Conn. Coal. for Justice in Educ. Funding, Inc. v. Rell
Opinion
ROGERS, C.J.
**657"Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained." Letter from James A. Garfield accepting the presidential nomination (July 12, 1880), The American Presidency Project, available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=76221 (last visited January 17, 2018). In the present case, we acknowledge that the plaintiffs have painted a vivid picture of an imperfect public educational system in this state that is straining to serve many students who, because their basic needs for, among other things, adequate parenting, financial resources, housing, nutrition and care for their physical and psychological health are not being met, cannot take advantage of the educational opportunities that the state is offering.1 We are highly *34sympathetic to the plight **658of these struggling students. Indeed, we join our voice to the voices of those who urge the state to do all that it reasonably can to ensure not only that all children in this state have the bare opportunity to receive the minimally adequate education required by article eighth, § 1, of the Connecticut constitution,2 but also that the neediest children have the support that they need to actually take advantage of that opportunity. It is not the function of the courts, however, to create educational policy or to attempt by judicial fiat to eliminate all of the societal deficiencies that continue to frustrate the state's educational efforts. Rather, the function of the courts is to determine whether the narrow and specific criteria for a minimally adequate educational system under our state constitution have been satisfied. Once a determination of minimal adequacy has been made, courts simply are not in a position to determine whether schools in poorer districts would be better off expending scarce additional resources on more teachers, more computers, more books, more technical staff, more meals, more guidance counselors, more health care, more English instruction, greater preschool availability, or some other resource. Such judgments are quintessentially legislative in nature. Because we conclude that the trial court was correct in its initial **659determination that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the state's educational offerings are not minimally adequate under article eighth, § 1, and in its determination that the state has not violated their equal protection rights under the state constitution, the plaintiffs cannot prevail on their claims that the state has not provided them with a suitable and substantially equal educational opportunity.
The individual plaintiffs3 and the named plaintiff, the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. (Coalition), brought this action seeking, among other things, a declaratory judgment that the defendants, various state officials and members of the State Board of Education,4 failed to provide suitable and substantially *35equal educational opportunities to the individual plaintiffs in violation of article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20, of the Connecticut constitution, as amended by articles five and twenty-one of the amendments.5 Applying the controlling legal standard, as set **660forth in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell ,
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ROGERS, C.J.
**657"Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained." Letter from James A. Garfield accepting the presidential nomination (July 12, 1880), The American Presidency Project, available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=76221 (last visited January 17, 2018). In the present case, we acknowledge that the plaintiffs have painted a vivid picture of an imperfect public educational system in this state that is straining to serve many students who, because their basic needs for, among other things, adequate parenting, financial resources, housing, nutrition and care for their physical and psychological health are not being met, cannot take advantage of the educational opportunities that the state is offering.1 We are highly *34sympathetic to the plight **658of these struggling students. Indeed, we join our voice to the voices of those who urge the state to do all that it reasonably can to ensure not only that all children in this state have the bare opportunity to receive the minimally adequate education required by article eighth, § 1, of the Connecticut constitution,2 but also that the neediest children have the support that they need to actually take advantage of that opportunity. It is not the function of the courts, however, to create educational policy or to attempt by judicial fiat to eliminate all of the societal deficiencies that continue to frustrate the state's educational efforts. Rather, the function of the courts is to determine whether the narrow and specific criteria for a minimally adequate educational system under our state constitution have been satisfied. Once a determination of minimal adequacy has been made, courts simply are not in a position to determine whether schools in poorer districts would be better off expending scarce additional resources on more teachers, more computers, more books, more technical staff, more meals, more guidance counselors, more health care, more English instruction, greater preschool availability, or some other resource. Such judgments are quintessentially legislative in nature. Because we conclude that the trial court was correct in its initial **659determination that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the state's educational offerings are not minimally adequate under article eighth, § 1, and in its determination that the state has not violated their equal protection rights under the state constitution, the plaintiffs cannot prevail on their claims that the state has not provided them with a suitable and substantially equal educational opportunity.
