適切な教育と教育の地元支配 --判例にみるアメリカの教育 (3) --

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the United States Supreme Court's decision of San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 1973 which resulted in disfavour of the nation-wide public school finance reform suits afterwards, and attempts at identifying some basic problems in it. The Supreme Court reversed a three-judge Federal District Court which had held that the Texas system of financing its public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause. The District Court, in appying a strict scrutiny test, had stated that the Texas system discriminated on the basis of wealth in the manner in which education was provided for its people and impinged upon a fundamental right to education. However, the U.S, Supreme Court held by a 5 to 4 vote to the contrary. The nation's highest cort, in applying a rational basis test, stated that althogh the Texas school finance arrangement might be unjust, it assured an adequate basic education for every child in the State and permitted and encouraged participation in and significant control of each district's schools at the local level, accordingly the system was not unconstitutional. The critical point of the decision might be found in this justification for the system because of its adequate education and local control of education instead of examining the seriousness of the interdistrict expenditure disparities. This paper concludes that, whether or not the majority of this decision purported it, the decision has functioned as a libertarian backlash against egaritarian educational policy.