Education fix must not invite lawsuits

The Montana Legislature is into its second half, and predictably, education will be at the center of attention again.

Our half-time assessment is that the Legislature's court-mandated task of defining "a basic system of quality education" will become even more contentious.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Delivering a definition, and attaching a price tag to it, should be rigorously debated. No stone should be left unturned as legislation is vetted to determine short-term, long-term and unintended consequences from any definition that is arrived at.

The question of cost - how much Montanans should pay for a quality education - has gotten well-deserved attention that should continue as the Legislature comes to grips with a 1981 law that caps the rate at which state spending can grow. At last count, spending proposed by Gov. Brian Schweitzer and approved in legislative committees was roughly $114 million above the set spending cap for the next biennium.

That means the Legislature will have to either override the cap with a two-thirds majority in both houses, or it will have to pare back spending.

Either way, Gov. Schweitzer's plan of granting an additional $80 million to K-12 education is likely to be at the center of the debate.

While most lawmakers seem to think that amount is adequate to implement a basic system of quality education in Montana schools, some folks aren't satisfied. If the spending cap goes away, they might even conceivably try to get more.

"The Legislature at this point, frankly, has targeted a specific amount of money without understanding what that money will provide or won't provide," said Jack Copps, executive director of the Montana Quality Education Coalition, the same group that sued the state over previous levels of education funding.

Copps is asserting that it's best to decide on a definition and then determine the cost. But Gov. Schweitzer has adopted an opposite view - that the definition will have to fit what's available to spend.

As he explained it to the Inter Lake editorial board, $80 million is all that's available, and Montana state government, like most families, has to live within its means. He went on to reiterate in absolute terms that he will not support new or increased taxes.

Remember, the task of providing "a basic system of quality education" at all Montana schools is a constitutional issue. The state Supreme Court ordered that lawmakers provide more definition to the phrase and funding to back it up, but how much definition is necessary when it comes to constitutional language?

We prefer basic, simple and minimal language for any constitutional definition, as opposed to broad language that can be broadly interpreted, such as in the leading bill for defining education, sponsored by Sen. Don Ryan, D-Great Falls.

As an example, Ryan's Senate Bill 152 calls for educational programs "that promote the full development of a student's potential."

While it sounds like a desirable goal, that kind of defining language is exactly the type that causes episodic problems for Montana, particularly for the state's taxpayers.

Anytime anybody feels that a school is failing to promote the "full development" of a student's potential in any school in the state, another round of litigation can get under way with taxpayers covering all the resulting costs.

Avoiding future education litigation is something the Legislature should be striving for as it tackles the second half of the session. The state's educational responsibilities should be determined by the people's representatives in the Legislature, not by the courts.