Wisconsin GOP seeks dismissal of school funding lawsuit

Republicans in the state Legislature filed a motion on April 13 seeking to dismiss a school funding case that named them as defendants, saying the suit is based on arguments that have failed in previous court cases. Republicans make up the majority of the legislators sued by school districts over allegedly inadequate school funding.

Republican lawmakers cited a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision upholding the state’s school funding system as constitutional when it was last challenged in 2000.

“For all of Plaintiffs’ sky-is-falling assertions,” the lawmakers said in their filing, “the school finance system that Plaintiffs challenge here is the same system that the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld against similar (indeed, mostly identical) constitutional claims in Vincent v. Voight, 2000.”

The filing comes in response to a lawsuit that several school districts, teachers’ unions and parents filed in February against the state Legislature and its Joint Finance Committee in Eau Claire County Circuit Court. The groups allege the state doesn’t provide enough funding for schools to meet constitutional requirements.

In three other filings submitted April 13, Legislative Democrats, who are also defendants in the case, agreed with many of the school districts’ claims, while several voucher schools and two groups of parents participating in the state’s choice programs asked to join the suit as defendants.

There will likely be hearings to decide on both the motion to dismiss and the motion to intervene, where choice schools and parents ask to be included, although they’re not required for the court to make a decision. As of April 14, no hearings had been scheduled. The timing is still uncertain, lawyers involved said.

The Republican legislators argue the current school funding system was already deemed constitutional in 2000. They also argue that school districts do not have standing to challenge the state, and none of the plaintiffs have standing to ask for funding system changes.

While the state school funding formula itself is constant, the plaintiffs argue various changes to school funding since 2000 have affected school districts’ ability to provide an adequate public education. For example, the state’s 2009-11 budget act eliminated cost-of-living adjustments to per-pupil funding, according to the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Participation in school choice programs has also skyrocketed since the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program was established in 2013.

The plaintiffs say the current funding system does not provide a “sound basic education,” but Republican defendants argue the Constitution only protects a minimal basic education, which they say school districts are still able to provide.

Lawyers for the Republican legislators did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The same day Republicans sought to dismiss the case, Democrats on the state’s Joint Finance Committee submitted an intervening filing saying they agree with the plaintiffs.

“Parents and educators should not have to sue the Legislature” to force recognition that Republicans have chosen to “systemically underfund our public schools across Wisconsin,” the Democrats said in a statement.

Meanwhile, several parents and private voucher schools asked the court to add them as defendants.

“Changing the existing laws through the courts will result in a worse (not better) system than the system that exists today,” one group of parents and voucher schools said in their filing.

Represented by the conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, the voucher schools seeking to join the suit include Green Bay Area Catholic Education, Impact Christian Schools in Madison, St. Marcus Lutheran School in Milwaukee, Shoreland Lutheran High School in Kenosha and Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha.

WILL is also representing School Choice Wisconsin Action, a statewide school choice advocacy group.

Another group of parents are represented by the Center for American Rights in Chicago and EdChoice Legal Advocates, an Indianapolis‑based organization that supports school choice.

Plaintiffs’ legal counsel said they stand by the claims presented and say the case deserves to be heard.

“A motion to dismiss is a predictable attempt to avoid accountability – arguing not that the system is working, but that the courts should not even hear the case. We strongly disagree. When constitutional rights are at stake, courts have a critical role to play,” said Jeff Mandell of Law Forward, the group representing the plaintiffs.