Court Opinion

ID: 9593951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:25:49.288157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:04:49.817820
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(dissenting). This case is about the inevitable tension that exists between the intent to create schools that are free from the burden of regulation in order to allow experiments in improved learning, and the constitutional imperative that public funds not be used for private purposes. While the Legislature has unquestioned authority to define by law what is required of public schools,1 and to privatize the deliv*590ery of certain services, it obviously cannot make what is private, public, simply by declaring it so. In creating charter schools, the Legislature clearly recognized this truism and provided for certain indicia of what is public. The issue before this Court, therefore, is how much public control is necessary to comply with the constitutional directive.
In my view, 1993 PA 362, the Michigan charter schools act, derogates the constitutional prohibition against the application of public funding to aid private schools under art 8, § 2 of the Michigan Constitution and usurps the authority of the State Board of Education to oversee and supervise public education in violation of Const 1963, art 8, § 3. Given that observation, I conclude that the act violates the Michigan Constitution and is invalid on its face, and I would affirm the Court of Appeals decision. Because the issue of constitutionality of 1994 PA 416 and the subsequent amendment was not fully briefed or argued before this Court, I would remand this case to the trial court for further development of the issue whether the 1994 and 1995 amended acts are constitutionally valid. The goal of increasing parental choice in education must be evaluated in light of the constitutional directive that has been a fundamental goal of this state since before incorporation.
i
Article 8, § 2 of the Michigan Constitution provides in part:
The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law. . . .
*591No public monies or property shall be appropriated or paid or any public credit utilized, by the legislature or any other political subdivision or agency of the state directly or indirectly to aid or maintain any private, denominational or other nonpublic, pre-elementary, elementary, or secondary school. . . .
The constitutional mandate is clear: “No public monies .. . shall be appropriated or paid . . . directly or indirectly to aid or maintain any private ... or . . . nonpublic . . . school.” Id. In the view of the electorate, and by necessity, therefore, in the eyes of those elected, public fiscal backing of nonpublic educational systems, no matter how well intentioned, is prohibited by state constitution.
A
Approximately twenty-five states, including Michigan, and the District of Columbia have enacted charter school legislation.2 An innovative and creative bid at educational reform, charter schools are public schools that are autonomous, at least in part, from state regulation.3 Called schools “ ‘that have no rules,’ ”4 at least one proponent of charter schools has said that “ ‘[t]he best . . . [charter] schools have near total independence to decide what to teach and how to teach it, whom to hire and how to use their *592resources, what hours to operate and how best to meet students’ needs.’ ”5
The “freedom” deemed necessary by charter school proponents is the flexibility achieved by relieving the schools from state or local regulation.6
7However, because legislation may not circumvent the constitution, freedom from regulation is precisely that element of the charter school concept that brings it into potential conflict with the constitution. Stated otherwise, if 1993 PA 362 “privatizes” charter schools, the fundamental constitutional value has been transgressed. Thus, unless art 8, § 2 is amended, the viability of the charter school initiative will depend on how “public” the system is under successive acts.
B
The Legislature was careful to identify charter schools as public schools for purposes of Const 1963, art 8, § 2 and as school districts for purposes of Const 1963, art 9, § 11, subsection 501(1). No doubt this was in part driven by the desire to have public school academies share in the state school-aid fund created under art 9, § 11. Organized under the Nonprofit Corporation Act, MCL 450.2101 et seq.-, MSA 21.197(101) el seq.,7 public school academies8 are labeled government agencies with all the rights and responsibilities inherent in such an agency.9 The power to grant academy contracts is vested in the board of any public *593school district, intermediate school board, board of a community college, or board of a state university. Subsection 501(2)(a). In all but the last, the public body is not to issue a contract to any charter school that would enable the school to operate outside the boundaries of the authorizing body’s school district. Subsection 502(2).
Despite the illusion of public control created by the 1993 act, and the conclusion of the majority that “the public maintains control of the schools through the authorizing bodies,”10 public school academies are controlled by privately selected, rather than publicly elected, boards of directors and are subject only to limited oversight by the authorizing bodies and the State Board of Education.
A careful reading of the 1993 act reveals that neither the authorizing body nor the State Board of Education has the power to appoint individual members to the academy board. In fact, the State Board of Education has no authority whatsoever under the statute to supervise the selection, retention, or removal of academy board members. 11 Moreover, the authorizing body’s influence over the academy board of director selection process is constrained under the 1993 act so that the authorizing body only has the authority to establish the “method of selection, length *594of term, and number of members of the board of directors . . . Subsection 503(3). Once this nebulous criteria is established, the public academy has full authority to appoint as a member of its board of directors any individual it deems fit. The academy application must describe “qualifications and method for appointment or election of members of the board,” and need not disclose the actual identity of proposed board members. Subsection 502(3)(b).12 Moreover, under the 1993 act, the authorizing body has limited recourse against the public school academy if it is dissatisfied with an individual member of the academy board. The State Board of Education has even less recourse.13
