Lawsuit against Lexington schools dismissed

A federal judge in Massachusetts threw out a lawsuit filed by Lexington parents who objected to discussions of gay couples in their children’s classrooms.

The case and issues which arose highlight some of the sensitive issues that school committees face.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf said federal courts have decided in other cases that the constitutional right of parents to raise their children does not include the right to restrict what a public school may teach them. Wolf said those earlier rulings also have held that teachings that contradict a parent’s religious beliefs do not violate their First Amendment right to exercise their religion.

In his decision, the judge stated:

In essence, under the Constitution public schools are entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy. Diversity is a hallmark of our nation. It is increasingly evident that our diversity includes differences in sexual orientation. Our nation’s history includes a fundamental commitment to promoting mutual respect among citizens in our diverse nation that is manifest in the First Amendment’s prohibitions on establishing an official religion and restricting the free exercise of religious beliefs on which plaintiffs base some of their federal claims. Our history also includes instances of individual and official discrimination against gays and lesbians, among others. It is reasonable for public educators to teach elementary school students about individuals with different sexual orientations and about various forms of families, including those with same-sex parents, in an effort to eradicate the effects of past discrimination, to reduce the risk of future discrimination and, in the process, to reaffirm our nation’s constitutional commitment to promoting mutual respect among members of our diverse society. In addition, it is reasonable for those educators to find that teaching young children to understand and respect differences in sexual orientation will contribute to an academic environment in which students who are gay, lesbian, or the children of same-sex parents will be comfortable and, therefore, better able to learn.

The facts underlying the case involve parents who sued after their 5-year-old son brought home a book from kindergarten that depicted a gay family. Another Lexington couple joined the suit after a second-grade teacher read to the class a fairy tale that tells the story of two princes falling in love. Both couples claimed Lexington school officials violated their parental rights to teach their own morals to their children. They said they did not want to dictate curriculum but wanted to be told ahead of time when gay couples were being discussed so they could remove their young children from classrooms.

You may recall that this case involved a father who was arrested for trespassing as reported in the Boston Globe. He went to the school to object to the book and met with school officials. The meeting ended with the father’s arrest after he refused to leave the school.

Massachusetts law prohibits discrimination in public schools based on sex or sexual orientation. It also requires that public school curricula encourage respect for all individuals regardless of, among other things, sexual orientation. Pursuant to these directives, the Massachusetts Department of Education has issued standards which encourage instruction for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students concerning different types of people and families.

The families assert that the defendants’ conduct violates their rights under the United States Constitution to raise their children and to the free exercise of their religion. They also contend that the defendants have violated the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including the statute that requires that parents be given notice and an opportunity to exempt their children from any curriculum that “primarily involves human sexual education or human sexuality issues.” M.G.L. c. 71, § 32A.

For a copy of the full decision, click here.

Local Funding for Education

This interesting piece is from the February edition of The Benchmark, Municipal Benchmarking’s periodic newsletter:

Education funding in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a complex process. The Commonwealth educates its children in single municipality school districts, regional school districts, or a mix of both. These school districts are funded by a host of sources, including municipal contributions, reimbursements, distributions and offsets from the Commonwealth, and various state and federal grants. This article attempts to strip down this spending and focus on the extent and range of local municipal contributions.

Many sources of education aid from the Commonwealth utilize a progressive policy structure. For example, under Chapter 70, aid to a municipality is based on that municipality’s “ability to pay”, as measured by its property valuation and median family income. To the extent that a municipality does not have the resources to meet certain spending requirements, the Commonwealth provides additional resources. Another example is the Commonwealth’s school lunch program. Under this program, school districts are reimbursed for the cost of providing school lunch to certain economically disadvantaged students. In other words, less affluent municipalities receive more educational aid and more affluent municipalities receive less aid. In addition, many municipalities, opt to allocate more than just the foundation levels to education spending.

As a consequence, the amount that individual municipalities spend on education from local funds ranges widely . For example, Fitchburg, in the 5th percentile of median family income among municipalities with a single member school district in the Commonwealth, spends $229 in local funds per household on education. By contrast, Andover, in the 95th percentile, spends $3,759 per household.

In order to get a better sense for this spread, we took a detailed look at the components of education spending. First, in order to avoid any skew from accounting differences in regional districts, we looked only at those municipalities that are part of a single municipality school district. We then took each municipality’s education spending as reported on its Schedule A and backed out amounts funded by the Commonwealth through most of its major aid programs, including Chapter 70, school transportation and school lunch. Please note that these data do not include certain indirect services, such as health care insurance or retirement, provided by the municipality to the school district and which are accounted for under separate spending categories.

The following chart breaks out the median percent of the education spending paid for by the municipality, median dollars paid by the municipality spent on education per household and median dollars spent in total on education per household. In each case, the result is broken down by quintile of Median Family Income.

Median Family Income (Quintile)	Percent of Locally Funded Education	Locally Funded Education Spending Per Household	Total Education Spending Per Household
1st	34.7%	$898	$2,500
2nd	62.5%	$1,579	$2,654
3rd	67.9%	$1,732	$2,728
4th	75.3%	$2,260	$3,128
5th	88.2%	$3,304	$3,990

As we can see, the range in locally funded education spending per household is substantially wider than the range in total education spending. If you would like to see where Franklin falls, please click here to open the Local Education Spending spreadsheet. Use the pull down list to choose Franklin from the list. The spreadsheet will show how Franklin compares to the median of its quintile and another selected community.

Education funding in the Commonwealth is designed to ensure that every municipality devotes at least a minimum threshold of resources to education. Where a municipality lacks resources the Commonwealth steps in to assist. However, many municipalities opt to devote even more resources to education. As a consequence of both of these factors, there is a significant range of education spending paid for at the municipal level. When you examine the education spending in your community, we hope that you will consider how the structural elements shape the allocation decisions in your community.