Opinion ID: 1113751
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: right to adequate educational opportunity

Text: Plaintiffs raise a related, but distinct, claim that they have the right to an adequate education under the Alabama constitution. It would, of course, be possible for the state to offer plaintiffs equal educational opportunity but still offer them virtually no opportunity at all. The question, thus, is whether the right to a public education guaranteed by Section 256 has any substantive content aside from any requirement of equality. The Court holds that such content is fairly inferred from this provision. Education has long held a special place in Alabama's constitutional order. Every constitution since statehood has recognized the importance of public education and expressly imposed responsibility on the state to take affirmative steps to provide education to Alabama's children. Each of the six Alabama constitutions since 1819 has contained express provisions relating to education, and with each new constitution Alabama's stated commitment to education has become stronger. The Constitution of 1819, Alabama's first constitution after statehood, declared in Article VI: Schools, and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged in this state. Ala. Const. of 1819, art. VI. This education clause further provided that: [T]he general assembly shall take measures to preserve, from unnecessary waste and damage, such lands as are or hereafter may be granted by the United States for the use of schools within each township in this state, and apply the funds, which may be raised from such lands, in strict conformity to the object of such grant. Id. Article VI of the 1861 constitution was identical to this provision. With these provisions, both the 1819 constitution and the 1861 Constitution acknowledged the importance of education and imposed a strict duty on the legislature to see that funds raised from federal lands granted for the use of schools (one sixteenth of each township was so designated) were applied in conformity with this purpose. Beginning with the 1865 Constitution, the state was expressly directed to enact laws for the encouragement of education and the promotion of schools. The 1868 Constitution created a state board of education, and in Article XI, § 6 imposed a duty on the state: to establish, throughout the state, in each township, or school district which it may have created, one or more schools at which all the children of the state, between the ages of five and twenty-one years, may attend free of charge. Ala. Const. of 1868, art. XI, § 6. In addition, one-fifth of total state revenues were dedicated exclusively to the maintenance of public schools. Ala. Const. of 1868, art. XI, § 11. The 1875 constitution continued to impose upon the state an obligation to provide Alabama's schoolchildren with a public education. For the first time, the constitution spoke of the obligation to organize a system of public schools: The General Assembly shall establish, organize, and maintain a system of public schools throughout the State, for the equal benefit of the children thereof between the ages of seven and twenty-one years ... Ala. Const. of 1875, art. XIII, § 1. In addition to the funds derived from federal land grants and certain other earmarked revenues, the 1875 constitution mandated an annual legislative appropriation of $100,000 for the support and maintenance of public schools and further provided that it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to increase, from time to time, the public school fund, as the condition of the treasury and the resources of the state will admit. Ala. Const. of 1875, art. XIII, § 5. The drafters of the 1875 Constitution promoted public education as one of the highest duties of government. The President of the Constitutional Convention opened the proceedings by stating: Republican institutions rest upon the common intelligence of the people; therefore, one of the highest duties of Republican Government is the education of the massesfor there can be no progress without education as there is no civilization without intelligence. Journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1875 at 5-6. Writing in the years after the adoption of the 1875 Constitution, Superintendent of Education Solomon Parker wrote that the demand for free public schools sustained and controlled by the state was so potent.... that their establishment and maintenance are solemnly enjoined by the fundamental law of the State.... No system can accomplish these great endsso indispensable to good governmentwithout ample means, faithful school officials and competent teachers, which the State is under obligation to furnish. Palmer Report. The 1901 Constitution continued and broadened the state's responsibility for assuring Alabama schoolchildren the right to an education at public expense. This constitution declared that it was the obligation of the state to establish, organize, and maintain a liberal system of public schools throughout the state for the benefit of the children thereof between the ages of seven and twenty-one years. Ala. Const. art. xiv, § 256. And it strengthened the language of the education article of the 1875 constitution to read, in part: [I]t shall be the duty of the legislature to increase the public school fund from time to time as the necessity therefor and the condition of the treasury and resources of the state may justify.... Id., § 260. The history of the 1901 constitution makes clear the framers' strong commitment to education. President Knox declared in his opening statement the importance of a well regulated system of public schools, so as to place within the reach of every child in the state.... such instruction as will qualify him for the responsible duties of life. Official Proceedings at 15. Dr. Harvey provided additional evidence at trial that the framers were firmly committed to the education of Alabama's schoolchildren. The framers' firm commitment to education is reflected in the strong language that