A Case That Could Shake Up School Systems Nationwide

A case now before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is one of two nationwide that could bring, as one law school professor puts it, “enormous, almost earth-shattering change in terms of educational funding and educational opportunity.” The details claimed by plaintiffs in the Sixth Circuit case, which came out of Detroit, seem preposterous. They include students being taught 11th and 12th grade English using materials labeled for third and fourth graders, students going through part of the year with long-term substitutes who showed movies instead of teaching, and a math class taught for a month by one of the students, who was all the system could provide after one of the teachers quit. No one, this article points out, would argue the conditions referenced in the Detroit lawsuit are anything but appalling. The question is, are they also unconstitutional? That’s what’s at issue in this case, and another that’s working its way though the courts in Rhode Island.