra ), and the State's ultimate responsibility for public education cannot be delegated to any other entity ( Hall v. City of Taft, supra ; Piper v. Big Pine School Dist., supra, 193 Cal. at p. 669). (3b) It is true that the Legislature has assigned much of the governance of the public schools to the local districts (e.g., งง 14000, 35160 et seq., 35160.1), which operate under officials who are locally elected and appointed (งง 35020, 35100 et seq.). The districts are separate political entities for some purposes. (E.g., Johnson v. San Diego Unified School Dist. (1990) 217 Cal. App.3d 692, 698-700 [266 Cal. Rptr. 187] [general theory of respondeat superior does not make State liable for torts of local district or its employees]; Gonzales v. State of California (1972) 29 Cal. App.3d 585, 590-592 [105 Cal. Rptr. 804] [same]; First Interstate Bank v. State of California (1987) 197 Cal. App.3d 627, 633-634 [243 Cal. Rptr. 8] [State not vicariously liable for district's breach of contract]; Board of Education v. Calderon (1973) 35 Cal. App.3d 490, 496 [110 Cal. Rptr. 916] [local district is not the state or the People, so as to be civilly bound in dismissal proceedings by teacher's acquittal of criminal sex offense under principles of res judicata].) Yet the existence of this local-district system has not prevented recognition that the State itself has broad responsibility to ensure basic educational equality under the California Constitution. Because access to a public education is a uniquely fundamental personal interest in California, our courts have consistently found that the State charter accords broader rights against State-maintained educational discrimination than does federal law. Despite contrary federal authority, California constitutional principles require State assistance to correct basic interdistrict disparities in the system of common schools, even when the discriminatory effect was not produced by the purposeful conduct of the State or its agents. In Serrano v. Priest (1971) 5 Cal.3d 584 [96 Cal. Rptr. 601, 487 P.2d 1241, 41 A.L.R.3d 1187] ( Serrano I ), this court struck down the existing State public school financing scheme, which caused the amount of basic revenues per pupil to vary substantially among the respective districts depending on their taxable property values. Serrano I concluded at length that such a scheme violated both state and federal equal protection guaranties because it discriminated against a fundamental interest โ education โ on the basis of a suspect classification โ district wealth โ and could not be justified by a compelling state interest under the strict scrutiny test thus applicable. (Pp. 596-619.) As the court concluded, where fundamental rights or suspect classifications are at stake, a state's general freedom to discriminate on a geographical basis will be significantly curtailed by the equal protection clause. [Citation.] (P. 612, italics added.) Among other things, Serrano I rejected a claim that the wealth-based financing scheme was immune from challenge because the interdistrict revenue disparities it produced were not de jure, but merely de facto. Our opinion detailed the purposeful state legislative action which had produced the geographically based wealth classifications. It also made clear, however, that under California principles developed in cases involving school racial segregation, the absence of purposeful conduct by the State would not prevent a finding that the State system for funding public education had produced unconstitutional results. ( Serrano I, supra, 5 Cal.3d at pp. 603-604, citing Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist., supra, 59 Cal.2d 876, 881.) Serrano I also discussed two groups of federal cases suggesting that place of residence was an impermissible basis for State discrimination in the quality of education. Serrano I cited with approval Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board (E.D.La. 1961) 197 F. Supp. 649. This federal decision struck down a Louisiana statute permitting local parishes to close their schools rather than integrate them. As Serrano I noted, Hall v. St. Helena Parish found an equal protection violation not only because of the statute's racial consequences, but also `because its application in one parish, while the state provides public schools elsewhere, would unfairly discriminate against the residents of that parish, irrespective of race.... [A]bsent a reasonable basis for so classifying, a state cannot close the public schools in one area while, at the same time, it maintains schools elsewhere with public funds.' ( Serrano I, supra, 5 Cal.3d at p. 612, quoting Hall v. St. Helena Parish, supra, 197 F. Supp. at pp. 651, 656.) Serrano I further noted a second group of cases, dealing with apportionment [of votes], [in which] the high court has held that accidents of geography and arbitrary boundary lines of local government can afford no ground for discrimination among a state's citizens. [Citation.] ... If a voter's address may not determine the weight to which his ballot is entitled, surely it should not determine the quality of his child's education. [Fn.] ( Serrano I, supra, 5 Cal.3d at p. 613.) Finally, Serrano I rejected the State's claim that plaintiffs' wealth-discrimination theory would apply equally, and with disastrous effect, to all public services dependent in part on local property taxes. [W]e are satisfied, the majority concluded, that whatever the status of other public services, its uniqueness among public activities clearly