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1 Joseph Henchman & Paul Galindo, Tax Foundation Urges Indiana Court Should Avoid Education Finance Mess: Bonner v. Daniels 1 (2008)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/ffbdixz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: TAX FOUNDATION Tax Foundation Urges Indiana Court to Avoid Education Finance Mess: Bonner v. Daniels Fiscal Fact No. 138 by Joseph Henchman and Paul Galindo August 18, 2008 BriefArgues State Constitution Does Not Require Judicial Funding Mandate The Tax Foundation, in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Indiana Supreme Court, urges the reversal of a lower court decision creating a judicially enforceable right to a quality education. The brief explains that such an interpretation goes beyond the text and historical meaning of the Education Clause of the Indiana Constitution, focuses improperly on funding as the only way to improve state education, and ignores the problematic experiences other states have had with judicial funding mandates. The Indiana Constitution Does Not Create a Judicially-Enforced Right to a Quality Education Article VIII, Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution requires that, in order to preserve a free government, the General Assembly shall (1) encourage knowledge, (2) provide for a general and uniform school system, (3) charge no fees for this system, and (4) make it open to all. In other words, the Indiana Government is obligated to establish free public schools. Nothing in the Education Clause establishes a specific, defined level of education that must be attained, but rather only that the state maintains a generally supportive stance towards knowledge and learning. Evidence from the framing of the Indiana Constitution, outlined in the brief, supports this interpretation. By contrast, the lower court in this case concluded that the education system envisioned by the framers (presumably reading, writing, arithmetic, and civics) is inadequate because students cannot secure their place in the global economy. Even if this meaningless statement described a serious problem, it would be one for the Legislature because such policy concerns cannot overcome the lack of textual or historical support necessary to elevate a perspective into a

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