Serrano v Priest By Jasmine Knox The purpose

Serrano v. Priest By Jasmine Knox

The purpose of the case n n n The purpose is John Serrano vs. Ivy Baker Priest in the case of the California public school financing system violating the equal protection clause of the state and the 14 th amendment in 1971. Which reflects in the issues of its time of the fundamentality of public education, the struggle of haves vs. have-nots and the battle against discrimination. Which brought the plaintiff John Serrano to feel that the school systems were not being fair in the financing of the poor as with wealthy people.

Facts of the case n The court found that poor communities had to have high tax rates to generate relatively low per- pupil revenue, where as wealthy communities could have low rates and yet still generate relatively high pupil revenue.

Opinion of the Verdict / Court n n The court ruled that property tax rates and per pupil expenditures should be equalized and that the difference in the revenue limits per pupil should be less than $100. The decision of the court was to dismiss the case since the plaintiff failed to amend the evidence.

The significance of the case n n The significance of the case was that the development of school district policy and the California legislature came up with a bill designed to equalize school revenues by the increasing state funds for poor community while putting a cap on per- pupil revenues in wealthy districts and redistributing some of their local property taxes to poor. It ended up spanning 3 California Supreme Court opinions between 1971 and 1977, the trial ruling in 1974 and 1973, proposition 13 and numerous legislative enactment. The legislature established revenue limits for the California public schools. From this revenue it limited a placed on the amount of tax money each district could receive per pupil. In response to the case the California Legislature also passed Assembly Bill, that created an annual inflation adjustment based on a sliding scale in order to equalize revenue limits among districts over time.

Constitutional/ Descriptive phrase n n The equal protection clause of the state constitution. 14 th amendment.