they employed in the education clause of the 1901 constitution. Section 256, the education provision now in effect, directs that the state's system of public schools must be a liberal system. Ala. Const. art. XIV, § 256. The Court accepts as the prevailing interpretation of liberal at the time of the framing of the 1901 constitution that offered by Dr. Harvey and Dr. Flynt at trial as historically correct: generous, bountiful, and broad-based in the sense of preparing one for future citizenship. See Vincent v. County Board of Education, 222 Ala. 216, 131 So. 893, 894 (1931) (Liberal ... [a]s applied to the public school system ... intends a system as generous and bountiful as a just consideration of the limited power of taxation and the varied needs of the state will in reason justify.) (emphasis added). This Court finds that the ordinary meaning of these words, common to the understanding at the time of its adoption by the people, McGee, 341 So.2d at 143, is a system of public schools that is generous and broad-based in its provision of educational opportunity and that meets evolving standards of educational adequacy. American statesmen and political theorists have long used the word liberal to connote an education that is broad and generous in its provision. For example, John Adams, our second President and a thoughful commentator on the nation's government and institutions, declared that laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that no expense for such a humane purpose would be extravagant. Palmer Report at xcvi. Thomas Jefferson, in Public and Private Papers, A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, Section I (Vintage 1990) at 39, cited illumination of the minds of the people as the most effectual means of preventing tyranny; the representatives who make and administer laws, he said, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and ... they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance. Id. Here in Alabama, the preamble to the 1854 Act to Establish and Maintain a System of Free Public Schools in Alabama stated that one of its purposes was to extend to all the children of the state the inestimable blessings of liberal instruction. 1853-54 Ala. Acts 6 (emphasis added). The history of the 1901 constitution supports plaintiffs' contention that a liberal system of education is a generous one. As sentiment in Alabama grew for calling what became the 1901 constitutional convention, State Superintendent of Education John O. Turner urged that provision of a liberal education be foremost in any new constitution: The only way to make Alabama able to support a public school system is to educate her people and they will become prosperous. This will have to come first, poverty or no poverty. There is not an example to the contrary in the history of mankind. Education is the greatest agency of prosperity. If you are anxious for the prosperity of your people, then you will lose no time in giving them a liberal education. Intelligence is a great money maker. If you wish to make Alabama grow in wealth and progress, you must have general intelligence and skilled labor. Let it be the foremost principle of your new Constitution, if you really intend to hold a Constitutional convention. Superintendent John O. Turner, Speech Before the Southern Education Association, Annual Session 1896 Mobile, Alabama, December 30, 1896 (hereafter, Turner Speech ) (emphasis added). Governor Joseph F. Johnston's message to the General Assembly on December 1, 1896, addressing the need for a new state constitution, also emphasized the importance of a renewed and strengthened state commitment to public education. Speaking not long before the constitutional convention was held that produced the current Alabama constitution, Governor Johnston remarked: The State has a vital interest in each citizen, in his morality, his intelligence and his capacities, as the average intelligence rises, the value of citizenship increases. We are pledged to develop our public schools to the limit of fair taxation and this pledge must be rigidly adhered to and faithfully kept with the people who have trusted us. We can better afford to reduce salaries, diminish the number of courts and abolish many offices rather than put the knife into a dollar appropriation for our free schools. The most wasteful profligacy would be the checking of the growth of education, now making but feeble progress. Printed with Turner Speech at 23. In addition to the word liberal, it is significant that Section 256 mandates not only the establishment, but also the organization and maintenance of a system of public schools throughout the state. By imposing upon the state a duty to organize and maintain a system of education, § 256 also implies a continuing obligation to ensure compliance with evolving educational standards. Section 256's requirement that the system operate for the benefit of school-age children likewise obligates the state to provide its children with an education that will in fact benefit them by offering them appropriate preparation for the responsible duties of life. The Alabama courts have long emphasized that the Alabama constitution is to be given a broad and generous reading. The Alabama Supreme Court has stated that unlike statutes, [c]onstitutions are always intended to lay down general principles. State v. Adams, 2 Stew. at 238. As the Adams Court stated: It is obvious, then, that a constitution must be liberally construed, with the view of effectuating the intention of its framers; and with that the history of the time in which it was framed, the manner most efficient in securing its objects, and the restraints intended to be imposed and the privileges intended to be granted, must all be taken into consideration in giving a construction to these instruments. Id. at 238-39. In the instant case, the factors that must guide this Court in the construction of § 256 all point to the same conclusion. This Court finds that the state of Alabama has a strong historical commitment to education that it has expressed