The individual plaintiffs3 and the named plaintiff, the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. (Coalition), brought this action seeking, among other things, a declaratory judgment that the defendants, various state officials and members of the State Board of Education,4 failed to provide suitable and substantially *35equal educational opportunities to the individual plaintiffs in violation of article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20, of the Connecticut constitution, as amended by articles five and twenty-one of the amendments.5 Applying the controlling legal standard, as set **660forth in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell ,
The defendants appeal from the trial court's decision that they have violated article eighth, § 1, and the plaintiffs cross appeal from the trial court's rulings that they did not establish that the state has failed to provide minimally adequate educational opportunities to the children in any school district in the state and have not violated the plaintiffs' equal protection rights under the state constitution.6 We conclude that the trial court **661properly found that the plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence that the state is not providing children in this state with minimally adequate educational resources that satisfy the requirements of article eighth, § 1. We further conclude that, having made this determination, the trial court should have held that the defendants have not violated that constitutional provision, and it should not have gone on to apply a new constitutional test. Finally, we conclude that the trial court properly found that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the state has violated the equal protection provisions of the state constitution. We therefore conclude that the plaintiffs have failed to establish that the defendants have violated the plaintiffs' rights under article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20. Accordingly, we affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the trial court. *36The record reveals the following procedural history and facts that either were found by the trial court or are undisputed. In 2005, the plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging, among other things, that the defendants had violated article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20, of the state constitution by "failing to maintain a public school system that provides [them] with suitable and substantially equal educational opportunities ...." Thereafter, the defendants filed a motion to strike certain portions of the complaint, claiming that these state constitutional provisions do not confer a right to " 'suitable' " educational opportunities and do not "guarantee equality or parity of educational achievement or results." The trial court concluded that the plaintiffs' claims were justiciable, but that article eighth, § 1, did not guarantee a right to a suitable public education. Accordingly, the trial court granted the defendants' motion to strike the portions of the plaintiffs' complaint making that claim.
Thereafter, the Chief Justice granted the plaintiffs' application for certification to appeal to this court pursuant **662to General Statutes § 52-265a. See Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
Justices Norcott, Katz and Schaller concluded in a plurality opinion that the plaintiffs' claims were justiciable and, therefore, that this court had subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal. See Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
**663Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State ,
The plurality further concluded that "article eighth, § 1, entitles Connecticut public school students to an education suitable to give them the opportunity to be responsible citizens able to participate fully in democratic institutions, such as jury service and voting. A constitutionally adequate education also will leave Connecticut's students prepared to progress to institutions of higher education, or to attain productive employment and otherwise contribute to the state's economy. To satisfy this standard, the state, through the local school districts, must provide students with an objectively meaningful opportunity to receive the benefits of this constitutional right." (Footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.)
The plurality emphasized, however, that a public education system "need not operate perfectly" to be constitutionally adequate; (internal quotation marks omitted)
In his concurring opinion, Justice Palmer agreed with the plurality that the plaintiffs' claims were justiciable, although he did not entirely agree with the plurality's analysis of that issue.
Justice Palmer expressly rejected, however, the plurality's suggestion that it was appropriate "to craft the constitutional standard in broad terms." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
In addition, Justice Palmer disagreed with the plurality's decision to the extent that it could be interpreted to require the courts to examine educational outputs when determining the constitutional adequacy of the state's educational offerings.8 See
Justice Palmer also repeatedly emphasized that "the legislature is entitled to considerable deference with respect to both its conception of the scope of the right and its implementation of the right";
Thus, a majority of this court-Justices Norcott, Katz, Palmer and Schaller-agreed that the trial court had improperly struck the plaintiffs' claims, although Justice Palmer did not agree with the qualitative component of the right to free public education under article eighth, § 1, as described in the plurality opinion. Accordingly, this court remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings on the claim that the defendants had failed to provide the plaintiffs with a suitable public education.
Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed a third amended complaint containing four counts, which is the operative pleading for purposes of this appeal.10 The plaintiffs claimed that "[b]y failing to maintain a public **670school system that provides the plaintiffs with suitable and substantially equal educational opportunities, the state is violating article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20, of the state constitution" (first count); "[b]y failing to maintain a public school system that provides the plaintiffs with suitable educational opportunities, the state is violating article eighth, § 1, of the state constitution" (second count); "[b]y failing to maintain a public school system that provides the plaintiffs with substantially equal educational opportunities, the state is violating article eighth, § 1, and article first §§ 1 and 20, of the state constitution" (third count); and "the state's failure to maintain a public school system that provides the plaintiffs with suitable and substantially equal educational opportunities has disproportionately impacted African-American, Latino, and other minority students in violation of article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20, of the [s]tate [c]onstitution and
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the plaintiffs' claims were not ripe for adjudication in light of certain education reforms that the legislature enacted in 2012, that their claims were moot in light of these *41reforms and that the Coalition lacked associational standing to raise claims that its rights under article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20, had been violated. The trial court, Dubay, J. , deferred ruling on the first two claims until a full trial on the merits had occurred and denied the motion to dismiss the Coalition's claims for lack of standing.
