R.I. Supreme Court hears arguments in education-funding lawsuit

[Disir]

PROVIDENCE — The state Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday over whether students from Pawtucket and Woonsocket are being deprived of an adequate education because they don’t receive enough money under the state funding formula.

The lawsuit, filed by the school committees, teachers and parents from those two cities, is hardly new. It was first filed in Superior Court in April 2011 by lawyers Stephen M. Robinson and Samuel D. Zurier, who is also a member of the Providence City Council.

The lawyers for Governor Chafee argue that the issues in this case were addressed by the Supreme Court in the Pawtucket v. Sundlun case. In the early 1990s, a Superior Court judge found in favor of the school committees in that case, but the Supreme Court struck it down in 1995.

At the time, three urban districts alleged that their students’ constitutional rights were being violated because cuts in state aid affected them more deeply than suburban districts.

According to Zurier, today’s lawsuit makes the same arguments with one critical difference: it’s no longer just that these students aren’t receiving enough aid. Now, he said, the state Department of Education requires that students meet specific standards in order to graduate.

“The state aid [formula] is unconstitutional,” Robinson told the court, “because it deprives plaintiffs of an adequate education.”

In their suit, the school committees argue that the funding formula, adopted in 2010, leaves Pawtucket and Woonsocket with severe funding gaps.

In Pawtucket, the suit says, there isn’t enough money for students to take their textbooks home, some of which are decades-old. Science labs lack plumbing and gas lines. There are classes where a single teacher has to teach children from second and third grades.

R.I. Supreme Court hears arguments in education-funding lawsuit | Breaking News | providencejournal.com | The Providence Journal

This is under advisement.
The name of the case is Woonsocket School Committee v. Carcieri and it's history is found here: Access Quality Education: Rhode Island Litigation

Inside the above is a link to the Second Amended Petition. Here:
http://www.schoolfunding.info/news/litigation/4-2011_Second_Amended_Petition.pdf