Yesterday, the Concord Monitor ran an editorial pushing the Lynch amendment titled, “Long knives out too soon on Lynch plan.” The night of the long knives commonly refers to Adolf Hitler’s bloody purge of potential rivals in 1934. This allusion is over the top, even for the Monitor. Take a deep breath, Monitor. Opposing the Lynch amendment is not the moral equivalent of National Socialism.
In the editorial, the Monitor commends former Congressman and Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas for “statesmanlike reasoning” for getting on the Lynch bandwagon. According to the Monitor, “Douglas has one primary concern: ensuring that the state’s education policy is created by the legislative and executive branches, not by the courts.” If that is Chuck’s primary concern, then he should be passionately opposing the Lynch amendment because it does just the opposite. It mandates that the Legislature use an antiquated, discredited policy approach to public education developed by lawyers and judges – a statewide definition of an adequate education and some formulaic determination of funding based on the definition.
The Claremont litigation is not unique. Efforts to set education policy by litigation, rather than through legislation, began in the late 1960s. Adequacy suits have been around since the late 1980s. Indeed, we are often told by those shilling Claremont that we should define an adequate education the same way state X has or that we should determine the cost the same way state Y has. If adequacy is such great policy, then why are our students falling further and further behind students from other countries?
The Monitor editorial chastises me for citing the Monitor’s support of the Lynch amendment as evidence that it is a Trojan Horse for an income tax. According to the Monitor, “Not that Mosca will buy it, but he’s incorrect. The amendment would neither require nor preclude a change in the state’s tax structure.” The Monitor is being disingenuous.
Nobody is arguing that language has been planted in the amendment that requires public education to be funded with an income tax immediately. Rather, the amendment greases the skids for an income tax. Here’s how. While the State only has to pay for 50 percent of the cost of an adequate education, it still has to “maintain standards of accountability,” which obviously means making sure that the other 50 percent gets paid for. School districts that lose the bulk of the Claremont money they have been receiving will be required to raise local property taxes to make up the difference. Can’t you already hear the Monitor railing against the inequity of this funding scheme?
The Legislature will materially raise the cost of an adequate education every year, or the Court will do it for them, which will drive local property taxes in towns not receiving targeted aid through the roof. The only relief will be to pass an income tax, because the Lynch amendment prevents municipalities from spending or taxing less than Concord tells them to. Can’t you already see the Monitor grinning?
The Monitor’s keep-the Democrats-in-power-and-spend-our-way-to-an-income-tax approach doesn’t sit well with Andru Volinsky. In an op-ed written in response to the “long knives” editorial, Volinsky lists various reasons why state taxes should pay for all of the cost of an adequate education. This list can be reduced to three words: income tax now.
While the Monitor and Volinsky differ about how best to achieve an income tax, they are on the same page when it comes to misrepresenting the role of the judiciary under our system of government. Consider this gem from Volinsky’s op-ed: “The problem with the current state of education funding is not that the Supreme Court has dictated policy but that, faced with a direct order that the Legislature and governors must define a constitutionally adequate education, four governors and their legislatures have refused to do so.”
You’ve got to be kidding! If directly ordering the Legislature and Governor to define an adequate education is not dictating policy, then what is? It is instructive to compare Volinsky’s views on the judiciary’s role regarding public education with that of the pre-Claremont Supreme Court: “Any educational policy or rule declared by the Legislature or promulgated under authority delegated by it may not be reversed or vacated judicially on the ground that it must be regarded as impolitic.”
Volinsky correctly says that the Monitor shouldn’t attempt “to discourage vigorous debate by belittling opinions with which it disagrees.” That debate should not just include, but should be all about, the legitimacy of the Claremont decisions.
