Parents Sue State Over School Funds

Saying public schools are failing to adequately educate their children, a group of low-income parents filed suit against the state Thursday, demanding the right to use public tax dollars to pay for private school education.

Attorneys for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of more than 50 parents and children who attend schools in the Los Angeles, Inglewood and Compton unified school districts.

At a news conference near Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters, attorney Clint Bolick said that parents should not be forced to send their children to substandard public schools because they cannot afford a private or parochial education.

“The government should cover tuition,” Bolick said. The suit calls for the State Board of Education to give to parents the money it currently spends educating their children in public schools. “The transfer of control of educational funds from the state to the parents (would) empower parents to choose good schools for their children,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the state board’s litigation office said it had not been served with the suit as of Thursday afternoon and had no comment.

The state now provides about $3,300 of the $5,000 spent annually per student in the Los Angeles district, Bolick said. “That amount should be more than adequate to secure an education in a private school,” he said, noting that many private schools in poorer neighborhoods charge no more than $300 a month for tuition.

The suit is not a class-action case, so it would benefit only the parents and children named, Bolick said. The nonprofit institute, a conservative public-interest litigation firm, filed a similar suit Wednesday on behalf of about 100 parents and children in the Chicago area.

Although the California suit names state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, Controller Gray Davis and the State Board of Education as defendants, much of the ire expressed at the news conference was aimed at local school districts--particularly Los Angeles.

“Our kids are in overcrowded, crime-ridden schools,” said Star Parker, a plaintiff in the suit whose 11-year-old daughter attends John Burroughs Junior High School. “We have a right to have our children educated. They (public schools) haven’t done that so I want my money back.”

The lawsuit echoes the cry of a movement seeking to qualify a “parental choice” initiative for the November ballot. The measure would provide a voucher worth about $2,500 to every school-age child in California to pay tuition at private or parochial schools.

Bolick said he supports the principle of the initiative but the parents and children he represents cannot afford to wait for it to pass.

Richard K. Mason, special counsel for the Los Angeles school district, said the district “would be extremely concerned about the effect of this case on the students who would be left behind, most particularly . . . disproportionately poor, minority and disabled.”

“We have equal concerns related to the voucher initiative process, but at least that is (being) referred to the vote of the people, if it qualifies for the ballot.”