*595The limited authority of the authorizing body and State Board of Education to oversee academy school operations is further evidenced by the process of contract issuance and revocation as provided under the 1993 act. The process by which a contract to operate a public school academy is issued is set forth in subsection 502(3). In order for a contract to be issued, it must include certain mandatory provisions14 and may be issued only after an application has been accepted. Although the authorizing body is not required to issue a contract to any person or entity, the authorizing body, as opposed to the State Board of Education, has sole authority to approve and issue a contract.15 In fact, no provision under the 1993 act affords the State Board of Education an opportunity to review an academy’s application or contract before the contract is issued.16
In addition to the power to issue a contract, the authorizing body is given sole, albeit limited, authority to revoke the contract.17 Section 507 grants the *596authorizing body the power to revoke a contract and provides:
A contract issued under this part may be revoked by the authorizing body that issued the contract if the authorizing body determines that 1 or more of the following has occurred:
(a) Failure of the public school academy to abide by and meet the educational goals set forth in the contract.
(b) Failure of the public school academy to comply with all applicable law.
(c) Failure of the public school academy to meet generally accepted public sector accounting principles.
(d) The existence of 1 or more other grounds for revocation as specified in the contract. [Emphasis added.]
As was trae of contract issuance, despite the fact that the State Board of Education is constitutionally mandated to lead and supervise public education, there is no provision under the 1993 act that grants authority to the State Board of Education to revoke a charter contract.
c
Lack of public control over the academy school board of directors, and limited control of the authorizing body and State Board of Education over the process of contract issuance and revocation are not the only flaws in the 1993 act. Despite the fact that public school academies must comply with “all applicable law,”18 academy schools are not subject to large portions of the public School Code.19 As an example, *597public school academies are not expressly required to use state certified teachers. Although some, including the defendants, argue that public school academies must clearly use state certified teachers, the answer to this issue is less than obvious. What is obvious is that this deficiency was corrected under 1994 PA 416 when the Legislature expressly required, in two separate provisions, that academy schools use certified teachers.20 In addition, there is disagreement over whether public school academies must comply with core curriculum requirements. Clearly, there is no express provision in the 1993 act that requires compliance with any curriculum requirement. Rather, the act authorizes a public school academy to designate in its articles of incorporation “the educational goals *598of the public school academy and the curriculum to be offered and methods of pupil assessment to be used . . . Act 362, subsection 502(3)(d)(ii) (emphasis added). Although the state’s interest in establishing basic requirements to prepare citizens to participate effectively and intelligently in the political system is indisputable, Wisconsin v Yoder, 406 US 205, 225-226; 92 S Ct 1526; 32 L Ed 2d 15 (1972); People v DeJonge (After Remand), 442 Mich 266, 307; 501 NW2d 127 (1993), progress in achieving unspecified goals is to be assessed “[t]o the extent applicable,” using several designated tests, including the Michigan Education Assessment Program test.
If failure to define the obligations of academy schools with respect to teacher certification and core curriculum requirements was the only defect in Act 362, the act might be constitutional. “A statute may be constitutional though it lacks provisions which meet constitutional requirements, if it has terms not excluding such requirements, and in this situation the court is justified in holding that the statute was intended to be subject to such requirements, and that those requirements are to be considered as embodied in the statute.” 216 Mich App 126, 147; 548 NW2d 909 (1996). I am persuaded, however, that Act 362 incorporates express provisions that are inconsistent with the conclusion that academy schools must comply with the public School Code.
1993 PA 362 amended only part 6A of the public School Code. Additional sections were not amended at that time to bring the remainder of the School Code into alignment with amended part 6A. Inclusion of a limited number of provisions of the state School Code in the 1993 act, and the concomitant exclusion *599or failure to include the term “public school academies” in other provisions of the code, necessarily leads to the conclusion that provisions of the School Code that fail to mention public school academies are not applicable to academy schools.
