IN THE COURTS: Federal Courts May Be Open to School Finance Challenges -- Rural Policy Matters, Volume 4, Number 10 (October 2002)

A federal circuit court ruling in a Kansas case may have altered prospects for challenging state funding systems in federal courts. Since an early 1970s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that people do not have a right to education under the U.S. Constitution, it has been understood that state education funding systems could not be challenged in the federal courts. As a result, over the past 30 years, rural and urban advocates of school finance reform have taken most of their legal claims to state courts.

But this summer, the federal appeals court for the 10th Circuit ruled in the case of Robinson v. Kansas that a group of Kansas parents and students could challenge portions of the Kansas school finance system in federal court if they could show that the state's system violated federal civil rights laws or laws enacted to protected disabled students. In the case, the parents and students claim that the state must comply with federal civil rights laws because it receives federal funding for education.

If this decision withstands a likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, some rural schools, parents and students who are seeking fair and adequate funding for their schools may be able to take their case directly to federal courts.

Rural School Funding Program in Jeopardy

The Bush administration's 2003 budget proposes to eliminate funding for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), which was funded for FY 2002 at the level of $162.5 million. Advocates for REAP say that even $162.5 million is only about half the original congressional authorization of $300 million. The administration argues that schools will make up for the lost REAP money with large increases in other programs. Not so, says the American Association of School Administrators. AASA says that the grant formulas for the make-up money the administration is referring to are based on population, so most of these dollars won't go to rural schools.

For more information on this issue see Thomas D. Rowley's article "No (Rural) Child Left Behind" at www.rupri.org/articles/left.html. For more information on REAP, go to http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/reap.html.

Internet Access Update

The following are some facts from Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2001, a report by the National Center for Education Statistics:

In fall 2001, 99 percent of public schools and 87 percent of classrooms in the United States had access to the Internet compared to 35 percent of schools and 3 percent of classrooms in 1994.

In schools with at least 75 percent of students eligible for free and reduced priced lunches, 79 percent of classrooms had Internet access, compared to 90 percent of classrooms in schools with less than 35 percent of students eligible.

In 1996, dial-up Internet connections were used by 74 percent of public schools having Internet access, but by 2001, 55 percent of connected schools had T1/DS1 lines, a continuous and much faster type of Internet connection, and only 5 percent of schools still used dial-up connections.

In 2001, only 72 percent of schools with under 300 students were using broadband Internet connections compared to 96 percent of schools with over 100 students. Eighty-two percent of rural schools had broadband, compared to 88 percent of urban and suburban schools.