Opinion ID: 718814
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Colorado Charter Schools Act

Text: 23 We conduct plenary review of the district court's determination that the Parents have failed to establish that the Charter Schools Act passed by the Colorado legislature violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Patton v. TIC United Corp., 77 F.3d 1235, 1245 (10th Cir.1996). We begin our review with the venerable presumption that the acts of a state legislature are constitutional. See Parham v. Hughes, 441 U.S. 347, 351, 99 S.Ct. 1742, 1745-46, 60 L.Ed.2d 269 (1979) (employing the presumption of validity against a challenge under the Equal Protection Clause). Moreover, courts pay particular deference to the states in decisions involving the most persistent and difficult questions of educational policy because our lack of specialized knowledge and experience counsels against premature interference with the informed judgments made at the state and local levels. San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 42, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 1301, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973). The very complexity of the problems of financing and managing a statewide public school system suggests that 'there will be more than one constitutionally permissible method of solving them,' and that, within the limits of rationality, 'the legislature's efforts to tackle the problems' should be entitled to respect. Id. (quoting Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U.S. 535, 546-47, 92 S.Ct. 1724, 1731, 32 L.Ed.2d 285 (1972)). 24 Such deference is abandoned, though, when a legislative act either disadvantages a suspect class or impinges upon the exercise of a fundamental right. See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216-17, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2394-95, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982). The Parents challenge the provision of the Act that reserves thirteen charters for applications which are designed to increase the educational opportunities of at-risk pupils, Colo.Rev.Stat. § 22-30.5-109(2)(a), because they allege that it creates a suspect classification. The Act defines at-risk pupils as those who, because of physical, emotional, socioeconomic, or cultural factors, [are] less likely to succeed in a conventional educational environment. Id. § 22-30.5-103(1)(a). The Parents argue that the word cultural in this definition is a code-word for ethnic minority, and that the Act therefore separates and classifies students according to race and ethnicity. See Aplts' Br. at 31-33. Such criteria are traditionally suspect and would thus trigger strict scrutiny, which is almost always fatal to a classification. See Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 519, 100 S.Ct. 2758, 2795-96, 65 L.Ed.2d 902 (1980) (Marshall, J., concurring). 25 We share the Parents' concern with the practice of drawing classifications based on culture, which might in some circumstances be used as a proxy for ethnicity, race, national origin or some other suspect classification. However, we believe that, reading the Act in its entirety, it simply does not create any classification of students, and therefore it cannot create a suspect classification. The Act expressly requires of charter schools that [e]nrollment must be open to any child who resides within the school district and that [e]nrollment decisions shall be made in a nondiscriminatory manner. Colo.Rev.Stat. § 22-30.5-104(3). Moreover, under the Colorado Public Schools of Choice Act, id. §§ 22-36-101 to -106, enrollment in any public school generally is open to any child in Colorado, id. § 22-36-101. Hence, charter schools designed to increase the educational opportunities of at-risk pupils must admit on an equal basis applicants who are not so classified, and, conversely, at-risk students are not required to attend such schools but may attend any public school they and their parents choose. Therefore, even though we might agree in other contexts that treating students differently on the basis of culture could trigger strict scrutiny, the carefully crafted provisions of the Act mandating open enrollment and expressly proscribing discrimination convince us that no suspect classification has been created. 3 Because the Act creates no suspect classification, and because no fundamental right is alleged to be affected, the correct standard is whether the challenged state action rationally furthers a legitimate state purpose. McGinnis v. Royster, 410 U.S. 263, 270, 93 S.Ct. 1055, 1059-60, 35 L.Ed.2d 282 (1973). 26 One of the stated purposes of the Act is to allow communities to create new, innovative, and more flexible ways of educating all children within the public school system. Colo.Rev.Stat. § 22-30.5-102(3). Colorado has a legitimate interest in encouraging innovation in education. See Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 50, 93 S.Ct. at 1305 (No area of social concern stands to profit more from a multiplicity of viewpoints and from a diversity of approaches than does public education.). We hold that the Charter Schools Act is rationally related to that interest.