The long-anticipated suit challenging California’s meager education funding will be formally announced and filed today.

The state PTA is joining the California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators in what could become the biggest school funding case since Serrano v Priest in the ‘70s overturned the state’s system of funding schools. The suit comes one week after Gov. Schwarzenegger  released a revised state budget that proposes spending 11 percent less on K-12 schools than four years ago.

The suit, Robles-Wong, et al. v State of California, will be filed in Alameda County Superior Court. Referring to plaintiff Maya Robles-Wong, a junior at Alameda High School,  it will essentially argue that the Legislature and governor have established rigorous standards, assessments and an accountability system without at the same time calculating what it would cost to meet the state’s high expectations. Fewer than half of students overall  – and a much larger proportion of low-income, minority children – are proficient in most subjects in most grades.

The plaintiffs, which will include nine school districts and 60 individual students and their families, won’t argue for a specific level of expenditures. Instead, they’ll argue that California, with among the highest standards, neediest children and one of the lowest levels of funding among states (47th by one measure, spending $2,856 less per pupil than the national average,  is failing to meet its obligation under the state Constitution to make education a spending priority. Therefore, a judge should order state leaders to calculate what those costs should be – a very different approach than determined by the funding formulas of Proposition 98.

In that respect, the suit will be neither an equity suit like Serrano, nor a traditional adequacy suit, in which plaintiffs and defendants debate over dollars and “inputs” like number of teachers and square feet of building space. Instead, it could contain elements of both, arguing that children with different needs –  English learners and low-income kids – require not only equal levels of funding but additional spending to become proficient in Algebra I in eighth or capable of writing a persuasive essay.

“Since I started going to school at Alameda High as a freshman, I know that summer programs have been cut. I know that teachers have been laid off. And I know that programs that are supposed to help my classmates and me go to college have been cut,” said Robles-Wong in a press release issued by the plaintiffs’ coalition. “I’m not an expert in education finance, but I know enough to say that it’s not because my teachers and our schools aren’t trying to give us what we need. I know that the real problem is that the State is not providing the support my school needs to teach me everything I need.”

The plaintiffs will be holding press conferences in San Francisco and Sacramento this morning. More information on the case can be found at the coalition’s web site, www.fixschoolfinance.org/

I’ll be writing more about the case later today.