Court Opinion

ID: 9578188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:42:38.421632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:10.796895
License: Public Domain

ERICKSON, Justice,
specially concurring:
As the majority opinion implies, the Colorado school finance system is not without fault and should be revised by the General Assembly to correct the disparity in the educational opportunities which are available in the different counties and school districts in Colorado. The fact that a bare majority of the justices reviewing this case has concluded that the present system meets the minimum standards of equal protection under the United States and Colorado Constitutions should not be interpreted *1026as an approval of the statutory plan. The issue of whether the school financing plan squares with the more definitive requirements of Article IX, section 2 of the Colorado Constitution is even more difficult.
The findings and conclusions of the trial judge, which Justice Lohr has reviewed in his dissenting opinion, arguably support his conclusion that Colorado’s present school financing system does not pass constitutional muster. Justice Dubofsky’s dissent emphasizes her view of the infirmities of the statutory restrictions and limitations on school district capital expenditures, and again points out the manner in which she believes the present legislative plan is in conflict with the plain wording of Article IX, section 2 of the Colorado Constitution. Both dissenting opinions fairly and accurately detail valid reasons for the General Assembly to formulate amendments to the school financing plan to correct its deficiencies. In concurring with the majority opinion, I do no more than to express my opinion that the statutes in issue, when granted a presumption of constitutionality, barely meet constitutional standards.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the right to education should not be classified as a fundamental right which compels the State, for the purposes of school financing, to wipe out local entities and finance on the basis of revenues raised by some type of state-wide system. As Justice Powell stated in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973):1
“[I]f local taxation for local expenditures were an unconstitutional method of providing for education then it might be an equally impermissible means of providing other necessary services customarily financed largely from local property taxes, including local police and fire protection, public health and hospitals, and public utility facilities of various kinds. We perceive no justification for such a severe denigration of local property taxation and control as would follow from appel-lees’ contentions. It has simply never been within the constitutional prerogative of this Court to nullify statewide measures for financing public services merely because the burdens or benefits thereof fall unevenly depending upon the relative wealth of the political subdivisions in which citizens live.” 411 U.S. at 54, 93 S.Ct. at 1307-08, 36 L.Ed.2d at 55.
In enacting laws such as the school finance system, the legislature must be free to remedy parts of a problem, or to recognize degrees of a problem and to formulate solutions in the areas it determines to be more in need or more readily corrected than others. Thompson v. Engelking, 96 Idaho 793, 537 P.2d 635 (1975).
We have, in several instances, recognized that the legislature is granted plenary power in the field of public education. See, e.g., Marshall v. School District RE # 3, 191 Colo. 451, 553 P.2d 784 (1976); Denver Ass’n Retarded Children, Inc. v. School District No. 1, 188 Colo. 310, 535 P.2d 200 (1975); Pacheco v. School District No. 11, 183 Colo. 270, 516 P.2d 629 (1973). Indeed, Art. IX, sec. 2 of the Colorado Constitution charges the General Assembly with the duty to provide a state system for public school financing. Therefore, I would not, under the rational basis test for equal protection, substitute our judgment for that of the legislature in this difficult area without giving it an opportunity to correct the deficiencies presently inherent in the system. Colorado’s system for financing public education, as a whole, is not the result of a haphazard approach by the General Assembly, but has been developed through decades of experience in Colorado and elsewhere. As the United States Supreme Court declared in Rodriguez:
“The Texas plan is not the result of hurried, ill-conceived legislation. It certainly is not the product of purposeful discrimination against any group or class. On the contrary, it is rooted in decades of *1027experience in Texas and elsewhere, and in major part is the product of responsible studies by qualified people. In giving substance to the presumption of validity to which the Texas system is entitled, it is important to remember that at every stage of its development it has constituted a ‘rough accommodation’ of interests in an effort to arrive at practical and workable solutions. One also must remember that the system here challenged is not peculiar to Texas or to any other State. In its essential characteristics, the Texas plan for financing public education reflects what many educators for half a century have thought was an enlightened approach to a problem for which there is no perfect solution. We are unwilling to assume for ourselves a level of wisdom superior to that of legislators, scholars, and educational authorities in 50 States, especially where the alternatives proposed are only recently conceived and nowhere yet tested.” 411 U.S. at 55, 93 S.Ct. at 1308, 36 L.Ed.2d at 55-56. (Citations omitted.)