Thereafter, the case was tried before the court, Moukawsher, J.12 In their posttrial brief, the defendants renewed their jurisdictional claims and, in addition, claimed that the individual plaintiffs lacked standing because, among other reasons, they had failed to establish any harm to any specific plaintiff. The trial court rejected the defendants' jurisdictional claims. The court then determined that Justice Palmer's concurring opinion **671in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
The court then observed that, since 2012, the state had funneled "over $400 million in new money" into the state's thirty lowest performing school districts. In addition, the state had provided $13 million in financial **672support to fourteen "failing schools," plus $4 million per year for school improvement grants to approximately thirty "high needs" schools. Finally, the court noted that there are numerous state and federal programs that are designed to provide meals to needy students, even during the summer, to invite parents into schools to share in learning, to attend to the needs of homeless students, to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, to attend to the needs of young parents and pregnant students, and to provide mental health support. The court *42found that "[a]ll of this extra spending benefits poor districts but not wealthier districts. [This] is on top of basic education aid that has a history of strongly favoring poor districts over wealthier ones. This heavy tilt in state education aid in favor of the state's poorer communities shows the state is devoting to needy schools a great deal more in resources than is required by the modest standard [set forth by the Campaign I criteria and adopted by Justice Palmer]." Thus, the trial court expressly found that the state's educational offerings in needy districts are constitutionally adequate under Campaign I.15 The court also concluded that this "tilt" was "fatal to the plaintiffs' equal protection claim" under article first, §§ 1 and 20, that the state has failed to provide substantially equal educational funding to needy and wealthy school districts.
The trial court then concluded, however, that, notwithstanding its conclusion that the state had satisfied **673the Campaign I criteria set forth in Justice Palmer's controlling opinion, the state's educational system would not satisfy the requirements of article eighth, § 1, unless the state "deploy [ed] in its schools resources and standards that are rationally, substantially and verifiably connected to teaching children." The trial court apparently derived this standard from Justice Palmer's statements that the state's educational programs and policies would be unconstitutional if they were "so lacking as to be unreasonable by any fair or objective standard"; Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
The defendants then filed this appeal, in which they renew their claims that the individual plaintiffs lack standing because they have failed to present evidence that any of them has been specifically injured by the defendants' acts or omissions and that the Coalition lacks associational standing to raise claims under article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20. The defendants also claim that, after the trial court found that the state's schools met the Campaign I criteria adopted by Justice Palmer, that court improperly went on to apply a constitutional standard of its own devising. The defendants further contend that, even if the trial court properly adopted this new constitutional standard, it improperly applied it to conclude that the educational system is unconstitutional under article eighth, § 1. On cross appeal, the plaintiffs contend that the trial court improperly concluded that (1) the state's educational system meets the Campaign I criteria for determining the adequacy of the state's schools under article eighth, § 1, and (2) the state's educational system does not violate their equal protection rights under article first, §§ 1 and 20.17
**675We conclude that all of the plaintiffs have standing. We also conclude that the trial court properly held that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the state's schools do not satisfy the Campaign I criteria, which is the controlling constitutional standard under Justice Palmer's concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. We agree with the defendants, however, that the trial court went on to improperly apply a constitutional standard of its own devising after concluding that the state's schools satisfied the controlling Campaign I criteria. Finally, based on the factual findings of the trial court, we conclude that the trial court properly determined that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the educational system in this state violates the equal protection provisions of the state constitution by failing to ensure that the poorer school districts had funding that is substantially equal to the wealthier school districts.
I
JURISDICTIONAL CLAIMS
We begin by addressing the defendants' jurisdictional claims that the individual plaintiffs lack standing because none of them has been specifically injured and that the Coalition lacks associational standing to raise its claims pursuant to article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20. We disagree.
A
Standing of Individual Plaintiffs
It is well established that, "to have standing ... the plaintiffs necessarily *44must establish that they are classically **676aggrieved. In other words, they must demonstrate a specific, personal and legal interest in the subject matter of the controversy and that the defendants' conduct has specially and injuriously affected that specific personal or legal interest." Andross v. West Hartford ,
In the present case, the plaintiffs' complaint alleged that "[t]he state's failure to provide suitable education opportunities is evidenced by the fact that many plaintiffs attend schools that do not have the resources necessary to educate their high concentrations of poorly performing students" and that "[t]he state's failure to provide substantially equal educational opportunities is evidenced by the fact that, when compared to [other] students, a disparate number of the plaintiff students attend schools that do not have the resources necessary to educate their high concentrations of poorly performing students." If the plaintiffs had proved these allegations at trial, the trial court could have inferred a specific injury to the individual plaintiffs from the fact that they attended constitutionally inadequate schools. Although we conclude in parts III and IV of this opinion that the plaintiffs failed to prove any constitutional violation, the failure of a plaintiff to prove a colorable **677claim of specific harm at trial does not deprive the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction. See In re Jose B. ,
B
Coalition's Associational Standing
We next address the defendants' claim that the Coalition lacked associational standing. This court has held that "[a]n association has standing to bring [an action] on behalf of its members when: (a) its members would otherwise have standing to [bring the action] in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the [action]." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Assn. of Health Care Facilities, Inc. v. Worrell ,
First Prong of the Worrell Test
The defendants contend that the Coalition does not satisfy the first prong of the Worrell test for associational standing because the only individual members of the Coalition that would have personal standing to raise the claims set forth in the complaint are the members who are the parents of students attending public schools, and the parents "are not in fact 'members' in any real sense" because they lack voting rights in the Coalition.18 The defendants point out that, when this action was initiated in 2005, the Coalition's bylaws provided that the Coalition "shall act by and through its [b]oard of [d]irectors.... The [b]oard's powers include, but are not limited to, the power to initiate and pursue litigation ... and to make spending decisions." The bylaws also provided for several categories of membership, including individual members, which is the category that would include parents. All classes of membership except the class of individual members had the right to elect a member or members from their class to serve on the Coalition's board of directors.
