Having had their complaints rejected the first time, two groups of plaintiffs are hoping an Alameda County Superior Court judge will look more kindly on revised arguments to have the state’s method and levels of public school funding ruled unconstitutional.

Lawyers for the Education Coalition, five dozen students and nine school districts in the Robles-Wong v California lawsuit, and lawyers for groups representing two dozen low-income families in Campaign for Quality Education resubmitted their complaints on Wednesday, the deadline set by Superior Court Judge Steven Brick.

In a January ruling setting back reformers’ hopes, Brick denied the thrust of both groups’ complaints that the State Constitution, in declaring public education a fundamental right, also requires that the governor and Legislature fund it adequately. Elected officials have the discretion to approve whatever level of funding they deem necessary, “however devastating the effects of such underfunding have been on the quality of public school education,” Brick wrote.

However, he also left open the opportunity for the plaintiffs to take a different, though narrower, tack and make the case that all students must have an equal opportunity to master the standards that the state has deemed to be basic elements of a sound education.

Both groups took up Brick’s lead, while arguing that adequate funding is critical not only to learn K-12 standards but also to succeed in life.

“The State has a constitutional obligation to provide every child with … an education that enables success in learning the State’s content standards,” wrote attorneys, led by Public Advocates, in Campaign for Quality Education’s new complaint “Yet, the State’s school funding system is failing to provide the districts in which the individual Plaintiffs attend school with sufficient and appropriate resources to educate students to learn the content standards and to compete in the work force, find productive employment or qualify for advancement through higher education.”

Not only does the state’s finance system make no effort to determine the actual cost of the rigorous standards that California has adopted and then provide resources to match them, but it also fails to “take into account the learning needs of different student populations, including English Learners and economically disadvantaged children, to ensure that all children receive an opportunity to achieve the State’s educational goals,” wrote lawyers in Robles-Wong. They represent the big players in Sacramento: the California School Boards Association, the state PTA, and the Association of California School Administrators, plus districts including Alameda Unified, San Francisco Unified, and Riverside Unified. (Though not a plaintiff, the California Teachers Association did intervene in the Robles-Wong case and filed an amended complaint this week.)

The plaintiffs are hoping that Brick accepts the constitutional arguments and lets the cases go to trial. In their lengthy complaints, both sides cite cuts in staffing, training, the length of the school year, summer school, and intervention programs as evidence that the state is failing in its responsibility to match resources with its high expectations. A quarter of the state’s students are English learners and half are poor, yet the state funding system doesn’t provide enough money for students struggling with poverty and language issues to succeed in school. That failure is reflected in high dropout rates, low proficiency rates, and low college attendance of poor, minority students, they argue. In key measures – per-student funding, number of student per teacher, administrators per school – California ranks near the bottom among states, they point out.

Campaign for Quality Education*** also argues that an effective statewide data system – to show what is working and what isn’t – and universal preschool are also integral to educational opportunity.

To support their cases, both sets of plaintiffs cite the 2008 conclusions of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Committee on Education Excellence: “California’s K through 12 education system is fundamentally flawed. It is not close to helping each student become proficient in mastering the state’s clear curricular standards, and wide disparities persist between rich and poor, between students of color and others, and between English learners and native English speakers. Our current system is simply not preparing every student to be successful in college or work; it is not producing the results that taxpayers and citizens are counting on and that our children deserve.”

The arguments imply that more money – perhaps in the form of  weighted funding, with more money for poor kids and English learners – is needed. But neither complaint is asking for Brick to order more money or a specific approach to funding. Brick has made it clear he won’t do that. Instead, they are hoping, after hearing evidence in a trial, he will order the Legislature to devise a remedy to fix the inequities.

If Brick rejects their latest argument, both sides have reserved the right to appeal his original ruling and ask an appeals court to revisit the constitutional basis for adequate funding.

Lawyers with the attorney general’s office will have 90 days to respond to Wednesday’s filing. At this point, Gov. Brown has given no indication that he would be interested in negotiating a settlement to the case.

*** Organizations filing the suit include Campaign for Quality Education, a coalition of grassroots, civil rights and research organizations focused on preparing all children for college and careers; Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment; PICO, representing 400 religious congregations statewide; Californians for Justice, which works with students in Oakland, Long Beach, Fresno and San Jose; and and San Francisco Organizing Project, a church- and school-based organization in four neighborhoods of San Francisco.