What was the 1971 Serrano v priest California Supreme Court decision?

Serrano v. Priest was a 1971 three-part landmark California Supreme Court case in which the Supreme Court overturned a trial court’s decision and ruled that “[although] the right to an education in our public schools is a fundamental interest which cannot be conditioned on wealth, we can discern no compelling state purpose necessitating the present method of financing, [therefore] such a system [is unconstitutional]” (Serrano v. Priest, 1971). The California Supreme Court found the current California financial system of using property taxes as the principal source of revenue for public schools in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and similar provisions of the California Constitution. They supported their decision with the idea of education being “the lifeline of both the individual and society” (Karst, 1972).

Serrano v. Priest originated in the Los Angeles County Superior Court as a class action suit between John Serrano, who represented public school children and their parents in the county, and Ivy Baker Priest, California’s state treasurer. It was for “declaratory and injunctive relief against certain state and county officials charged with administering the financing of the California public school system” (Serrano v. Priest, 1971). Before Serrano, “over 90% of California’s public school funding derived from a combination of school district property taxes (55.7%) and state aid based largely on sales or income taxation (35.5%)” (Serrano. 5 Cal. 3d at 591 n.2, 487 P.2d at 1246 n.2, 96 Cal. Rptr. at 606 n.2). During the case, the plaintiffs used comparisons of financial expenditures across districts to reveal the inadequacy of state grants, which were distributed based on the number of students in a district irrespective of a district’s wealth. In addition, these comparisons were used to address the fact that some students had to pay a higher tax rate in order to receive equivalent or lesser educational opportunities that were easily and readily available to students in other districts. They cited the fact that “the Baldwin Park Unified School District expended only $577.49 to educate each of its pupils in 1968-1969 [in comparison to] the Pasadena Unified School District’s $840.19 and the Beverly Hills Unified School District’s $1,231.72” (Cal. Dept. of Ed., Cal. Public Schools, Selected Statistics 1968-1969 Table IV-11). This served as one of many examples that highlighted the historically socioeconomic division in California regions and the flaws of the current financial system.

Commentary on the decision of Serrano v. Priest was present and in high volume. While it was before the trial court, a “closely-divided United States Supreme Court responded negatively to Serrano’s appreciation of federal constitutional law” (Karst, 1972, p. 333). Nonetheless, the press’ comments were affirmative and deemed the Serrano decision “as a significant, if not the significant step in the struggle for better education in urban areas” (Goldstein, 1972, p. 504). The New York Times in 1972 declared that the decision was “the most far-reaching court ruling on schooling since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954…” (Karst, 1972). Parents of school children, as taxpayers especially, supported the decision.

In contrast, opponents of judicial intervention fought against Serrano’s attempt to invalidate the current financial system. First, they felt it lacked “a workable judicial standard, asserting that an equality concept might result in a downward leveling of expenditures rather than improved quality; secondly, [they maintained that] an equality requirement, which set a state norm for school expenditures, would result in substantial middle-class exodus from public schools” (Goldstein, 1972, p. 513). School district superintendents, especially those who represented the defendant high-wealth districts, were dissident as well. They strongly insisted that California legislature “[should not] take away the educational benefits achieved with money merely on the speculation that poorer districts will also be able to achieve the same benefits with money, [since] it is always painful for the “haves” to be required to share with the “have-nots””(Defendants’ Trial Brief, 1974, p. 85). Despite this, the trial judge, Judge Bernard Jefferson, issued a “106-page opinion, ruling in favor of the plaintiffs on virtually every issue” (Karst, 1972, p. 333).

Serrano v. Priest intended to revise school finances concerning school district budgets and funding counties in California as well as to incite discussion. The plaintiffs in the case aimed “to reduce or eliminate within-state disparities in per pupil expenditures, [and] not the more ambitious goal of raising average student performance in public schools” (Downes, 1996). Wealth disparities between districts created a low-income “suspect class” who the Serrano case believed should be protected from such discrimination and inequality under the equal protection clause.

Serrano II’s decision that education was a “fundamental” right set a precedent that other states followed and ultimately gave Serrano v. Priest its importance. Not surprisingly, “[over] thirty suits challenging state school financing systems in various states have used the Serrano decision as a model for the complaint” (Gonzalez, 1972). After Serrano I, the Federal District Court in Minneapolis “in Van Dusartz v. Hatfield approved [the Serrano case] and declared the Minnesota method of financing its public schools unconstitutional because it violated the equal protection clause” (Shannon, 1972). As it seems, “Serrano-inspired lawsuits and litigation transformed school funding policies nationwide resulting in new funding, a redistribution of resources among school districts, and changes in many public schools to a degree second only to the transformation that followed Brown v. Board of Education” (Dayton & Dupre, 2006). Still, reorganizing how California finances its schools without changing the process by which it governs them, has not proven useful in tackling the disparities that persist in the education system.

