At first glance, a lawsuit that claims Mississippi’s charter school program violates the state Constitution seems to be difficult to prove.
Section 201 of the state Constitution is a rare example of a straightforward legislative sentence: “The Legislature shall, by general law, provide for the establishment, maintenance and support of free public schools upon such conditions and limitations as the Legislature may prescribe.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed the suit last week in Hinds County, where Mississippi’s only two charter schools have opened. The suit claims the state law that directs money to assist charter schools “heralds a financial cataclysm for public school districts across the state.”
It’s hard to see an apocalyptic cataclysm being produced by only two charter schools, although there is no doubt that more of the charters will open in the next few years.
The lawsuit notes that state law requires a public school district to share local property tax collections with charter schools that open in its area. The SPLC says that violates the Constitution because the public schools must transfer the local money to institutions that they neither supervise nor control.
Section 201, however, says directly that the Legislature gets to set conditions and limitations on support for public schools. It’s pretty obvious that one of the limitations the Republican majority wishes to set is directing some education money to charter school experiments.
The SPLC might have had better luck in suing the Legislature in its decision not to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program — but Section 201 would seem to cover the Legislature there as well.
Though charter school advocates profess to be worried by the lawsuit, it’s hard to see how a chancery judge will overturn the charter school law. Mississippi is far from the first state with charter schools.
In fact, the state seems to be going about this business deliberately, with a charter school board wisely making sure the operators of the new schools are more doers than dreamers.
