Full-Day Kindergarten and High Quality Pre-K Sought in Indiana School Finance Case

Joining a growing national trend in school finance litigation, a class action lawsuit filed on April 20, 2006, by nine Indiana school children and their parents seeks funding for full-day kindergarten and preschool as integral components of a public education. The students, who reside in low-income, low-performing school districts with high concentrations of minority students, allege that the state system for funding public schools fails to allow Indiana’s most vulnerable students—those disadvantaged by poverty, disability and limited English proficiency, and members of racial and ethnic minorities—the opportunity to acquire the minimum knowledge and skills mandated by the Indiana Constitution and essential to successful and productive citizenship.

The complaint in Bonner v. Daniels cites the national research on the impact of full-day kindergarten and high quality preschool on children’s school readiness skills and later success in school and life. Indiana currently funds full-day kindergarten through a limited grant program that serves approximately 25% of kindergarteners. The state does not fund a preschool program.

The lawsuit, spearheaded by the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), also claims that the State’s foundation aid and “complexity index” for additional funding for at-risk students bear no rational relationship to meeting achievement of the State’s education standards or the complexity of a school district’s student population. The complaint seeks a judgment declaring that the Indiana system of financing elementary and secondary public education violates the education, due process and equal protection clauses of the Indiana Constitution.

For information on case law and litigation strategies relating to state-funded prekindergarten programs, visit our home page, or contact Ellen Boylan, Esq., at eboylan@edlawcenter.org; (973) 624-1815, ext. 18.