demonstrates that education must respond to the command of the equal protection clause. ( Serrano I, supra, 5 Cal.3d at p. 614, italics in original.) In San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez (1973) 411 U.S. 1 [36 L.Ed.2d 16, 93 S.Ct. 1278], decided after Serrano I, the United States Supreme Court declined to subject Texas's similar local-property-tax based school financing scheme to heightened scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Rodriguez majority concluded that a school finance scheme dependent on district tax values does not discriminate against the poor as a distinct class; in any event, the majority observed, wealth alone had never been deemed a suspect classification for federal purposes. Moreover, the majority reasoned, education is not a fundamental interest protected by the federal Constitution. Therefore finding the strict scrutiny standard of review inapplicable, the majority upheld Texas's system as rationally related to that state's policy of local control of schools. (411 U.S. at pp. 18-55.) Nonetheless, in Serrano v. Priest (1976) 18 Cal.3d 728 [135 Cal. Rptr. 345, 557 P.2d 929] ( Serrano II ), this court reaffirmed the reasoning and result of Serrano I as required by the separate equal protection guaranties of the California Constitution. ( Serrano II, supra, 18 Cal.3d at pp. 760-768.) Among other things, Serrano II reiterated that for California purposes, education remains a fundamental interest which [lies] at the core of our free and representative form of government. .... ( Id., at pp. 767-768.) Hence, Serrano II declared, [i]n applying our state constitutional provisions guaranteeing equal protection of the laws we shall continue to apply strict and searching judicial scrutiny to claims of discriminatory educational classifications. ( Serrano II, supra, at p. 767.) More recent cases confirm that education is a fundamental interest under the California equal protection guaranties (e.g., Steffes v. California Interscholastic Federation (1986) 176 Cal. App.3d 739, 746 [222 Cal. Rptr. 355]) and that the unique importance of public education in California's constitutional scheme requires careful scrutiny of state interference with basic educational rights (see, e.g., Hartzell v. Connell (1984) 35 Cal.3d 899, 906-909 [201 Cal. Rptr. 601, 679 P.2d 35] [scope of free school guarantee]). In Tinsley v. Palo Alto Unified School Dist., supra, 91 Cal. App.3d 871, parents sought mandate requiring several neighboring San Mateo and Santa Clara County school districts, the State, and certain State school officials, to submit a plan for the redress of interdistrict racial segregation in the affected locality. The petitioners declined to allege any specific acts committed by State or local parties as the cause of the interdistrict imbalance. The State respondents answered the petition, but the districts successfully demurred, and the petition was dismissed as to them. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the California Constitution, unlike its federal counterpart as construed in Milliken v. Bradley (1974) 418 U.S. 717 [41 L.Ed.2d 1069, 94 S.Ct. 3112], contemplates interdistrict relief to remedy mere de facto racial imbalance which extends across district lines. ( Tinsley, supra, 91 Cal. App.3d at pp. 899-907.) Several aspects of the Tinsley decision emphasize the State's ultimate responsibility for maintaining a nondiscriminatory common school system. At the outset, the districts asserted that an appeal was premature under the one final judgment rule, because as mere agencies of the State, which had not demurred, they had no separate legal interests which an appeal from their dismissal could finally resolve. The Court of Appeal observed that if the districts' claim of mere agency was correct, any relief ordered against the State would necessarily affect them, and the judgment dismissing them from the action should therefore be reversed. In any event, the court concluded, the premise of identical interests did not bear scrutiny, because while [t]he local districts, as agents, may have limited powers in interdistrict affairs, ... the state ... has plenary powers in all school district affairs.... ( Tinsley, supra, 91 Cal. App.3d at pp. 880-881.) Turning to the merits, Tinsley dismissed the majority reasoning in Milliken insofar as based on the federal rule, long rejected in California (see Crawford v. Board of Education (1976) 17 Cal.3d 280 [130 Cal. Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28]; Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist., supra, 59 Cal.2d 876), that only de jure racial segregation is a constitutional violation. ( Tinsley, supra, 91 Cal. App.3d at p. 903.) Tinsley also distinguished the Milliken majority's concern that it would disrupt and alter Michigan's entrenched system of local control of schools to impose an interdistrict remedy for Detroit city school segregation without proof that the state or affected suburban districts had engaged in intentional segregative conduct. The Tinsley court noted, among other things, that in California, the State shares responsibility with the local entities it has created to provide equal educational opportunity to the youth of the state and has a duty to intervene to prevent unconstitutional discrimination in its schools. ( Id., at pp. 903-904.) [13] It therefore appears well settled that the California Constitution makes public education uniquely a fundamental concern of the State and prohibits maintenance and operation of the common public