Opportunity to moderate and important conversation that impacts everyone and that is School Finance. Talk about the lot and the opportunity and the role ahead. I spoke with four attorneys today each person will have an opportunity to speak 10 minutes and then a moderated conversation then we will open to the audience. Let me put into context why this is important. The Supreme Court made an important ruling on finance and since then we have had a number of cases that the state level to make sure those set an underperforming schools and also money to pay for it. Does money matter . I want to say yes does matter what and and to spend millions of dollars of education so we will figure out what this means with new questions of the role of the federal government sold the first person to have an opportunity to talk about this subject is professor of law and has practiced in of private sector and a graduate of Harvard Law School and has gotten a lot of publicity we will invite the professor to the podium then go from there. Good morning. I am excited to your talk about in part to these are the issues that Shape Foundation so what i will focus on today is what we can and should do about them. So the foundation of the opportunity the way teachers are paid and curriculum is provided and somehow we have got into a place to get a worldclass education and want to talk about how the law has contributed to that and 80 is the shifting our understanding within education so one of the things the Equity Commission found is the Bipartisan Commission and one of the things that it said with the broken system of funding but why is a broken bricks the coz schools are funded in part with propertytax is and that in bed certain inequality because of disparate Property Values but even at a high rate you will yield a fairly small amount so that this just one of the challenges with education funding. That is one that is well known that is criticized by state funding formulas down to create particularly for lowincome children beyond the fact to build in that any quality. So with that illustration is how that is distributed m line of poverty. So what that tells us is low income children need 40 percent more resources to stay on a level Playing Field of the middle income appears. This number has been confirmed in the number of grants the did does. So in light of this so to those districts of high poverty. What we know from research that lowincome childrelow income chd districts need additional funding to address that. One of the things that litigation for more than four decades has revealed is the funding isnt tailored to achieve the goals of the educator system. What does that mean . In the political bargaining where you have the amount allocated for education, lawmakers. The challenge with that, we have a system in every state set aside whether it is the common core standard but the funding formula isnt tied to how much it costs to get all children to succeed on their standard. So that of course shows children do not have the resources they need to patch mark the benchmark in the state standards so that is another challenge with them. So even if you have a progressive state that of course wont provide adequate resources for the standard. That means we dont have enough oversight in the system to make sure the money that we are putting in is being spent efficiently and that is important as well. Its not always going to be additional money for lowincome children bulow incomechildren be money wisely to get votes we need. So theres a number of weaknesses but the question is how in one of the causes mentioned, they had an independent cas case was decides decided in 1973 by the United StatesSupreme Court in texas a mexicanamerican families of the funding that we received in the district violates the United States constitution and particularly the equal protection clause. And the ride is being violated in the poor opportunities. The Supreme Court rejected that argument and said they do not guarantethat they donot guarantf education and instead this was an issue that should be left to the states and its an important value in education and we must allow the states to work on this issue even the Supreme Court said he does acknowledge that there is inequality and we are sort of encouraging them to work on it but we dont know if we address the questions as referenced which is the matter for education. Who should answer that question and they said we are not the ones to answer. The courts also acknowledged the federalism was as play. Not once was there a federal takeover in state funding system to say we will not upset the federal state balance. Certainly theres been some progress. Many are more equitable today than they were when the litigation was brought. However when you also see there is a lack of accountability for the equitable funding that says we need to address how much they need so they get it and because of that, we have no way to make sure the states within the same directiolived in thesame directe equitable funding. So what i argue he wrote a book about the rodriguez case and said what happened when you closed the federal courthouse doors for the funding. What happened is the state courts have not been an effective mechanism for making sure they get the resources they need to achieve and so its talking about what can we do about that animation and there are multiple Solutions Like included. Some are state and local, some are federal but im going to talk about one of them in the time i have left. What i need to focus on that is important in washington is we need to think about reshaping the understanding of the education and federalism. What does that mean, we have a view in the American Society at the state and local control is one of the paramount values. Unfortunately, we sacrificed generations at the state and