“After numerous talks with the governor as recently as yesterday, it would have been nice to know this was coming out,’’ said Bragdon. House Speaker William O’Brien also criticized Lynch.
Lynch’s amendment states that the Legislature shall have the authority and responsibility to define reasonable school education standards. The Legislature also shall hold public schools accountable to meet those standards and mitigate local disparities in educational opportunity, the amendment says. It would also give lawmakers discretion to determine the amount and distribution of aid.
Lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully dozens of times to compromise on an amendment to nullify the state Supreme Court’s landmark 1997 ruling requiring the state to provide all public school children with an adequate education. After the ruling, the state began providing a base-per-pupil aid amount to all communities, including wealthy ones.
Lynch wants to target aid to poorer communities and has been working with Bragdon and O’Brien for months to come up with an amendment all three could support.
The House and Senate have each passed amendments to the other chamber, but neither has received the three-fifths vote of each chamber needed to be placed on the ballot. It would then take a two-thirds vote to change the constitution.
The Supreme Court’s rulings do not prohibit the state from sending additional aid to communities, but Lynch and other critics say the state’s limited resources are used to comply with the court mandate for adequacy.
