Crawford v. Davy, No. 137-06 (N.J. Super. Ct. Oct. 4, 2007)
A New Jersey trial court has dismissed a class action lawsuit brought on behalf students attending public schools that have failed to meet state standards that sought a court order providing the students with the meaningful of choice of allowing them to leave their "failing" schools to attend "successful" schools, either public or private. In other words, the suit asked the court to order the state to establish a school voucher program. The suit named several state agencies including the New Jersey State Board of Education (NJBOE), state officials, and several local boards of education as defendants. The plaintiffs alleged violations of the state constitution’s guarantee of a thorough and efficient education, the state and federal constitutions’ guarantees of equal protection, and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act (NJCRA).
The defendants filed motions to dismiss the case for failure to state a legal claim upon which relief may be granted, based on three arguments: "(1) the relief Plaintiffs purportedly seek—a voucher system—is purely a political issue, left to the sole province of the Legislature; (2) the allegation that Defendants have violated Plaintiffs’ right to a ‘thorough and efficient education’ is unfounded, as it is predicated entirely on two consecutive years of assessment data; and (3) Plaintiffs’ allegations of being ‘trapped’ in the schools they are attending ignores legislatively enacted remedial measures along with recent and ongoing attempts at both the State and Federal level to increase educational proficiency in the State." The local boards of education asserted two other grounds for dismissing the suit as to them: (1) the plaintiffs lacked standing because of the absence of individually named plaintiffs residing within some of the school districts named as defendants; and (2) the local boards lacked the authority to implement the relief sought by the plaintiffs.
The court first concluded that at the present stage of the litigation the plaintiffs had met the necessary legal standing requirements. However, the court agreed with the local school boards that state law gives a school board no authority to assign a student to another school district unless under a consensual agreement between school districts or an NJBOE order, the sending school district has insufficient accommodations, and the receiving district has sufficient accommodations.
The court then addressed whether the plaintiffs’ suit raised a "nonjusticiable" political question not to be resolved by a court. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that the state legislature had "overstepped its constitutional authority by creating and enacting district boundaries and compulsory attendance zones, thereby depriving Plaintiffs of a ‘thorough and efficient education.’" Even assuming it could entertain this constitutional challenge, the court found, the plaintiffs were seeking to have the court "devise and adopt a standard for determining when the fundamental right to a ‘thorough and efficient education’ is in fact being deprived, rather than have the court follow an already existing framework for determining this issue." The court concluded that such a decision is clearly non-justiciable.
The court also found that it lacked both (1) the ability to determine judicially that consecutive years of failing test scores, alone, constitutes a breach of the duty to provide a "thorough and efficient education," as well as (2) the authority to craft a remedy to protect that duty. For the court to agree with plaintiffs that consecutive years of failing test scores amounts to violation of the right to a "thorough and efficient education" would mark a divergence from the path mapped out by the New Jersey Supreme Court in regard to issues concerning the adequacy of the education system. The suit did not seek any affirmative relief in the form of requiring accountability or compliance with the remedial measures already established under the legislation enacted to assist in achieving state academic standards, the court observed, but instead sought creation of a voucher system that "effectively requires the Court to determine that the remedial options already created by the Legislature are inadequate to improve the situation." While the court agreed that it has the authority under certain circumstances to determine certain matters concerning the adequacy of the state’s education system, the present matter did not present such an instance.
Even if the plaintiffs’ claims were justiciable, the court held, they would fail under the equal protection provisions in both the state and federal constitutions, noting that the plaintiffs failed to set forth allegations that suggested the state legislature intended to discriminate against the class of individuals purportedly being discriminated against. The plaintiffs’ equal protection claim also assumed that what is now deemed a "failing" school was a "failing school" when the legislature enacted the district boundaries and compulsory attendance laws and will remain one unless the boundaries and laws are eliminated. This scenario the court found unlikely. Lastly, the court disposed of the NJCRA claim because it already had found the fundamental right asserted to be nonjusticiable.
Crawford v. Davy, No. 137-06 (N.J. Super. Ct. Oct. 4, 2007)
[Editor’s Note: Information on this and similarly unsuccessful lawsuits in other states is available starting at the second link. A study released this week by the Center on Education Policy, available from an NSBA summary at the third link, found that after controlling for socioeconomic status and parental involvement factors, private schools have no general advantages across the four major subject areas over public schools. Low-income students attending urban public high schools generally performed at the same academic level as similar private school students, and were as likely to attend college, and to be satisfied in their jobs and be as civic-minded in their mid-20s, the study found.]
NSBA School Law pages on filing of lawsuit
NSBA Voucher Strategy Center on CEP study