In another blow to national efforts to expand children’s educational rights through the courts, a Massachusetts superior court judge rejected a lawsuit brought by five children denied access to charter schools.
The children had entered charter lotteries but did not win spots in their desired schools. Their lawyers argued they were trapped in low-performing schools, due in part to state laws that limit the number of charters.
The Massachusetts constitution obligates the state to “cherish” its public schools and ensure that all children are educated, Associate Justice Heidi E. Brieger ruled on Tuesday, but “[t]his obligation does not mean that Plaintiffs have the constitutional right to choose a particular flavor of education, whether it be a trade school, a sports academy, an arts school, or a charter school.”
The Boston Globe profiled the plaintiffs last fall, when the suit, backed by a trio of prominent attorneys, was first filed.
They range in age from 6 to 13. Four are from Dorchester, and one is from South Boston. Two are African-American; two are Hispanic; one is of Haitian descent.
The mother of one of the children, a 32-year-old who emigrated from the Dominican Republic and grew up in Dorchester, said she applied the last two years to send her 6-year-old son to charter schools, believing they are safer and more academically rigorous than the traditional Boston public schools she attended.
After he was put on a waiting list, the woman, a single mother, said she made the choice to send him to Catholic school, even though she said she cannot, over the long-term, afford the school for her son and her daughter, who is 3. “I made it out somehow, but some of it, honestly, was luck and I don’t want to take certain risks with my kids,” said the mother, who works in marketing and went to an Ivy League college. “I want them to be challenged, and I want them to be exposed to more diversity, and I didn’t get any of that growing up.”
The Globe reports the plaintiffs intend to appeal. And the case is just one front in a multi-pronged legal effort to establish a legal right to a high-quality education. Right now, those lawsuits are mostly concentrated in states where elected officials have placed limits on charters and other forms of school choice. A federal lawsuit filed this summer in neighboring Connecticut takes aim at restrictions on the number of magnet and charter schools.
Across the country, other lawsuits targeting issues from teacher tenure to funding equity have often foundered or led to messy resolutions. It may be worth asking: What would it take to establish a legally enforceable right to a quality education? Can equal educational opportunity ever be won through the courts, or does it have to be won at the polls?
In Massachusetts, there could still be a political resolution, since voters will decide this fall whether to lift the state’s charter school cap through a contentious statewide referendum.