local control so that is far more important than the children getting a greater education and we need to make sure that we have some partnership between the federal government and the state and local government to make sure kids are getting what they need coming and we need to draw on the strength of the state and local government also need not be afraid of the strength of the federal government whether that be additional funding, technical assistance. The federal government has resources if we werent so afraid of having them have greater involvement with education in the way ways that l allow the states to serve as a mechanism for innovation and experimentation. So i think we need to challenge the federalism. They are not so afraid of having the federal government involved in the education so with that i will yield. The next speaker is david with the Development Research association. For all students in a previous life he was most recently involved in the case in texas which we will discuss today. I want to commute to the podium. [applause] thank you, gerard and everyone here for allowing the opportunity to come all the way from texas and if you dont think it is, just go down to texas. Im going to start out with something people always seem to say and a chance about and that is that education is a great equalizer. People can look at High School San Antonio texas with the Poorest School Districts in the state. Do not build exceptions and while i am an exception, im not exceptional. There is nothing special about why i did this and how and why my sister was pregnant at 16yearsold trying to graduate from an Independent School district as well. The reason i say that is a notion of the equalizer is such a farce when you look at how unequally the schools were funded. They showed for the most part the states across the country dont have fair equitable funding systems. Im not here to say that funding is the sole solution or the only solution. Of course not. We need highquality teachers and those that can reach and teach students and we need a system that allows the competition that we talk about in rhetoric. Theres others when they are provided inadequately prepared schoolteachers and when the statstates and federal governmet pushed these temporary faculty agencies to try to provide relief for a couple of years before they leave and when you divorce the system from the resource policy. It started in 1973. He testified as an expert and a superintendent and new with the problems within the policy that it was impacting the classrooms. So trying to say students should be able to achieve their full potential, guess thats great. Trying to say they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when some kids dont want to wear boots come in depth something that is affecting and impacting children all across america. Its not the only structure that talks about the different communities and i would encourage you to look at bat and show the framework of how you can create the construct in the framework is a fairly funded School System and when you look at the system in the way the policies are created across the country, they divorce the policymaking from the research base. They know the Research Says highquality pre k. Can make a big difference especially in the communities of underserved children. About 25 kids in a classroom, but the only people that will see the class size doesnt matter or people whove never taught in the classroom. 22, 25, 27 kids in the classroom, you know, that doesnt really matter. Ask that schoolteacher because it isnt just about the performance of the standardized test that is administered and how they are engaged in with their life will come by now. But its about other attributes and how those teachers are able to connect with students beyond the standardized test. I want to give you a little sample of what happened in tex texas. This rarely on the property taxes. We have 1,022 School Districts and if we divide them up you look at the wealthiest versus the poor and that is a Million Dollar gap so the state says we will fund the basic allotment at this level and then we have gold in pennies and copper pennies because they are all created at the political than. So the states job is to try to equalize but it doesnt do a good job because it still leaves a thousand dollar gap between the district and when you look at the demographics, over 90 are in the wealthiest districts in texas. And i want to give you an example. A plaintiff in the School Finance case she lived in pasadena texas which is about a third down. It is in the eighth or ninth highest. Sso if a student that was graduating from high school and a child just entering the pre k. System, shes all that night and day difference going from pasadena to go to the community of the schools. She saw the extended programs and a lot of enrichment activities and Extracurricular Activities and then when the market crashed in houston as it did she ended up getting a divorce and moved into a one use trailer back in pasadena where she had to have her kids take paper to school if they wanted paper where they wanted copies where they could take textbooks home and they had to pay for remediation. All the advantages that were in the higher World Community that were absent. So money doesnt make all the difference is, but it sure does make a big difference especially when it comes to the families. When you have children in the high golf communities in the schools, they are the same standards as the kids in the valley in texas. We dont want them held to a lesser standard of the path need tpuppy dothink is that all studs should have that opportunity, that real meaningful opportunity that is substantially impacted by the resources they get. So the federal government, and i agree wholeheartedly they have an opportunity to try to impact these