On Tuesday, the state's highest court took up the questions underlying one of Minnesota's highest-stakes education lawsuits in years: What does a good-enough education look like, and do the courts have the power to judge whether or not the state has delivered?
The parents and community group that filed the lawsuit in November 2015 say the courts should be able to gauge whether the state failed its constitutional duty to give all kids an "adequate" education. The state argues that the court has no right to stick its nose in the question of education quality.
The suit has the power to reshape school demographics across the metro area for the first time in two decades. The magnitude of that was palpable in the Minnesota Judicial Center courtroom full of education advocates and area attorneys.
The suit, Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota, argues that state officials are shirking their constitutional duty to educate poor and minority students, many of whom attend segregated public schools.
In 2016, a Hennepin County district judge said that parents could sue the state. In March, the Minnesota Court of Appeals threw out the case, saying courts can't define an education quality benchmark. Plaintiffs appealed to the state Supreme Court, which agreed to hear arguments over whether the courts could define education quality.
"Can a segregated school system ever constitute a general and uniform system of education under the Education Clause?" Associate Justice David Lillehaug asked Karen Olson, a deputy state attorney general.
Olson replied that the state Constitution guarantees a general and uniform education, but "uniform does not mean identical."
Dan Shulman, attorney for the parents, pointed to the 1993 Minnesota Supreme Court decision in the school funding case Skeen v. State of Minnesota, which found that the state has to supply enough funds to assure students are adequately educated.
