Three branches

A proposal in the Missouri Senate to keep school funding issues out of the state's courts goes too far, but parts of what the proposed constitutional amendment would do make sense.

The current legislative effort seeks to give all decision-making powers regarding school funding to the legislature and governor. If such a constitutional amendment were adopted by Missouri voters, no one -- parents, taxpayers, educators, students -- would be able to seek judicial redress for their complaints about how school funds are spent or where they come from. That's too much.

But the senators behind the proposed amendment are right on one score: Courts should not be able to order the state to spend money. Missourians suffered the multibillion-dollar consequences of just such judicial activism years ago when federal judges in Kansas City and St. Louis went far beyond the scope of segregation issues in those metropolitan school districts and ordered the state legislature to spend more and more money in an attempt to achieve racial balance.

Missourians who believe the funding mechanism for public education is broken ought to have the right to get the state's courts to agree. A current lawsuit filed by more than half of the state's public school districts asks that very question.

Just as keeping judges out of the loop on school funding cuts out one branch of a three-branch system of government, so does allowing judges to decide how much the state should spend on education usurp the budget authority of the executive and legislative branches.

There are too many factors involved in budget issues to allow one facet of state government to receive favored treatment -- the courts, the legislature or the governor.

What is needed to achieve equitable and adequate school funding is open to debate. Courts can issue orders, but legislators can only spend as much money as the state receives. Any conscientious governor surely would veto a budget that includes excessive court-ordered school spending at the expense of the rest of state government.