Focus on Classrooms, Not Court

It comes as no surprise that California’s well-off children generally attend much better public schools than poor children, with better-qualified teachers, more advanced courses and superior facilities. Even so, some of the allegations of educational inequality made by the American Civil Liberties Union in a suit against the state are shocking. Sacramento should prepare to negotiate a settlement, as lawmakers did in the fight over how to distribute state school construction funds, rather than gear up for a protracted and expensive legal battle.

The ACLU cites students, primarily low-income minority children, who are taught by inexperienced or unqualified teachers in classes that are standing-room only, at schools with filthy bathrooms and broken toilets on rat-infested campuses that lack heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. Many students have no textbooks or they study from horrendously outdated texts that ask: What should the United States do about the Soviet Union? There is no argument about the failures, despite equal per-pupil state funding.

In its suit, the ACLU lays the responsibility on the state, charging a violation of the state Constitution’s guarantee of an equal public education. The state blames local school districts, citing mismanagement, union rules and physical neglect. The state asks how it can be responsible for cleaning bathrooms, changing light bulbs, ordering books or hiring teachers. While those concerns are legitimate, they need not be resolved with a court battle.

The state, though usually represented in such matters by the attorney general, has hired the lawyer who represented Exxon Corp. after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. That lawyer works for O’Melveny & Myers, the firm that represented the Los Angeles Unified School District for decades, including the time when it concocted the Belmont Learning Center disaster.

This is a prescription for endless litigation. Instead, both sides should negotiate a master plan to detect and monitor problems and oversee remedies. This should include a lid on the percentage of uncredentialed teachers per campus, with incentives to encourage good teachers to go to poor schools and mechanisms to help ensure such necessities as up-to-date textbooks and functioning toilets.

California public education is improving overall, but its inequalities remain stark. The focus should be on how to fix the problems that deprive some students of the basics instead of fighting tooth and nail to affix blame.