school system in a way which denies basic educational equality to the students of particular districts. The State itself bears the ultimate authority and responsibility to ensure that its district-based system of common schools provides basic equality of educational opportunity. The State claims it need only ensure the six-month minimum term guaranteed by the free school clause (Cal. Const., art. IX, ง 5). This contention, however, misconstrues the basis of the trial court's decision. Whatever the requirements of the free school guaranty, the equal protection clause precludes the State from maintaining its common school system in a manner that denies the students of one district an education basically equivalent to that provided elsewhere throughout the State. The State argues that even if the District's fiscal problems threatened its students' basic educational equality, any State duty to redress the discrimination must be judged under the most lenient standard of equal protection review. The State reasons as follows: Plaintiffs do not claim discrimination on the suspect basis of race. Nor is wealth-based discrimination at issue; as all parties concede, the District received the full benefit of the equalized funding system mandated by our Serrano decisions. At most, plaintiffs assert that a misuse of equalized funds by the District's officials caused a geographical disparity in service. Because residence and geography are not suspect classifications, the State's failure to prevent educational discrimination on those grounds is not subject to strict scrutiny. Rather, State inaction must be accepted as rationally related to the legitimate State policy of local control of schools. (5) However, both federal and California decisions make clear that heightened scrutiny applies to State-maintained discrimination whenever the disfavored class is suspect or the disparate treatment has a real and appreciable impact on a fundamental right or interest. ( Plyler v. Doe (1982) 457 U.S. 202, 216-217 [72 L.Ed.2d 786, 102 S.Ct. 2382]; Shapiro v. Thompson (1969) 394 U.S. 618, 634 [22 L.Ed.2d 600, 614-615, 89 S.Ct. 1322]; Darces v. Woods (1984) 35 Cal.3d 871, 885, 888 [201 Cal. Rptr. 807, 679 P.2d 458]; Fair Political Practices Com. v. Superior Court (1979) 25 Cal.3d 33, 47 [157 Cal. Rptr. 855, 599 P.2d 46]; Serrano II, supra, 18 Cal.3d 728, 761, 767-768; Weber v. City Council (1973) 9 Cal.3d 950, 959 [109 Cal. Rptr. 553, 513 P.2d 601]; Serrano I, supra, 5 Cal.3d 584, 597; Westbrook v. Mihaly (1970) 2 Cal.3d 765, 784-785 [87 Cal. Rptr. 839, 471 P.2d 487].) As we have seen, education is such a fundamental interest for purposes of equal protection analysis under the California Constitution. (3c) The State suggests there was no showing that the impact of the threatened closure on District students' fundamental right to basic educational equality was real and appreciable. Of course, the Constitution does not prohibit all disparities in educational quality or service. Despite extensive State regulation and standardization (see discussion, post ), the experience offered by our vast and diverse public school system undoubtedly differs to a considerable degree among districts, schools, and individual students. These distinctions arise from inevitable variances in local programs, philosophies, and conditions. [A] requirement that [the State] provide [strictly] `equal' educational opportunities would thus seem to present an entirely unworkable standard requiring impossible measurements and comparisons.... ( Hendrick Hudson Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Rowley (1982) 458 U.S. 176, 198 [73 L.Ed.2d 690, 707, 102 S.Ct. 3034].) Moreover, principles of equal protection have never required the State to remedy all ills or eliminate all variances in service. Accordingly, the California Constitution does not guarantee uniformity of term length for its own sake. While the current statutory system for allocating State educational funds strongly encourages a term of at least 175 days (see fn. 14, post, at p. 687), that system is not constitutionally based and is subject to change. In an uncertain future, local districts, faced with mounting fiscal pressures, may be forced to seek creative ways to gain maximum educational benefit from limited resources. In such circumstances, a planned reduction of overall term length might be compensated by other means, such as extended daily hours, more intensive lesson plans, summer sessions, volunteer programs, and the like. An individual district's efforts in this regard are entitled to considerable deference. Even unplanned truncation of the intended school term will not necessarily constitute a denial of basic educational equality. A finding of constitutional disparity depends on the individual facts. Unless the actual quality of the district's program, viewed as a whole, falls fundamentally below prevailing statewide standards, no constitutional violation occurs. Here, however, plaintiffs' preliminary showing suggested that closure of the District's schools on May 1, 1991, would cause an extreme and unprecedented disparity in educational service and progress. District students faced the sudden loss of the final six weeks, or almost one-fifth, of the standard school term originally intended by the District and provided everywhere else in California. [14] The record indicates that the decision to close early was a desperate, unplanned response to the District's impending insolvency and the impasse in negotiations for further emergency State aid. [15] Several