Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York, 100 N.Y.2d 893, 801 N.E.2d 326, 769 N.Y.S.2d 106

Decided June 26, 2003

The case began in 1993 when the Campaign of Fiscal Equity (CFE) , a public interest group, filed a constitutional challenge to the state school funding system. They claimed that the states’ school finance system does not provide sufficient funds to New York City public schools and denies its students their constitutional right to a “sound basic education” under the New York State Constitution. The Education Article of the New York Constitution states that “the legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated.” The decision in this case defined the meaning of this Education Article and determined that the New York City public school system is in violation.

As this case moved up and back through the New York State court system, there were various formulations of what the state must do in order to comply with the constitutional requirement. At one point, the Appellate Division, an intermediate level appellate court, decided that the State Constitution only requires that schools provide the opportunity to learn at an 8^th or 9^th grade skill level. The New York State Court of Appeals rejected the 8^th grade standard and found that a sound basic education consisted of “the basic literacy, calculating, and verbal skills necessary to enable children to eventually function productively as civic participants capable of voting and serving on a jury.” [1] All students in New York public schools therefore have the right to an “opportunity for a meaningful high school education, one which prepares them to function productively as civic participants.”

The Court of Appeals held that the New York City public schools violated this right to education provided by the New York State Constitution. It noted the evidence presented at trial of (1) what the schoolchildren in our modern society need in order to function productively as civic participants; (2) “inputs” in the education system in New York City-- teaching and teacher quality; school facilities and classrooms with respect to environment and class size; and instrumentalities of learning such as textbooks, classroom supplies, and computers, and

(3) “outputs” in the system – school completion rates and test scores of its students.

In every area examined, New York City schools were below average compared with the rest of the state. But in order for the plaintiff CFE to prove its case, it had to show that the failure to provide a sound basic education was related to the present funding system. The Court of Appeals found that the CFE did establish a “causal link between the present funding system and any proven failure to provide a sound basic education.” New York City schools were shown to have the most student need and the highest local cost, yet the lowest per-student funding from the state and the worst results. By analyzing the “inputs” into the schools ---teacher, facilities, books, and the like – and the “outputs” of the students’ tested performances afterwards, the Court found a correlation between the state funding scheme and the failure of the New York City schools to provide a sound basic education to its students. It held that state aid to the New York City schools must be increased where the need is high and the local ability to pay is low.

Learning Activities

Terms to Know

- Appellate court

- Civic participants

- New York State Constitution Education Article

- Sound basic education

Compare and Contrast

The New York State Court of Appeals decided Paynter v. New York (100 N.Y.2d 434, 797 N.E.2d 1225, 765 N.Y.S.2d 819) on the same day that it decided this case, Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York. Both cases apply the Education Article of the New York State Constitution to situations where students suffer from very low graduation rates and poor test scores. Yet, the results in each were different. Explain why the Court of Appeals decided that the rights of students were violated in the CFE case but not in Paynter.

In Paynter the Court refused to extend the Education Article to require equality among the school districts throughout the state. If the ‘inputs’ into the system are adequate, then the State will not be held responsible for inadequate ‘outputs.’ In CFE, the Court found that plaintiffs showed inadequate inputs and outputs and a causal relationship between poor inputs and outputs.

Analytical Thinking

The dissenting opinion by Judge Read in the CFE case disputed that plaintiffs had shown a causal connection between the level of state aid and the deficiencies in the New York City Public schools. He writes that “educational deficiencies are not always attributable to the lack of money or necessarily cured by the infusion of more funds. A wide variety of non-financial factors may contribute to academic failure.” What would be some of these non-financial factors? Do you agree with Judge Read?

Some non-financial factors may be socioeconomic, mismanagement of the school or district, excessive administration, misassigned teachers, misplaced spending priorities, corruption, improper curricular or program emphasis. Read relates this case to Paynter to show that educational deficiencies can exist even when there is adequate funding.

Research Project

New York State funds its schools through a combination of state and local taxes. What are other ways that States in the United States fund its public schools? What about other nations’ education funding schemes?

Some Internet resources to start with are:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/backgrounders/school_funding.html

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007006_4.pdf

Interesting Note: The CFE case reappeared at the Court of Appeals in 2006 on the issue of how much money the state must spend to meet the requirements of the Education Article. A Webcast of the oral argument in this case can be found at

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/ctapps/crtnews.htm. 

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[1] This definition was provided on appeal in a previous case, Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York, 86 N.Y.2d 307 (1995). The case then went back to the trial level court to apply this definition and ultimately landed back at the Court of Appeals for this decision in 2003.