Opinion ID: 2521572
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lujan and Booth

Text: The majority holds that our decision in Lujan v. Colorado State Board of Education, 649 P.2d 1005 (Colo.1982), reaffirmed the marriage of funding and control. There, we reviewed the constitutionality of the entire state school finance system. Because of varying property values throughout the state, some school districts were able to raise more revenue than other school districts, producing a disparity of funding among the various school districts in the state. Id. at 1013-14. The plaintiffs challenged that system, arguing that it violated the Equal Protection Clauses of the United States and Colorado Constitutions. Id. at 1014. We reviewed the constitutionality of the school finance system under a rational basis review. Along those lines, we stated that to uphold the school finance system, the system had to be reasonably related to furthering a legitimate state purpose. Id. at 1022. Because the General Assembly had not identified a purpose with particularity, we had to infer the purpose from the statute itself as well as from other relevant enactments. As part of that inquiry, we reviewed the history of Colorado's educational system along with selected constitutional provisions and interpretive case law. Id. at 1023. Citing to article IX, section 15 of the Colorado Constitution, as well as to Union High School No. 1, among other cases, we stated that [t]he historical development of public education in Colorado has been centered on the philosophy of local control. Id. at 1021. We explained that [t]axation of local property has not only been the primary means of funding local education, but also of insuring that the local citizenry direct the business of providing public school education in their school district. Id. Thus, because the philosophy of local control was a pervasive theme both in the constitution and in our cases, we inferred that the purpose of the school finance system was to ensure local control. Id. at 1023. Importantly, however, we made these pronouncements not to construe or interpret article IX, section 15, but only to identify the legislative purpose underlying the state school finance system. We stated that utilizing local property taxation to partly finance Colorado's schools is rationally related to effectuating local control over public schools. Id. Thus, we relied on the Belier line of cases only to support the conclusion that the purpose of the Public School Finance Act was to ensure local control through local funding. We did not hold that such funding was the purpose of article IX, section 15. Instead, the real import of Lujan is its emphasis on the complimentary constitutional roles of the state and local entities in providing public education. Far from enshrining the notion that local control equals local funding, Lujan underscores the necessary balance of control between the state and the local school district that must be considered in reviewing any piece of educational legislation. Indeed, we specifically stated that judicial intrusions into the decisions of the General Assembly are to be avoided, especially ... where the controversy ... is essentially directed toward what is the best public policy which can be adopted to attain quality schooling and equal educational opportunity for all children who attend our public schools. Lujan, 649 P.2d at 1018. In Lujan, we did, indeed, recognize very important principles-but not, in my view, the ones that the majority endorses. Rather, we recognized that every eligible student in the state has a right to a free and thorough education, and that both the state and the local governmental entities have a role in fulfilling that promise. Id. at 1025. Hence, the actions of the general assembly must be judged against its charge to provide a free and uniform system of public schools within each school district, and against whatever level of control is needed by the local school district to implement the state's mandate. Id. That pronouncement hearkened back to Wilmore v. Annear, 100 Colo. 106, 115, 65 P.2d 1433, 1437 (1937), where we held that the establishment and financial maintenance of the public schools of the state is the carrying out of a state and not a local or municipal purpose. Indeed, [b]y vesting the power in districts to levy and collect taxes for the support of the school or schools in such districts, the state was but adopting a means for carrying out its purposes. Id. Wilmore made clear that local funding is a mechanism to implement the state-wide responsibility regarding education; it is not an end to itself. Against that backdrop, and affording the legislature a strong presumption of constitutionality, we upheld the state's system of public funding in Lujan. 649 P.2d at 1025. Lujan stands for the proposition that both the general assembly and the local school board have a role in assuring that we meet our educational responsibilities. That careful balancing of responsibilities is even clearer in our most recent relevant case, Board of Education of School District No. 1 v. Booth, 984 P.2d 639 (Colo.1999). In Booth, we reviewed a constitutional challenge to a portion of the Charter Schools Act, section 22-30.5-108(3), 7A C.R.S. (2003). The statute at issue in that case permitted an applicant charter school to appeal to the state board of education a local school district's denial of its application. The statute instructed the state board to determine whether the local school board's denial of the application was `contrary to the best interests of the pupils, school district, or community.' Id. at 643 (quoting § 22-30.5-108(3)(d)). If the state board found that the local school board's decision was contrary to those interests, the statute directed it to remand the decision back to the local board `with instructions to approve the charter application.'  