District teachers declared that they were operating on standard-term lesson schedules made at the beginning of the school year. These declarants outlined in detail how the proposed early closure would prevent them from completing instruction and grading essential for academic promotion, high school graduation, and college entrance. [16] Faced with evidence of such extensive educational disruption, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the proposed closure would have a real and appreciable impact on the affected students' fundamental California right to basic educational equality. The State asserts that its financial obligation to equal education is limited to the equalized system of interdistrict funding required by our Serrano decisions. Once revenues are fairly apportioned at the beginning of each school year, the State insists, it cannot be constitutionally liable for how local officials manage the funds. Nothing in the Serrano cases themselves, or in other California decisions, supports the State's argument. On the contrary, the cases suggest that the State's responsibility for basic equality in its system of common schools extends beyond the detached role of fair funder or fair legislator. In extreme circumstances at least, the State has a duty to intervene to prevent unconstitutional discrimination at the local level. ( Tinsley, supra, 91 Cal. App.3d at p. 904.) The State's most vigorous contention is that its nonintervention should have been upheld even under the strict scrutiny standard of equal protection analysis. Allowing the District's students to absorb the consequences of District mismanagement, the State urges, was necessary to preserve the State's compelling educational policy of local autonomy and accountability. However, the State fails to demonstrate a policy of local control so compelling as to justify State tolerance of the extreme local educational deprivation at issue here. In the first place, the local-district system of school administration, though recognized by the Constitution and deeply rooted in tradition, is not a constitutional mandate, but a legislative choice. (See Cal. Const., art. IX, งง 6 1/2, 14.) The Constitution has always vested plenary power over education not in the districts, but in the State, through its Legislature, which may create, dissolve, combine, modify, and regulate local districts at pleasure. (See Tinsley, supra, 91 Cal. App.3d at p. 904.) The legislative decision to emphasize local administration does not end the State's constitutional responsibility for basic equality in the operation of its common school system. Nor does disagreement with the fiscal practices of a local district outweigh the rights of its blameless students to basic educational equality. Moreover, though the Constitution and statutes encourage maximum local program and spending authority consistent with State law (Cal. Const., art. IX, ง 14; Ed. Code, งง 14000, 35160, 35160.1), the degree of supervision voluntarily retained by the State over the common school system is high indeed. The volume and scope of State regulation indicate the pervasive role the State itself has chosen to assume in order to ensure a fair, high quality public education for all California students. School finance aside, the statutes address at length such matters as county and district organization, elections, and governance (งง 4000-5450, 35000-35780); educational programs, instructional materials, and proficiency testing (งง 51000-62008); sex discrimination and affirmative action (งง 40-41, 200-263, 44100-44105); admission standards (งง 48000-48053); compulsory attendance (งง 48200-48416); school facilities (งง 39000-40048); rights and responsibilities of students and parents (งง 48900-49079); holidays (งง 37220-37223); school health, safety, and nutrition (ง 32000-32254, 49300-49570); teacher credentialing and certification (ง 44200-44481); rights and duties of public school employees (ง 44000-44104, 44800-45460; see also Gov. Code งง 3540-3549.3 [organizational and bargaining rights]); and the pension system for public school teachers (ง 22000-24924). The statutory scheme has spawned further voluminous regulations administered by the State's Department of Education and the SPI. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 5, งง 1-23005.) This long-established level of State involvement in the public education system undermines any claim that local control is a paramount and compelling State policy for all purposes. Nor is there any indication that the State has had a compelling policy of absolute budgetary freedom and responsibility for local districts. On the contrary, during the years in which the District's deficit developed, districts were required to adopt budgets meeting State standards, and to submit them for oversight and approval by county and State authorities. (งง 33127, former งง 42120-42129.) Failure to adopt a conforming budget precluded State or county funding of the district (former ง 42128), and a district was required to operate under its most recent approved budget (former ง 42127.4). The State argues that by saddling the District with long-term debt to cover short-term operations, the trial court's orders undermine the District's future financial health and compromise its ability to provide basic educational equivalency in years to come. The State also urges that other districts will feel free to overspend if encouraged to believe in the availability of State relief. These are indeed troubling concerns, but we cannot accept the implication that the State deems them compelling. In fact, the State itself has endorsed a policy of emergency conditional loan assistance to districts in financial difficulty. Under statutes in effect since 1977, distressed districts may, through the SPI, seek specific legislative apportionments for emergency loans. (งง 41310, 41310.5, 41320 et seq.) As a condition of such aid, a district must prepare a financial recovery plan and obtain approval of the plan from the county superintendent and the SPI. (ง 41320.) The district must also accept a temporary SPI-appointed trustee with veto power over financially significant actions of the local governing board. (ง 41320.1.) The District itself had received a $9,525,000 conditional State loan under this program in spring 1990 (Stats. 