The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently ordered the dismissal of a case that challenged the DC Council’s authority under the Home Rule Act to make changes to the School Reform Act.[1] The Committee, along with the law firms Steptoe & Johnson LLP and Lewis Baach Kaufmann & Middlemiss, PLLC, represent a group of DC parents and DC education advocate organizations from every Ward that filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief with the DC Circuit Court on appeal.
The Committee became involved in this case to explain to the court that the DC Council has the authority under the Home Rule Act to make changes to the School Reform Act passed by Congress and the DC Council needs that authority to create and manage an equitable public school system. Equitable changes to the per student funding formula used to fund all public schools in DC. The DC Council, as a locally elected legislature, addressed funding across the school system to combat the persistent racial and economic segregation in its public schools.
Just two charter schools and a DC charter school association filed this lawsuit in July 2014, incorrectly claiming that charter schools in DC were underfunded for years.[2] If the charter plaintiffs had prevailed on all of their claims, it could have meant that more than $100 million dollars each year would be diverted from DCPS and to charter schools in DC. The charter plaintiffs were not underfunded, as charter schools in DC accumulated $336 million in unrestricted cash and equivalents, as well as $481 million in net assets (as of June 2017).
The DC Circuit’s decision on appeal turned on the threshold issue of whether the federal court had jurisdiction of this matter. We believe the DC Circuit Court decided correctly that the School Reform Act is not a federal law, but a local law passed by Congress that only applies to DC, and that it does not serve as a basis for federal court jurisdiction.
The Committee and the DC citizens and DC education advocacy organizations that we represent look forward to putting this lawsuit behind DC, so that the DC Council can exercise its authority to address significant opportunity gaps for students of color, students with disabilities, English Language Learners, and students living in poverty among its public schools. The Committee appreciates the excellent work of the attorneys it worked with in the appeal briefing: Matthew Frumin; Jeff Robinson at Lewis Baach; and Roger Warin, Osvaldo Vasquez, and Marcus Gadson at Steptoe.
[1] D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, et al v. District of Columbia, et al., No. 17-7155 (D.C. Cir. 2019).
[2] D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., No. 1:14-cv-01293 (U.S. Dist. Ct., D.C.)