Gannon v. State, 113267

Background

Plaintiffs (school districts and next friends) sued Kansas in 2010 alleging K-12 public education funding was inequitable and inadequate under Article 6, § 6(b) of the Kansas Constitution. A three-judge panel conducted a 16-day bench trial (≈21,000-page record).
In Gannon I (2014) the Kansas Supreme Court adopted the seven Rose capacities as minimal adequacy standards and remanded for the panel to assess whether the financing system — through structure and implementation — was reasonably calculated to meet those standards.
The panel found the School District Finance and Quality Performance Act (SDFQPA) inadequate; legislature replaced it with CLASS (a 2-year block grant freezing FY2016–17 funding at FY2015 levels). The panel later held CLASS unconstitutional on adequacy and equity grounds.
The State appealed, raising challenges including jurisdiction over CLASS, justiciability (political question), refusal to reopen the trial record, insufficiency of the panel’s findings under K.S.A. 60-252(a), and the panel’s adequacy conclusion.
The Kansas Supreme Court (per curiam) affirmed the panel: it has jurisdiction to review CLASS; Article 6 adequacy is justiciable; the panel did not abuse discretion in refusing to reopen the record or in taking judicial notice of KSDE data; and CLASS is constitutionally inadequate in both structure and implementation.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Jurisdiction to adjudicate CLASS	CLASS is functionally an extension of the prior funding system and thus within the panel's remand scope	Panel lacked jurisdiction to rule on CLASS without amended pleadings and new evidence	Panel had jurisdiction; CLASS was not a "substantial shift" and was properly before the panel
Justiciability / political question	Judicial enforcement of Article 6 is appropriate using Rose standards	Legislative funding is a political question; Rose standards are too vague to be judicially manageable	Article 6 adequacy is justiciable; Rose capacities are judicially manageable (and codified in statute)
Refusal to reopen record / judicial notice	Plaintiffs relied on the existing record and KSDE data; reopening unnecessary	State sought to introduce updated budget/funding evidence and contest KSDE scores	No abuse of discretion: panel reasonably reviewed State proffers, declined cumulative evidence, and properly took judicial notice of KSDE statistics
Sufficiency of panel findings (K.S.A. 60-252)	Existing findings (including adoption by reference of Jan. 2013 findings) adequately explain reasoning	December 2014 order lacked separate, detailed findings on remand	Findings were sufficient for appellate review; incorporation by reference is permissible
Adequacy on the merits (structure & implementation)	CLASS fails to remedy prior inadequacies; plaintiffs showed funding reductions correlated with declines in student outcomes	State argued improved/record funding levels, improved outcomes pre-2012, and demanded high deference to legislature	Affirmed: CLASS fails structure (it is a block grant, not a responsive formula) and implementation (inputs decreased and outputs — proficiency and subgroup gaps — demonstrate inadequacy). Court retains jurisdiction and stays mandate through June 30, 2017

Key Cases Cited

Rose v. Council for Better Educ., Inc., 790 S.W.2d 186 (Ky. 1989) (adopted as the minimal educational capacities for adequacy)
Gannon v. State, 298 Kan. 1107 (Kan. 2014) (Gannon I) (established Rose-based adequacy test and remanded)
Montoy v. State, 282 Kan. 9 (Kan. 2006) (discussion of legislative responses and remedial jurisdiction)
U.S.D. No. 229 v. State, 256 Kan. 232 (Kan. 1994) (recognition that some student subgroups require higher costs)
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (U.S. 1962) (political question factors for justiciability)
Morath v. The Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, 490 S.W.3d 826 (Tex. 2016) (Texas court's deferential adequacy standard referenced by the State)