with increasing force in each of its six constitutions. And this Court finds that § 256 of the 1901 constitution, in its requirement that the state establish, organize, and maintain a liberal system of public schools throughout the state for the benefit of the children thereof, requires the state to provide schoolchildren with an education that will qualify [them] for the responsible duties of life. Official Proceedings at 15. A system of public schools that provides all children with a minimally adequate education is the only kind of system that conforms with a liberal reading of the constitutional text, comports with the intent of the provision's framers, and grants the intended beneficiaries of this provision the privileges intended to be granted. Governor Hunt suggests that the right to education contained in the constitution is a weak one that is almost devoid of substantive content. This Court finds that this view is not supported by the text and history of § 256. To the contrary, the Court finds that the Alabama constitution's education guarantee is one that accords schoolchildren of the state the right to a quality education that is generous in its provision and that meets minimum standards of adequacy. [48] In reaching the decision that it does today, this Court is mindful that courts in numerous other states have found that their own state constitutions contain substantive rights to education. See, e.g., Rose, 790 S.W.2d at 210; Pauley v. Kelly, 162 W.Va. 672, 255 S.E.2d 859 (1979); Seattle School District No. 1 v. State, 90 Wash.2d 476, 585 P.2d 71 (1978); Abbot v. Burke, 119 N.J. 287, 575 A.2d 359 (1990). Opinions such as these are of course not binding upon Alabama courts, but other courts' interpretations of their respective state constitutions can provide useful guidance to the courts of this state. As the Kentucky Supreme Court has noted, opinions of this kind show that courts may, should, and have involved themselves in defining the standards of a constitutionally mandated educational system. Rose, 790 S.W.2d at 210. In Seattle School District No. 1, the Washington Supreme Court approved the trial court's conclusion that ample in the education clause of the state's constitution means liberal, unrestrained, without parsimony, fully sufficient, and noted that what is ample changes with the times: [T]o suggest that the State fulfills its duty to make such provision by merely providing more acceptable educational facilities than those of 1889 is utter nonsense. We cannot ignore the fact that times have changed and that which may have been ample in 1889 may be wholly unsuited for children confronted with contemporary demands wholly unknown to the constitutional convention. However, to recognize changing times is not to change the constitution. Quite to the contrary. We must interpret the constitution in accordance with the demands of modern society or it will be in constant danger of becoming atrophied and, in fact, may even lose its original meaning. Seattle School District No. 1, 585 P.2d at 94. In Abbott v. Burke, 119 N.J. 287, 575 A.2d 359, 410 (1990), the New Jersey Supreme Court defined a constitutionally sufficient education under its state constitution's education clause as one that will equip all the students of this state to perform their roles as citizens and competitors in the same society. In Rose, the Kentucky Supreme Court considered other state court decisions such as Pauley v. Kelly , along with Kentucky constitutional history and case law and opinions of experts, and concluded that the Kentucky constitution mandated that the state provide schoolchildren with an adequate education. See Rose, 790 S.W.2d at 212. The West Virginia Court defined the education required by its state constitution's education clause as one that: develops, as best the state of educational expertise allows, the minds, bodies and social morality of its charges to prepare them for useful and happy occupations, recreation and citizenship, and does so economically. Pauley, 255 S.E.2d at 877. The Rose Court defined an adequate education as one that has as its goal the development of the following seven capacities: (i) sufficient oral and written communication skills to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly changing civilization; (ii) sufficient knowledge of economic, social, and political systems to enable the student to understand the issues that affect his or her community, state, and nation; (iv) sufficient self-knowledge and knowledge of his or her mental and physical wellness; (v) sufficient grounding in the arts to enable each student to appreciate his or her cultural and historical heritage; (vi) sufficient training or preparation for advanced training in either academic or vocational fields so as to enable each child to choose and pursue life work intelligently; and (vii) sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills to enable public school students to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states, in academics or in the job market. Rose, 790 S.W.2d at 212. The Court, after careful consideration of the text, history, and purpose of § 256, and the expert evidence and the record in this case, concludes that § 256's mandate of a liberal system of public schools dictates certain standards of adequacy for Alabama schools, as set forth in the Court's order. Plaintiffs in this case have presented a stark record of educational deficiencies in schools across Alabama. They have shown serious shortcomings in facilities, curriculum, staffing, supplies, textbooks, transportation, special education, and other areas. They contend that the education that they are being provided by the state of Alabama deprives them of adequate educational opportunity and does not comport with the substantive requirements of a liberal system of education. For the foregoing reasons, this Court agrees that the education provided to plaintiffs is not adequate to meet the requirements imposed upon the state by § 256 and is therefore not in conformity with the Alabama constitution.