Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1993

ISSN

0524-1111

Publisher

Boston Bar Association

Language

en-US

Abstract

The wisdom of promoting public education in the Commonwealth was recognized by the earliest settlers, the framers of the Constitution, and many subsequent legislatures, officials, educators and citizens. The opinions of the Department, the Secretary of Education, the Governor and various educators, contained in the stipulation, demonstrate that a policy of supporting public education is as important today as ever.2

The implementation of this policy goal by the Legislature and municipalities involves choices that are at the heart of representative government: how much public money to raise, how best to allocate the money among education and the many other public purposes that compete for public funds, and how to strike the balance between state and local control of the schools, so as to promote education. The decisions made through these processes have resulted in some success in raising educational expenditures over the past decade and providing a significant degree of equalization, but they have also resulted in relative shortcomings in some districts, which are detailed in the parties' stipulation. The question for the Court is what status our Constitution affords these decisions, made through democratic processes.

Link to Publisher Site (BU Community Subscription)

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.