unequal state funding systems. Im not saying they should be intrusive that they can help to give impact by putting the carrot on a stick like they did in the title i funding. You will have to do these certain things. Why cant they provide fair and equitable finance policy . We have one that speaks of the resource equity and if it is supposed to be looked at for schools that are being intervened because they are not meeting the state standards. But what about the system altogether . Rather than wait until they are intervened back on the back end. Sbackend. So when they must encourage the states to change the paradigm and get away from the whole marketbased reform that weve heard about i know it might not be very popular here to say that, but the marketbased reform has not led to improved Educational Opportunity or improved learning opportunities. It has led to improved learning from the private corporations and it has led to improved salaries to administrators. Its not the organizations having peace Charter Schools but its not glad to improved learning opportunities and we feel that the best way to strengthen Public Schools. Thank you. [applause] for those of you that are watching on cspan feel free to send me a question before we have an opportunity. For them it speaker at every field hes dedicated his career to constitutional law and civil rights and focus on School Finance. He recently worked in florida but had the opportunity to see not only from the school aspect but also from the aspect of what does this mean in the states is a graduate from the university and we are glad to have you here. Thank you. I was hoping for some applause. [applause] how do we improve schools without the litigation. As mentioned, i finished a lengthy litigation in florida and i want to talk about what florida has done to improve schools in an extraordinary way, 2. 7 Million Students about half of the students are minorities, 55 are free or reduced lunch students. Its a very diverse state and we can learn a great deal as i have over the last year with the state. In 1998 the voters in florida approved an amendment to the constitution but provided that students were entitled to a highquality education and the students debate states will make a provision to that. In response to the amendment, the governor jeb bush, Lieutenant Governor introduced a series of reforms called the plan for education. We are going to report to the public how all students were doing disaggregated. We will grade the schools everyone understands what that means. They are not successful so if you are in a Failing School can leave the school to go to a better Public School to get a voucher to go to a private school that was struck down by the Supreme Court part of it. Its led to remarkable improvement. The good thing they focused on is it isnt really rocket science. The children have to demonstrate they are reading a certain level to go on to grade four. Of the placement courses and the International Baccalaureate courses not just for the kids in the house is a nice areas of san antonio about all of the communities in florida including the poverty areas in the panhandle in urban centers in miami and many of the other places in florida. They disaggregated that which i will show in the next slide that is well below 50 and this was under a pretty minimal set of graduation requirements. Its not for the state wanted tt to be still of course. Its due back to 1998 into performance results. What about the achievement gaps we have an achievement gap throughout the country back in 98. The gap between white and hispanic was between white and black about 20 points. Itits been extended to the substantially narrowed by the 20 years with the 15 years that are displayed here with of course more work to be done. 98, again before the amendment florida was in the bottom. By 2015, florida is in the top ten. The next slide came from one of our experts in the case. Whats interesting about this slide is it talks about the fundamental question of the role of money in the state performance how to spen held wey in Public Schools today which is the best indicator of how we will spend it in the future so when we talk about Money Matters of course it matters we have to have buildings and textbooks but the question is judicially enforced and acquired money, does it matter. Take a look at where florida stands on the chart. The axis is increased dollars per student in schools in real dollars. This is from 1990 to 2009. So we see great variation across the country in the increased expenditure per student during this period of real term so we will talk of new york in a minute, wyoming, those states had very extensive judicial involvement and intervention which drove more money into the schools. Then we have florida where there has not been judicial intervention, very modest increases in real terms not much of anything in terms of spending. But in terms of the performance and improvement in test scores and children improving their skills, florida is among the top state in the nation for improvements so this chart to my mind is one of the elements of the Public Policy debate which is what is the most effective way, how do we improve schools for children. One of the things we talk about thats important to emphasize is what role can courts have and i would submit to you they are effective at doing things that are simple like you should spend more money. They are also the good doing things that held we make them better for children and when we talk about politics driving this, i call it the democratic process where people debate ideas and study them and have trial and error. That is what florida has done remarkably consistent Public Policy in their schools in 20 years. The bottom part of the chart talks about 1992, 2002, 2013 and 50 other charts in 92 florida was behind wher