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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Ind. Decisions - Court says activity fee amounts to tuition. Shouldn't the same view apply to book rentals?

"The Issue: Court says activity fee amounts to tuition. Our View: Shouldn't the same view apply to book rentals?" was the headline to an editorial yesterday in the Evansville Courier& Press. The decision referenced is, of course, Frank Nagy, et al. v. Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation (see initial ILB entry on the 3/30/06 ruling here; for everything, type "Nagy" in the search box). Some quotes from today's editorial:

The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that the $20 student fee imposed by the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp. during a time of financial crisis violated the state constitution.

No surprise there. The Indiana Court of Appeals held earlier that when the activity fee is mixed with other school money, it amounts to tuition payments used to fund education, and therefore violates the constitution. (The fee is no longer collected, but a question remains whether the EVSC will be required to refund payments that parents made.)

Note that the Indiana Constitution says that a public education is to be provided to all children in the state at no charge. That means that the responsibility for funding public education is to be spread to all taxpayers, and not put only on parents and children.

What is bothersome to us, then, is why it is legal for Indiana to charge parents a rental fee for textbooks - materials vital to the delivery of a public education. Indeed, Indiana is one of the few states that levy an extra charge to parents for schoolbooks.

In a 1974 case, the Indiana Supreme Court said that charging students for textbooks does not amount to tuition. However, last year Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Patrick D. Sullivan, in the school fee case, wrote that the 1974 schoolbook ruling was "dubious at best."

The majority on the Indiana Supreme Court in the fee case disagrees with him. The Supremes said in the activity fee case that the view of their colleagues on the Appeals Court "sweeps a little too broadly" in regard to textbooks.

It's a good judicial debate on textbooks, but it's also an issue that, when viewed by the average citizen, looks a whole lot like a charge required of parents for their children to participate in the public school classroom.

The textbook rental question needs a case of its own, or a new, but costly, determination by the Indiana Legislature. We're betting the court case will come first.

Also yesterday, the Indiana Daily Student had a story on the opinion. (Interestingly, all the major papers in the state, except for the Evansville Courier& Press, passed the story by when the decision was released the end of March, going with a brief AP report instead.)

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 11, 2006 11:39 AM
Posted to Ind. Sup.Ct. Decisions