July-August 2005

Nebraska coalition battles to preserve rural education

A group of parents, school board members, educators, and citizens associated with the Nebraska Coalition for Educational Equity and Adequacy (NCEEA) packed the Lancaster County District  courtroom on July 5, 2005.  The hearing in Judge John A. Colborn’s courtroom was on the State’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by public school students and their parents, local school board members, several individual public schools districts and NCEEA, filed in August 2004.

NCEEA is engaged in a long-term battle to ensure all Nebraska children receive a constitutionally adequate education, near home. It involves the courts, building capacity for direct action organizing at the grassroots level, and substantive legislative remedies.

“This is an important effort of our cause to seek justice for all the children harmed by a school funding system that treats them as second-class citizens,” said Gayla Fredrickson, superintendent of Elgin Public Schools and NCEEA president. “We believe that where one child is harmed, all children are harmed from the inadequate treatment by the state’s school funding system.”

In August 2004, parents, students, two rural schools, and the NCEEA, a coalition of 45 rural schools, filed a suit against the Nebraska governor and other state officials, saying the state school finance system does not provide adequate funding for schools to provide the education all Nebraska children are entitled to receive. The school funding system therefore violates the Nebraska constitution, the group said.

“We are frustrated by unsuccessful lobbying efforts to establish a school funding system that fully funds the actual cost of an adequate education for every child, in every school, in every community,” said Bill Kuester, superintendent of Nebraska Unified District 1 and NCEEA president-elect.  “All children require an education that is suitable to our times, economically and socially. Many are not getting it. The state of Nebraska is shortchanging our children’s education. We are seeking justice through the courts, a legitimate avenue in our democracy.”

The K-12 school systems in NCEEA are among the smallest in Nebraska: Arthur has 90 students in grades K-12 and South-Central Nebraska Unified No. 5 has 1,265. Over 14,500 students are represented by the coalition. Students in these schools have faced the most harmful consequences from changes made to the state school finance system in 1997. 

For example, the state is forcing small schools to live up to the cost-efficiency standards of the largest schools. Since 1997, many rural schools have lost between one-third and two-thirds of general operating budgets due to drastic cuts in state aid. As a result, students go to schools where chemistry is offered every other year. Teachers are teaching in non-endorsed areas, textbooks are at least seven-years-old, computers are at least five years old, lab equipment dates to the early-1970s and there are documented fire code violations in school buildings.

Nebraska’s policy makers have said that if rural people want a school, they should pay for it themselves. To illustrate this attitude, an urban senator and chair of the legislature’s education committee introduced Legislative Bill 129 in February 2005. A provision of that bill would force consolidation or closure of K-12 schools with fewer than 390 students by cutting state aid.  This would harm 72 school systems, many represented by NCEEA.  Taxpayers in these rural districts pay between 15 percent and 31 percent of personal income in property taxes. An average of three percent is paid by urban taxpayers. Students not only receive inadequate educational opportunities, but their parents and neighbors are forced by the state to pay disproportionately more than taxpayers in urban areas.

“We’re concerned about the 390 local choice adjustment,” said Randy Sandman, owner of Diode Communications in Diller, Neb. “Schools with fewer than 390 students will likely lose state aid according to LB 129,” said Sandman. “These children deserve a quality education as much as those in larger communities.”

In 2005, NCEEA began an initiative to prepare rural citizens for direct action organizing with support from the National Training and Information Center.  The effort focused on Southeast Nebraska, where a large number of schools with fewer than 390 students are located. Parents, educators, school board members, students, and taxpayers organized to oppose the 390 provision and increases in property taxes. They favor increasing state resources to fully fund the actual costs of education regardless of school district size. Such state resources may come from sales and income taxes, and recapturing a larger share of  funding lost through the state tax incentive programs that benefit corporations.

Parents, school board members, and taxpayers organized their friends and neighbors in nearly 20 southeast Nebraska communities. Public meetings were held with legislative representatives to gauge support or opposition to LB 129. Steady grassroots pressure throughout the session resulted in LB 129 not advancing out of the education committee.

“Children deserve good schools close to home, in safe buildings, with a well-qualified teacher in every classroom, and a challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or a good job,” said Andrea Heusman, a Sterling Public Schools board member and parent.

“The coalition stood united in its public opposition to LB 129.  Conceptually, it maintains a status quo system that redistributes too few resources and explicitly discriminates against small schools,” said Fredrickson.

NCEEA represents students in grades K-12 attending 45 rural schools ranging in size from 92 students in Arthur County Schools to 1,265 in South Central Unified System 5.  The schools are located widely across Nebraska, serving communities in 30 of 93 counties, from Sheridan County in the northwest to Richardson County in the southeast, and all sections in between.