California’s Constitution guarantees every student the right to a free public education under Article 9, Section 1, stating, “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.” The Constitution expands on this guarantee, stating in Section 5 that “The Legislature shall provide for a system of common schools by which a free school shall be kept up and supported in each district at least six months in every year [180 school days], after the first year in which a school has been established.”
However, the guarantee of a “free education” has continually raised issues. In 1984, the California Supreme Court ruled in Hartzell v. Connell that it is unconstitutional for public schools to charge students any fees for curricular or extracurricular educational programs. Still, the issue remained unresolved. On Sept. 9, 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of two students who had been forced to pay for school materials like PE uniforms and textbooks. The ACLU argued that this violated Section 7.5 of Article 9 of the California Constitution, which states that such costs should be covered by the state.
Following Governor Jerry Brown’s signing of Assembly Bill 1575 on Sept. 29, 2012, the ACLU dropped the lawsuit. According to Brooks Allen, director of education advocacy for the ACLU of Southern California, “AB 1575 will provide the necessary guidance, notification and accountability currently lacking in our educational system to identify and address illegal school fees.” The new bill attempts to ensure free education by deeming fees for “educational activities” to be illegal.
The bill defines “educational activities” as those of “an integral fundamental part of elementary and secondary education, including, but not limited to, curricular and extracurricular activities.”
The bill aims to provide equal educational opportunities for students of all socioeconomic classes by enforcing the Constitution’s “no charge” guarantee. Thus, Article 5.5 defines illegal fees as “pupil fees,” “a fee, deposit, or other charge imposed on pupils, or a pupil’s parents or guardians, in violation of Section 49011 and Section 5 of Article IX of the California Constitution, which require educational activities to be provided free of charge to all pupils without regard to their families’ ability or willingness to pay fees or request special waivers.” Furthermore, the bill requires the State Department of Education to distribute guidance to districts every three years regarding pupil fees in order to eliminate any discrepancies in interpretation.
Assembly member Ricardo Lara, who introduced the bill, states, “Equal educational opportunity in free public schools is the bedrock of our democratic society, promising that every child will have a chance to achieve the American dream. AB 1575 ensures the ‘free schools’ guarantee is applied equally to all children in our state and remains a meaningful protection in our Constitution.”
Similarly, the Aragon Outlook believes that, as all students are entitled to a core education, all courses on the A-G list (as released by the University of California) ought to be the “bedrock” for all students in the public school system. Ideally, extracurricular activities and activities that are not necessary for graduation would be equalized (guaranteed for all students with the same amount of allocated funds). However, the Outlook sees no way to do this without significant reduction in the quality of experience for some of the parties involved or a severe increase in taxes, and, thus, believes it should not be attempted.
The A-G list is comprised of courses that are essential to the basic education of all students. It is imperative that core classes, especially those required for graduation, be provided without any extraneous charges. The A-G list not only provides for a well-rounded high school education, but helps to ensure preparation for higher level education by the state standards.
The Outlook agrees with the spirit of the bill, but it is impractical to equalize extracurricular activities by eliminating fees. As these activities are not covered in the A-G list, this is an unnecessary and unrealistic burden on the public education system. The definition of “educational activities” should not include extracurricular activities.
The term “extracurricular activities” encompasses an enormous range of school opportunities. Now, “extracurricular activities” like field trips would be subject to the same fee restrictions as curricular activities. Schools will no longer be able charge fees “regardless of whether the class or activity is elective or compulsory.” The district will be forced to support clubs, sports, and elective classes or else risk violating state law. Music trips, drama, Model United Nations conferences, sports and a host of other programs will have to rely solely on district funding, voluntary fund-raisers and donations. The Aragon Robotics Team, for example, sent 32 members of the team to St. Louis last year to the FIRST Championship. With the new law, Robotics would have been required to offer this experience to each member and amass the additional $29,000 of competition expenses by donations, fundraisers or district funding in order to comply with the standard of a “free education.” Contrary to the egalitarian ideals of the bill, the provisions would eliminate a significant number of educational opportunities as parents and students would almost certainly focus their monetary contributions into specific areas of personal interest. As a result, the district budget and donations to Fair Share would be unable to sustain all of Aragon’s clubs. Ironically, just like the original Southern California lawsuit that sparked this debate, the new legislation would potentially provoke renewed contention over the “freeloader” effect by forcing Aragon clubs to provide all opportunities at no cost. Even though sports, drama and music programs are already supported by booster programs, the new legislation burdens clubs since those unable to offer a free experience would be required to severely reduce the educational quality of the offered activity to everyone or cease to exist. Clubs would evolve into “classes” in the sense that they offer an “educational activity” that would require sufficient interest and funding to exist, whereas the fundamental purpose of clubs is to provide otherwise unique learning experiences for students.
Though the bill’s purpose is to ensure “equal educational opportunity in free public schools,” the Outlook believes this is an impossible goal, even if free education is guaranteed. The bill’s attempts to equalize curricular and extracurricular education are too excessive to offer any benefit to the public education system and instead detract from the educational opportunities available to its students. Thus, the Outlook believes that any further attempts at equalizing and leveling education should not be made beyond the guarantee of a free education according to the A-G requirements.
