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Funding disparities
Inequity in school funding between Virginia’s wealthiest and poorest counties—for years the subject of controversy—is now headed to court.
A coalition of the state’s poorest school districts voted recently to ask a state judge to throw out Virginia’s educational funding scheme as unconstitutional.
If the group is successful, Virginia will join Kentucky, Texas and other states whose funding systems for schools were overturned by the courts.
The Coalition for Equity in Educational Funding, comprised of 38 mainly rural, downstate school boards and the Virginia Education Association, plans to meet to either finalize or delay plans for the suit, which would be filed in state Circuit Court in Richmond.
In the week prior to the decision to sue, state officials tried to convince the school districts to hold off until the General Assembly approves fuding initiatives early next year.
In April, the coalition’s board voted unanimously to file suit unless Gov. L. Douglas Wilder presented “a specific blueprint” to resolve the disparities, according to coalition president Kenneth Walker. Mr. Walker is superintendent of schools of Halifax County and the city of South Boston in Southside Virginia.
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