The difference in quality between two schools cannot be determined simplistically by examining only the differences in per-pupil expenditures. See, e.g., Thompson v. Engelking, supra; Northshore School District No. 417 v. Kinnear, 84 Wash.2d 685, 530 P.2d 178 (1974). The decision of the trial court in this case rests upon the conclusion that money is the basic and overriding criterion for adequate education. It is basic that funds must be supplied to provide for teachers, support staff, physical facilities, texts, supplies, transportation, and the myriad of other necessities in today’s public educational system. However, I cannot adopt the premise that unless an identical amount of funds is expended per pupil throughout the state, students in those districts receiving less than the district with the greatest expenditure per student are automatically denied equal educational opportunities. See also Thompson v. Engelking, supra. Cf. Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal.3d 584, 487 P.2d 1241, 96 Cal.Rptr. 601 (1971).
Moreover, I do not believe that Art. IX, sec. 2 of the Colorado Constitution guarantees to the children of this state a right to be educated in such a manner that all services and facilities are identical throughout the State. In my view, such a centralized system of education is not required by either the Colorado or United States Constitutions.
Stated simply, Art. IX, sec. 2 is a mandate to the State through the legislature to establish a complete and uniform system of public education for Colorado elementary and secondary school students. It provides:
“The general assembly shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, wherein all residents of the state, between the ages of six and twenty-one years, may be educated gratuitously. One or more public schools shall be maintained in each school district within the state, at least three months in each year; any school district failing to have such school shall not be entitled to receive any portion of the school fund for that year.”
On its face, this section mandates action by the legislature. It does not establish education as a basic fundamental right. Nor does it dictate a central state system of identical expenditures per student. Partial funding of our public schools with local property taxes does not itself deprive Colorado’s educational system of those constitutional qualities which the constitutional draftsmen described as thorough and uniform. As the Washington Supreme Court has succinctly stated:
“A general and uniform system, that is, a system which, within reasonable constitutional limits of equality, makes ample provision for the education of all children, cannot be based upon exact equality of funding per child because it takes more money in some districts per child to provide about the same level of educational opportunity than it does in others. Thus, the record shows that all states of the Union, except Hawaii, recognize that taxable property values per pupil vary *1028among the districts because expenditures per pupil vary, too. Uniformity of size and property values among school districts is not . .. essential, we think, to a general and uniform system.”
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“A general and uniform system, we think, is, at the present time, one in which every child in the state has free access to certain minimum and reasonably standardized educational and instructional facilities and opportunities to at least the 12th grade — a system administered with that degree of uniformity which enables a child to transfer from one district to another within the same grade without substantial loss of credit or standing and with access by each student of whatever grade to acquire those skills and training that are reasonably understood to be fundamental and basic to a sound education.” (Emphasis in original.) Northshore School District v. Kinnear, 530 P.2d at 202.
I agree with the analysis set forth by the Washington Supreme Court. Merely because the various school districts in this State vary in size and tax base does not, in my view, necessitate a finding that our entire system of public education is not thorough and uniform under the provisions of the Colorado Constitution.
For the above reasons, I would not overturn the present system used in Colorado to finance public education on constitutional grounds, but would strongly urge the General Assembly to review the school financing system with an eye to correcting the weaknesses in the plan which have been so well-described in the dissenting opinions. Since I do not believe that the defects in the funding system cause the legislative plan to be unconstitutional, I concur with the majority opinion of the Court.

. Rodriguez was a 5 — 4 opinion which reflects the same type of division which our Court has evidenced in announcing this opinion.