In this regard § 503 of the 1993 act is instructive. Under subsection 503(5), a public school academy must comply with “all applicable law,” including but not limited to: (a) the Open Meetings Act, MCL 15.261 et seq.) MSA 4.1800(11) et seq., (b) the Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq.) MSA 4.1801(1) et seq., (c) the public employment relations act, MCL 423.201 et seq.) MSA 17.455(1) et seq., (d) the prevailing wages act, MCL 408.551 et seq.) MSA 17.256(1) et seq., and (e) §§ 1267 and 1274 of the School Code.21 If requiring compliance with “all applicable law” subjected public school academies to the requirements of the entire School Code, the language requiring compliance with §§ 1267 and 1274 of the School Code would be redundant. Inteipreting the statute in such a way would violate established principles of statutory construction that every word in a statute has meaning and no word should be interpreted as surplusage or rendered nugatory. Altman v Meridian Twp, 439 Mich 623, 635; 487 NW2d 155 (1992). Moreover, if “all applicable law” were meant to include the whole of the School Code, subsection 513(8)(e), as amended by 1994 PA 416, and subsection 503(6)(e), as amended by 1995 PA 289, would also be rendered *600meaningless.22 Clearly, this interpretation of “all applicable law” flies in the face of traditional notions of statutory construction.
Had the Legislature wished to ensure that the entire School Code would be applicable to academy schools it would have expressly provided so. Its failure to do so leads to only one conclusion: while academy schools are bound to comply with some restrictions that are generally applicable to all public schools, such as the Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231; MSA 4.1801(1), academy schools have significant independence under 1993 PA 362 from state or local regulation. When coupled with private boards of directors that have limited obligations to answer to the public, and with authorizing bodies and a State Board of Education that are essentially powerless to supervise academy school organization and operation, the academy schools established by the 1993 act are private schools that have been given selected accouterments of public schools in the hope that they will be characterized as the functional equivalent of public schools. Simply put, this “innovative” act effectively grants academy schools nearly “total independence to decide what to teach and how to teach it, whom to hire and how to use their resources, what hours to operate and how best to meet students’ needs.”23 In my judgment, the 1993 act is facially violative of art 8, § 2 of the Michigan Constitution.
*601n
Even assuming, arguendo, that public school academies are public schools under art 8, § 2 of the state constitution, I am of the opinion that 1993 PA 362 would violate Const 1963, art 8, § 3 by divesting the State Board of Education of its constitutionally mandated authority to lead and supervise all public education. Article 8, § 3 of the Michigan Constitution provides in part:
Leadership and general supervision over all public education ... is vested in a State Board of Education. It shall serve as the general planning and coordinating body for all public education . . . and shall advise the legislature as to the financial requirements in connection therewith.
Inasmuch as the constitution vests leadership and general supervisory authority over all public education in the State Board of Education alone, the Legislature lacks the power to diminish state board authority by statute.
For many of the same reasons that have already been discussed, the authority of the State Board of Education over public school academies has been unconstitutionally abrogated under 1993 PA 362. The paramount role of the superintendent of the State Board of Education has not only not been expressly acknowledged in the 1993 act, but has in actuality been limited by the terms of the act. Under 1993 PA 362, the Board of Education has no authority to review an academy application, issue a charter contract, revoke a contract for lack of compliance, oversee and approve an academy’s educational goals, proposed curriculum, student assessment criteria, or length of student day. In fact, any authority to oversee *602and supervise academy school activity has been vested in the authorizing body alone. The ability of the State Board of Education to lead and supervise public school academies is left to its ability to deny or revoke funding under the State School Aid Act.24 Because the constitution grants the State Board of Education general supervisory and leadership authority over public schools, and the power to act as the general planning and coordinating body for all public education, segregation of this power to funding matters alone is a violation of the constitution.
I am persuaded that the ability of the State Board of Education to oversee and supervise public education in Michigan has been usurped by 1993 PA 362. Accordingly, I would hold that 1993 PA 362 violates art 8, § 3 of the Michigan Constitution.
m
I approach this issue with caution, being fully aware that an act of the Legislature must be presumed constitutional unless “no set of circumstances exists under which the [a]ct would be valid.” United States v Salerno, 481 US 739, 745; 107 S Ct 2095; 95 L Ed 2d 697 (1987). However, I conclude that, as written, no set of circumstances exists under Act 362 that would give authorizing bodies and the State Board of Education statutory authority to oversee and supervise charter schools sufficient to make these schools “public” for purposes of art 8, § 2 and § 3 of the Con*603stitution of 1963. The fact that some public school academies may choose to go beyond the requirements of the act in operating academy schools does not validate the act itself. Therefore, I find 1993 PA 362 facially invalid, and I would affirm the Court of Appeals decision. Because I believe that the constitutionality of the 1994 and 1995 amendments, being 1994 PA 416 and 1995 PA 289, axe inextricably related to the ultimate issue to be decided in this case, and because the constitutionality of those amendments was not fully briefed or argued before this Court, I would remand this case to the trial court for full briefing and argument on that issue and retain jurisdiction.
Kelly, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

