by Julie Pelegrin

Last December, Judge Sheila Rappaport, Denver District Court found the “Public School Finance Act of 1994” (PSFA), article 54 of title 22 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, unconstitutional in the case of Lobato v. Colorado (“Lobato”). In a nutshell, Judge Rappaport found that the school finance system is not rationally related to the General Assembly’s constitutional duty to establish and maintain a thorough and uniform statewide public school system because the PSFA is not based on the actual cost of educating students to achieve statewide standards and the system of funding public schools significantly underfunds those costs. For the OLLS memorandum describing the trial court’s decision, click here. (more…)