Last week, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down that state's "Commission Charter Schools" statute, which allowed the state Legislature to directly establish charter schools in districts where the voters had consistently rejected establishing them locally. Whatever your views on the merits of charter schools, this decision is of note from a state constitutional law perspective for the way in which it elevates the governmental interest (or shibboleth, depending on your perspective) of "local control" to a constitutional compulsion.
In striking down the charter school law, the court's 4-3 majority explained that local school boards in Georgia have "exclusive local control" of their districts' operations, including what schools shall be established. The sole exception to this principle, the court explained, is found in the state constitution's "special schools" provision, which authorizes the state legislature to establish special schools "in such areas that may require them," subject to certain provisos limiting boded indebtedness to pay for such schools. (For a copy of the current Georgia Constitution, see here. The education article is Article VIII, and the relevant Section is Section V, beginning on page 60 of the pdf link).
The court held that the state's establishment of three charter schools of the typical, familiar variety (save one that limited enrollment to female students only) violated this principle of local control, and therefore the statute authorizing the schools was unconstitutional. Facially so, in fact.
We all are familiar with the fact that "local control" plays prominently as a governmental interest in helping governments to justify socioeconomic discrimination and pass the "rational basis" test under equal protection jurisprudence, but this opinion appears to see "local control" not as a legitimate interest that the state legislature may permissibly pursue, but rather as a constutionally required limitation on state legislation in education. Local control has now evolved in Georgia to a requirement.
However, from a school finance litigation perspective, the REALLY interesting bit of the opinion is this little gem:
"The constitutional history of Georgia could not be more clear that, as to general K-12 public education, local boards of education have the exclusive authority to fulfill one of the "primary obligation[s] of the State of Georgia," namely, "[t]he provision of an adequate public education for the citizens." Art. VIII, Sec. I, Par. I." (p. 3 of the slip opinion).
I'm particularly intrerested in the implications of this quote. If accepted as an operative holding in the court's opinion, it seems to mean that no suit for educational inadequacy may lie against the legislature or any other state-level entity in Georgia. If one's right to "adequate education" (assuming such a right exists in Georgia) is violated, then it is the school district that is at fault, not the state. This conclusion would turn education finance litigation as currently conceived on its head.
Even if you are not interested in these issues of state constitutional interpretation, the opinion, which contains a lengthy and well-reasoned dissent, is well worth a read.