 Const 1963, art 8, § 2.

 Ante, p 576, n 15.

 See, generally, Furst, The short but very curious legal history of Michigan’s charter schools, 105 Ed Law Rep 1 (1996).

 Heubert, Schools without rules? Charter schools, federal disability law, and the paradoxes of deregulation, 32 Harv CR-CL L R 301, 301 (1997), quoting The White House: Hartford Debate ’96 — The First Presidential Debate between President Clinton and Senator Dole, part 3, M2 Presswire, October 8, 1996.

 Id., quoting Chester E. Finn Jr., Beating Up On Charter Schools, New York Times, August 24, 1996, p 23.

 Id.

 1993 PA 362, MCL 380.502(1); MSA 15.4502(1).

 Throughout the act, charter schools are referred to as public school academies. The two terms will by used synonymously in this opinion.

 Act 362, subsections 501(1) and 503(6).

 Ante, p 576.

 The majority argues that because the State Board of Education does not have authority over the selection, retention, or removal of the members of the board of traditional public schools, then public school academies are no different from traditional public schools. Had the only defect in Act 362 been that the State Board of Education lacked authority to select, retain, or remove academy school board members, I would have joined in the majority’s result. However, because of defects in Act 362 that are not so easily overlooked, I am unable to say that public school academies are “no different” from traditional public schools.

 While 1993 PA 362, subsection 502(3)(b) requires that the academy school application include “a list of the proposed members of the board of directors ... or a description of the qualifications and method of appointment” of the members, 1994 PA 416, subsection 502(3)(b) and 1995 PA 289, subsection 502(3)(b) require that the academy school application include “a list of the proposed members of the board of directors . . . and a description of the qualifications and method of appointment” of board members (emphasis added). Although the Court of Appeals dissenting opinion states that the 1993 act “requires” that all initial board members be approved by the authorizing body, 216 Mich App 126, 156; 548 NW2d 909 (1996), Act 362, subsection 502(3)(b) does not so require. Therefore, it does not appear that an authorizing body would have the right to refuse an application solely because the application merely described the qualifications and method for appointment or election of members of the board of directors, rather than listing for approval the proposed members.