Id. (quoting § 22-30.5-108(3)(d)). In that case, the local school board had denied a charter school application. On appeal, finding that the denial of the application was contrary to the best interests of the pupils, school district, or local community, the state board ordered the local board to approve the application. Id. at 644. The local school board challenged that decision, arguing that the appeal provision of section 22-30.5-108(3) violated the control of instruction clause of article IX, section 15, because it interfered with the management of local resources. Id. at 645. The state board countered that the statute was constitutional because it was passed pursuant to article IX, section 1 of the Colorado Constitution, which grants the power of general supervision to the state board. Id. We rejected both of these categorical arguments because each fail[ed] to recognize or reconcile the potential for competing responsibilities created by the constitution. Id. at 645. In considering those competing responsibilities, we distanced ourselves from the assumptionprevalent in Belier and its progenythat any effect on a school district's financial resources triggered its right to control instruction. In so doing, we applied a concept of control of instruction that did not involve money, but that contemplated instead a school district's responsibility to oversee and implement its educational programsa notion that the local board had the right to control the instruction for which it was to be held accountable. We first took note of the general assembly's primary constitutional responsibility concerning education-its duty to provid[e] for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state. Id. (quoting Colo. Const. art. IX, § 2). We stated that [a]ny meaningful regulation in furtherance of this responsibility, whether it involves curriculum, facilities, programs, management, services, or employment, will inevitably influence the allocation of resources. Id. (emphasis added). In that vein, we stated that [w]e will not seriously entertain the notion that the General Assembly's constitutional responsibility for public education can be carried out only to the extent that its regulations have no discernable effect on local resources. Id. We then held that pursuant to article IX, section 1, the state board is to serve as both a conduit of and a source for educational information and policy, and they [the framers of the constitution] intended the General Assembly to have broad but not unlimited authority to delegate to the State Board `powers and duties' consistent with this intent. Id. at 648 (quoting Colo. Const. art. IX, § 1). We held that the district's control of instruction requires power or authority to guide and manage both the action and practice of instruction as well as the quality and state of instruction and involves substantial discretion regarding the character of instruction that students will receive at the district's expense. Id. at 648. Thus, [a]s long as a school district exists, the local board has undeniable constitutional authority. Id. at 646. Nevertheless, just as even core constitutional rights are not absolute, this constitutional authority is subject to limits. Id. Accordingly, [t]he contours of constitutional rights are typically determined by balancing competing interests. Id. Hence, a school district's right to local control is not absolute and must be weighed against other considerations. After noting the competing roles and responsibilities of the general assembly and the school districts, we proceeded to develop a specific balancing test in order to reconcile the competing interests presented in that case. We weighed the authority of the state board as an extension of the General Assembly on the one hand against the local board as an extension of the school district on the other. Id. at 646-648. The overarching purpose of the Booth test, we stated, was to determine whether the legislation at issue unduly interfered with the local school district's constitutional authority. [3] Id. at 649. As formulated, that test permits the local board's control of instruction and any concomitant discretion to be restricted or limited... by statutory criteria and/or judicial review provided that any such limitations do not have the effect of usurping the local board's decision-making authority or its ability to implement, guide, or manage the educational programs for which it is ultimately responsible.  Id. (emphasis added). Thus, we held that in the context of novel education reform legislation, we cannot attempt a definitive constitutional demarcation. Id. Rather, we must take the principles of the balancing test and review each case on its facts. Id. at 650. We must apply that understanding in reviewing the statute whose language and operation are specifically before us. Id. Where the statute advances a legitimate educational purpose, we give deference to the balance that the General Assembly sought to maintain between state authority and local board authority. [4] Id. at 650. We presume that balance is permissible unless it poses a clear impediment upon either the state actor or the local board to exercise its own constitutional authority. Id. Foremost, the party alleging that the statute is unconstitutional bears the burden at all times of proving that the statute is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. With these principles in mind, I turn to the General Assembly's role in passing the Pilot Program and the effect of the program upon the local board's constitutional authority to control instruction.