This year, a friend of mine twisted my arm into helping coach a mock trial team at Galena High School in Reno.  I didn’t really have time, and there were a few times when the team seemed on the verge of collapse. But you find the time to do the things that are worth doing, and the experience was amazing.  Knowing there is no shortcut to success, the girls worked their butts off, and they turned themselves into a great team of budding proto-lawyers. They crushed it at the regional tournament, and were on their way to State – the first time the school has gone in years.  It’s one of those moments that gets lost in the noise of bad news at our schools, but nevertheless reminds us of how much we have to be proud of and excited for in the next generation of Nevadans.  

Anyone who spends any time in public schools sees the need for more resources in a million different ways, or at least sees what some additional resources can add, even when things are pretty good.  And anyone who gets to work with, teach, or coach these kids – whether full time teachers or parent volunteers – wants no end to the opportunities they have, even as we who live in the real world know that there is a realistic limit to how much any community can ask of its taxpayers.

And so it is hard not to be sympathetic to the group of parents suing the state, alleging that the various defendants – all government employees or agencies – are not fulfilling the state constitutional obligation to provide education (which implies an adequate education, of course) to our kids.  But while their hearts are in the right place, the idea of trying to steer policy via lawsuit is terribly misguided.

Lawsuits are designed to provide very specific relief to very specific problems.  Additionally, the law requires that the named defendants actually have the ability to do what they are accused of not doing, and ironically, other than “The State of Nevada” broadly, none of the listed defendants have the power to raise taxes or reallocate budget funds.  The prayer for relief in the suit is absurdly vague, asking that the court “[e]njoin Defendants from giving force and effect to any school finance system unless it satisfies the principles of sufficiency established under Nevada law and policy, and remedies the constitutional, statutory, and regulatory violations identified herein,” which would shut down every school in the state until the plaintiffs get their way.  The only specific request is for attorney’s fees, of course, which would ironically come out of education budgets and mean less cash for the classrooms.

Education funding and policy implementation is a multi-faceted, multi-jurisdictional issue, where responsibility for both raising revenue and then wisely spending that money is divided among various federal, state, district, and individual school administrators and bureaucrats.  Local school boards (and the voters who elect them) can and often do have different agendas, priorities, and philosophies than other districts or than their state-level counterparts. This dividing of these responsibilities is a feature of our system, not a bug.

One cannot simply point to a specific dollar amount and declare victory.  Proper funding is necessarily a function of how that money is used.  The plaintiffs are essentially asking a single judge in Carson City to issue a dollar-for-dollar budgeting decree for every school and school district in the state.  I like both of Carson City’s district court judges quite a bit, but that’s a long, long way outside of their job descriptions. No single individual could write such an order effectively, which is why we have more than one branch of government.

Worse, it undermines the entire purpose for electing anyone else involved in education budgeting or policy administration.  We vote for school board trustees and legislators so we can hold them accountable in the next election if we don’t like what they’re doing.  If judges get it wrong, we’re a lot more stuck.

Democracy has its limits, of course – for example, asking hundreds of thousands of individual voters to craft tax or budget policy via the initiative process is a terrible way to run a government.  But the alternative of giving up on our republican system of elected representatives altogether in favor of a single judge just waving a wand and “fixing” what the Legislature could not is far, far more foolish, and like most shortcuts, more dangerous in the end.

There is plenty to complain about with respect to our elected officials’ education policy choices, and the lawsuit righteously identifies plenty of the warts of Nevada’s schools.  On the state level, hundreds of millions of dollars which could be spent in a classroom are instead being wasted on the artificially inflated building costs associated with union-friendly prevailing wage rules championed by the governor.  

Poor leadership continues to threaten Washoe County education.  After finally firing Superintendent Traci Davis, an outside headhunting agency has identified nine finalists for the position.  None but the current interim are from Nevada, and three of them were fired or abruptly parted ways with their previous districts. You could give some of these folks a million bucks a student, and I wouldn’t trust that our education stats would change a whole lot.  I find it impossible to believe that not a single one of the current local school principals who were not accessories to the previous superintendent’s problems in Washoe County are ready or able to advance in their careers now.  

And we have raised taxes for schools, repeatedly and significantly.  The 2015 session saw the largest tax increase in state history in the name of education, we voted for sales tax increases in Washoe County, and legalized marijuana cash was going to save the kids.  Lack of funding is not the only – or even the primary – source of our educational woes.  

The judicial system cannot be used in place of what we as voters and advocates for our children must do ourselves.  We must vote for better leadership in our school districts and in our legislature. Education groups – particularly teacher unions – should stop being a mere ATM for a single political party, and instead engage in real policy discussions with Republicans, too (after all, Republicans have historically been the only ones willing to act boldly on education funding).  Parents can demand more options in education such as charter schools, so that we don’t rely on a monopolistic one-size-fits-all system with single points of failure. And current administration officials, elected and otherwise, must learn to cultivate effective leadership and management of our schools from local teachers and principals, so we have leaders already familiar with our communities in the wings, ready to take the reins when necessary.  

My mock trial team showed what a small group of smart, motivated individuals can do when they put their minds to it, and more importantly, when they’re willing to do the work.  We do not need to bypass our democratic government institutions to learn from or be inspired by their example. There’s no shortcut to what must be a cultural, not just financial change – it takes hard work and dedication, but it’s worth it in the end to make needed changes the right way.

Orrin Johnson has been writing and commenting on Nevada and national politics since 2007.  He started with an independent blog, First Principles, and was a regular columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from 2015-2016.  By day, he is a criminal defense attorney in Reno.  Follow him on Twitter @orrinjohnson, or contact him at [email protected].