 The authorizing body’s general power of recourse is limited to revoking the charter contract under § 507. The Board of Education’s recourse is limited to funding revocation under the State School Aid Act, MCL 388.1601 et seq.; MSA 15.1919(901) et seq. However, the 1993 act does not expressly grant an authorizing body the right to revoke a contract if the authorizing body is dissatisfied with a member of the academy’s board of directors. Instead, the authorizing body may revoke a contract for this reason only if the terms of the contract allow it to do so. Act 362, subsection 503(4)(f) and subsection 507.

 Act 362, subsection 503(4).

 Act 362, § 503. The act does include an override provision in the event the authorizing body does not issue a contract. If the authorizing body refuses to grant a contract, the proposed academy can petition the board to place the question of application on a school election ballot to be decided by the district voters. Act 362, subsection 503(2).

 1994 PA 416 includes a provision requiring the authorizing body to submit a copy of the contract and application to the State Board of Education within ten days after the authorizing body issues a contract for a public school academy. Act 416, subsection 503(3). Even under the new legislation, the authorizing body has sole authority to revoke a contract, 1995 PA 289, subsection 507, while the State Board of Education’s authority is limited to restricting the authorizing body from issuing new contracts. Act 289, subsection 502(5).

 The right to revoke a contract is not without its limitations. See n 13 supra.

 Act 362, subsection 503(5).

 The majority asserts that it is evident that “other sections” of the School Code apply; however, the majority remains unwilling to identify with which sections of the School Code academy schools must comply. In *597failing to define this issue, the majority eludes plaintiffs’ assertion that public school academies are not obligated to comply with core curriculum requirements and teacher certification mandates, and leaves that issue open for future dispute. The majority’s cursory conclusion that “other sections” of the School Code apply and that the School Aid Act resolves the issues discussed in this dissent does not settle the question. Instead, what is needed is specific direction with respect to which sections of the public School Code apply to public school academies. As an example, under the majority opinion, public school academies may be required to comply with the School Aid Act, but not specifically with the core curriculum requirements of the public School Code. While the School Aid Act does require compliance with the core curriculum requirements of the public School Code, MCL 388.1619; MSA 15.1919(919), failure of the school district to comply with those requirements merely means the school forfeits five percent of the total funds for which the school qualified under the School Aid Act. MCL 388.1619(3); MSA 15.1919(919)(3). Therefore, a school may lose five percent of its allotted monies, but still be entitled to the majority of its public funds. Obviously, mandating compliance with § 19 of the School Aid Act without also mandating compliance with core curriculum requirements of the public School Code might not adequately protect against public monies being used to aid or support nonpublic schools. Const 1963, art 8, § 2.

 Act 416, subsections 505(1) and 515(1). The private, denominational, and parochial schools act provides that a teacher must hold a certificate that would qualify the teacher to teach in a like grade of the public schools of the state. MCL 388.553; MSA 15.1923.

 Sections 1267 and 1274 require school districts to obtain competitive bids when entering into construction contracts and when purchasing supplies, materials, equipment, or services where the cost of a single transaction is $12,500 or more.

 Subsection 513(8)(e), as amended by 1994 PA 416, requires part 6B public school academies to comply with subsection 1263(3) and §§ 1267 and 1274 of the School Code. Subsection 503(6)(e), as amended by 1995 PA 289, requires compliance with §§ 1134, 1135, 1146, 1153, subsection 1263(3), and §§ 1267 and 1274 of the School Code.

 Heubert, n 4 supra at 301.

 To argue that the State Board of Education has ultimate authority over public school academies because it can refuse to pay under the State School Aid Act is no more than saying that the state can refuse to pay a contract agent if it does not like the services the agent provides. This right to refuse payment is by no means “leadership” by the State Board of Education.