New Hampshire is one of many states where public education advocates are trying to force the legislature to properly fund education. Andru Volinsky, a lawyer and activist in the state, provides an update on the latest chapter.
The NH Supreme Court issued its most recent school funding decision early this month in the ConVal case. The decision upheld (affirmed) Judge Ruoff’s ruling that the state underfunds its responsibility to pay for a constitutionally adequate education. By statute, the state pays approximately $4100 for the average student. Judge Ruoff found that this number should be at least $7356.01 per student. The plaintiff school districts sought $10,000 per student.
For context, the actual amount spent in NH is over $26,000 per pupil. Idaho is the lowest spending state. Its per pupil cost is $9387. Mississippi is at $12,394. These are overall expenditures, not how much the state pays. New England’s high cost of living and high energy costs are partly responsible for the high per pupil cost. Note also, the state did not try to justify the $4100 figure at trial.
Judge Ruoff set his number as a “conservative minimum” and wrote in his order that it is likely insufficient to pay for an adequate education. He chose this approach to avoid claims that he was violating the concept of separation of powers by dictating a specific number that the legislature must fund. The majority of the NH Supreme Court found this approach (identifying the component parts and setting a minimum cost threshold) was appropriate and respectful of the different roles assigned by the state constitution to the judiciary which determines what laws mean and engages in careful fact finding versus the legislature which sets policy and makes appropriations.
Ruoff’s approach is incrementally better than other rulings that found state funding insufficient but simply “trusted” the legislature to do the right thing. NH has for decades not done the right thing when it comes to school funding. Claremont I was decided in 1993, but the first NH Supreme Court warning about unfair funding was in 1971 in a case involving Laconia schools. Remember that when Republicans complain the Court acted too hastily.
Ruoff’s approach is better than simply trusting the legislature because he started a process of detailing the component parts of a constitutionally adequate education and assigning bare minimum costs to those mandatory components. It does no good with NH legislatures to order them to include teacher health insurance as a mandatory component, for example, and then have some wise guy in the legislature assign a cost of $100 to the funding, which is only a slight exaggeration of what prior legislatures and governors have done.