What do Students Deserve?

BY PEDRO MARQUES

What does the state owe its students? This obligation is at last about to be defined.

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), and others are challenging the state to define a minimally acceptable standard of education services. They are arguing that standards should be created for the quality of teachers, the availability of counselors, the quality of textbooks, and the condition of school buildings and playgrounds.

The state constitution is the legal bedrock on which this suits rests.

NOT JUST ANOTHER CHARGE OF INEQUALITY

Using dramatic documentation of the delapidated conditions of California schools, this new lawsuit challenges the state Board of Education to ensure an adequate education. This goes beyond the usual charges of unequal education.

The class action lawsuit filed on May 17 on behalf of 46 students in 18 schools throughout the state, brings to light a the startling disparity in California's education system. Minority students in the 18 schools cited by the plaintiffs make up 96 percent of the student body, compared to the state average of 59 percent minority enrollment. Within those schools, the plaintiffs say, students are subjected to appalling conditions. This hampers their ability to learn at the same level as other schools in more affluent counties.

THE BASIC MINIMUM DEFINED

Grievances ranged from lack of material needs like text books and computers to the inadequacy of teaching staffs, muddled testing requirments and facilities that wouldn't pass even minimal prison health inspections.

The list is already familiar to education watchdog groups. But by bringing litigation against the State of California and its board of education, the ACLU and other lawyers hope to force the state into establishing a ground floor of basic requirments below which no school should fall. Victory for the plaintiffs would mean the California Board of Education would have to outline minimum requirements for education in the state and be accountable, by law, in ensuring that every school meets those requirements. Lack of teacher accreditation, for example, goes consistently hand-in-hand with minority enrollment at schools. Julie Su, litigation director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, a plaintiff in the case, claims, "The more students of color attending a school, the more untrained teachers will be teaching at that school."

Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California summed up the purpose of this unprecedented lawsuit, filed in the shadow of the Brown vs. Board decision, "Today, we're asking this country to reject another system of unequal education, a system that blocks some children from learning and growing to their full potential. The State of California has the resources to provide all children with a good education, and we cannot afford to do anything less."

Read about the ACLU's new hotline service, 1-877-532-2533.

Read the press release announcing the lawsuit.

Read the legal complaint itself in Adobe Acrobat's PDF format.

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