1990, ch. 171, ง 3), and its operations were already being monitored by a State trustee at the time closure of District schools was threatened in April 1991. The 1989 Legislature had also appropriated $10 million for a similar emergency loan-with-trustee to the OUSD. (Stats. 1989, ch. 1438, งง 1-11.) Under these circumstances, the State cannot claim it follows a compelling policy of local control by declining to intervene when financial adversity threatens a district's operations. Shortly before this lawsuit began, the District faced the prospect of further legislative intervention in its crisis. Assembly Bill No. 128, 1991-1992 Regular Session (A.B. 128), as introduced in December 1990 and thereafter amended, would have appropriated an additional $29 million for emergency loans to the District. Acceptance of the proposed loan would have subjected the District to unprecedented restrictions on self-government. These included a temporary takeover of all District affairs by an SPI-appointed administrator pending approval and implementation of a plan for financial recovery and loan repayment. The administrator would have had broad power, among others, to unilaterally determine wages and benefits for all District employees who, as of April 29, 1991, were not covered by ratified collective bargaining agreements meeting the requirements of an approved recovery plan. (A.B. 128, Sen. Amend. of Jan. 18, 1991, งง 2, 5.) A.B. 128 failed passage, but that fact does not suggest a compelling policy against emergency State financial assistance to a local district. On the contrary, the State has forged into the realm of emergency assistance and control, using the specific appropriation requirement (ง 41320) to decide on a case-by-case basis whether, and on what terms, it will intervene. The State claims that emergency assistance to mismanaged districts contravenes the compelling principle of equalized funding established in our Serrano decisions. As we have seen, however, nothing in the Serrano cases, which addressed wealth-based disparities in district revenues, prohibits emergency State assistance to a particular district which is experiencing financial difficulties despite its receipt of equalized funding. [17] Finally, nothing in our analysis is intended to immunize local school officials from accountability for mismanagement, or to suggest that they may indulge in fiscal irresponsibility without penalty. The State is constitutionally free to legislate against any recurrence of the Richmond crisis. It may further tighten budgetary oversight, impose prudent, nondiscriminatory conditions on emergency State aid, and authorize intervention by State education officials to stabilize the management of local districts whose imprudent policies have threatened their fiscal integrity. To the extent such conditions compromise local autonomy and mortgage a district's future, they are not calculated to persuade local officials or their constituents that mismanagement and profligacy will be rewarded. Indeed, in response to this case, the Legislature and the Governor have already agreed to tighter county and State control of local district budgets and spending. [18] Under certain circumstances, this new legislation requires the SPI's complete takeover of an insolvent district as a precondition of an emergency State appropriation. [19] Thus, the State has already made vast inroads on the principle that local control is paramount to State intervention in an insolvent district's affairs. The State's plenary power over education includes ample means to discourage future mismanagement in the day-to-day operations of local districts. In sum, the California Constitution guarantees basic equality in public education, regardless of district residence. Because education is a fundamental interest in California, denials of basic educational equality on the basis of district residence are subject to strict scrutiny. The State is the entity with ultimate responsibility for equal operation of the common school system. Accordingly, the State is obliged to intervene when a local district's fiscal problems would otherwise deny its students basic educational equality, unless the State can demonstrate a compelling reason for failing to do so. The preliminary facts before the trial court support the inference that the District's impending failure to complete the final six weeks of its scheduled school term would cause educational disruption sufficient to deprive District students of basic educational equality. The State has identified no compelling interest which negated its duty to intervene. We therefore find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's conclusion that plaintiffs' constitutional claims had potential merit. [20]