Serrano v. Priest was to be implemented by California legislators. Following Serrano, the California legislature passed Senate Bill 90, “which imposed a revenue limit system on all school districts and squeezed wealthy districts, while allowing low wealth districts to expand revenues at a faster rate” (Wickert, 1985, p. 537). Financial endeavors like these were set to be determined periodically by the California State Legislature, who would fine-tune the revenue limit formula and deliberate the larger state budget. “The tenor of the annual process was demonstrated by California governor, George Deukmejian’s 1985-86 budget proposal to allocate to schools an additional one billion dollars” (Wickert, 1985, p. 537). Ultimately, major decisions would be determined by political processes, including input from special interest groups and citizens, that hopefully would bring the legislature and governor into a final agreement on implementing Serrano’s vision. These circumstances since the Serrano decision illustrate the difficulties courts encounter when they require action from a legislature and the difficulties California schools encounter when their “success [is] fully dependent upon their ability to influence state legislature rather than individual districts” (Wickert, 1985).

In the Serrano II case, “a majority of six to four affirmed the trial judge’s decision that ordered the State of California to reduce wealth-related disparities between school districts to considerably less than $100.00 per pupil” (Scribner, 1973). While not serving as the sole remedy, “the $100 range became the litmus for compliance” (Goldstein, 1972, p. 509). The legislature then adopted a plan to gradually increase the foundation support level until per pupil expenditures would be equalized; however, the majority in Serrano II found the new plan unacceptable, highlighting that “some tax-rich districts could still attain the foundation spending level with much lower levy rates than tax-poor districts” (Scribner, 1973). To enforce the Serrano decisions, the court established the principle of fiscal neutrality, or the idea that “the quality of public education may not be a function of wealth other than the wealth of the state as a whole” (Sonstelie, 2001), which it incorporated into new school finance laws. Unfortunately, the Serrano decisions did not require that state legislatures apportion more total money for public education. So, when funding public education, California can look to create valid need categories if the fulfillment of such needs served a legitimate state purpose, such as additional expenditures for students who are gifted or differently-abled as well as for efforts to assist schools in large, urban areas where funding may be sparser.

The power to provide high quality education rests with the Californian people: local school boards, state constitutions, state legislatures, and even voters. Here, the awareness of an issue worth paying attention to coupled with political strength becomes a crucial question in defining the effect of the constitutional decree laid out in the Serrano v. Priest cases. In California, “legislative districts have been gerrymandered in such a way that Chicanos [and other underrepresented minorities] have been seriously lacking in representation in [state government]. [Thus], most state legislatures have put a ceiling on the tax rate that can be levied, making it difficult for their communities to determine the level of expenditures for education” (Gonzalez, 1972). The impact of Serrano v. Priest on the funds made available for the education of Black, Latinx and Native American children is unclear for this very reason. Serrano demands more political change in the way educational funds are raised than it does institutional change, acknowledging that only some communities actually ‘control’ their education. This leads to poorer districts spending less on education. These districts, whom “have been willing to make sacrifices for the education of its children, are [then] the very ones that have been penalized under existing state policies” (Gonzalez, 1972).

Serrano II focused on “inequities in expenditures inherent in the existing financing system and those in the quality of educational opportunities the court contended were attributable to inequities in spending capabilities” (Henke, 1986). To assess whether post-Serrano reforms have eliminated inequity in taxable resources, distributions of expenditures in 1985-86 were compared to those in 1976-77. Revenue limits were “decidedly more clustered in 1985-86 than in 1975-76. Its interquartile range fell from $211.88 in 1975-76 to $70.12 in 1985-86” (Downes, 1992, p. 406). In addition to revenue limits, “the interquartile range of per pupil spending dropped from $553.43 to $407.76. A reduction in the dispersion across districts of total expenditures per pupil is evident, yet the changes are less dramatic” (Downes, 1992, p. 407). While this provides strong evidence of reduced inequity, many issues remain unresolved despite the influence of Serrano’s decisions. First and foremost, the decisions did not require all California school districts to spend the exact same amount per pupil annually, although the state could have mandated such an expenditure pattern. The court also did not negate the use of property taxes to raise revenue for public schools. Consequently, the Serrano decisions told the California legislature, “you cannot adopt a financing system which in operation makes the dollars available for education a function of the wealth of a community; but beyond that, the choices are yours” (Kirp, 1971, p.145). Serrano v. Priest serves as a notable, well-considered judicial step into the politics of education finance, yet it fails to involve the California Supreme Court in the unmanageable and often tricky business of discerning the educational “needs” of every child.

To raise money to cover the increasing expenditures caused by higher teacher salaries and increased capital costs, it will be necessary to continually increase taxes, however, “in 1970-71, California voters rejected over 60% of the proposed tax increases and bond issues” (Warner, 1973). Unfortunately, Serrano only assures equitable treatment for a whole school district. Additionally, numerous schools are racially isolated despite previous litigation of desegregation, which affects funding. Thus, another alternative for financing public schools is to allocate money based on such factors as “the number of pupils, the number of schools, the willingness of a district to make a greater or lesser property tax effort to raise dollars for education, and the degree of racial integration within the district” (Kirp, 1971, p. 146). Then, extra dollars could be distributed to communities whose cost of providing educational services is incredibly higher or to industrial communities with additional costs of municipal services such as transportation, fire control and street maintenance.

References

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