The 2013 version of the Coalition's bylaws authorized a membership class specifically for parents. Parent members still did not have the right to vote,19 but they **679did have the right to participate in general membership meetings. The bylaws also provided that the powers of all members of the Coalition "include, but are not limited to, the power to initiate and pursue litigation, to hire experts and other staff, and to make spending decisions." In addition, the bylaws provided that two parent members would be members of the Coalition's steering committee, which, among other duties, had the responsibility to oversee the Coalition's routine business, to "steer policies and promote strategies aimed at ensuring progress toward achieving the goals and objectives" of the Coalition, to "provide ongoing direction, advice, and support to [a]gents of the [c]orporation," and to "modify the budget as is reasonable and necessary ...."
The defendants contend that the parents were not true members of the Coalition because the 2005 version of the Coalition's bylaws "gave the power to initiate and pursue litigation to a board over which the parent members had no voice whatsoever" because they lacked voting rights. The defendants also contend that, despite the provisions of the 2013 bylaws allowing parent members to belong to the Coalition's steering committee and to have the same powers as other members "to initiate and pursue litigation, to hire experts and other staff, and to make spending decisions," these powers were illusory because the parent members still had no right to vote. Thus, the defendants claim, the parent *46members are not true members of the Coalition, but "are simply pawns added in an attempt to provide standing."
The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission ,
We conclude that, contrary to the defendants' claim in the present case, Hunt does not stand for the proposition that the right to vote is an essential characteristic of membership in an association for purposes of establishing the first prong of the Worrell test. Although the court in Hunt observed that the apple growers and dealers elected the commission's members and financed its activities, the court did not say that those facts were necessary to establish associational standing if there was other evidence of representation and control. Rather, the court determined that the facts that **681the apple growers and dealers served on the commission and that the commission represented their interests and provided a means for them to express their collective views were indicia of membership for purposes of establishing associational standing. See Disability Advocates, Inc. v. New York Coalition for Quality Assisted Living, Inc. ,
In any event, Hunt involved a plaintiff that was not a true voluntary membership *47association. See Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission , supra,
Nevertheless, even if some evidence of representation and control were required to establish membership, even for a true voluntary membership association, we conclude that the fact that two parent members of the Coalition serve on its steering committee provides sufficient evidence of their control, and the fact that the parent members have voluntarily joined the Coalition knowing that it has publicly advocated in favor of specific public school funding policies provides sufficient evidence that the Coalition represents their views. See Citizens Coal Council v. Matt Canestrale Contracting, Inc. , supra,
The defendants also claim, however, that, even if the parent members are now actual members of the Coalition for purposes of the first prong of the Worrell test, because the Coalition had no parent members when this action was initiated in 2005 the Coalition lacked standing at that time, and a subject matter jurisdictional defect that existed when the complaint was filed cannot be cured by a subsequent amendment. The **683following additional procedural history is relevant to our resolution of this claim. After the plaintiffs filed their original complaint in 2005, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the Coalition's claims for lack of standing under Worrell. The trial court, Shortall, J. , granted the motion. In his memorandum of decision, Judge Shortall noted that, according to an affidavit filed by counsel for the Coalition, and contrary to the allegations of the original complaint, the Coalition had no parent members when the complaint was filed. Although the plaintiffs had filed an amended complaint alleging that the Coalition now had parent members, and submitted an affidavit to that effect, the amended complaint did not allege that the parent members were "parents of students in the public schools of Connecticut." Accordingly, the court concluded that the Coalition did not meet the first prong of the Worrell test.
Thereafter, the plaintiffs sought leave to file a second amended complaint in order to cure the standing deficiency by including an allegation that the Coalition's parent *48members were parents of students in the Connecticut public schools. The trial court granted the request for leave to amend over the objection of the defendants. As we have previously explained in this opinion, the trial court subsequently granted the defendants' motion to strike portions of the second amended complaint, and the plaintiffs appealed from that ruling to this court pursuant to § 52-265a. After this court reversed the decision of the trial court and remanded the case for further proceedings, the plaintiffs were granted leave to file a third amended complaint and defendants filed another motion to dismiss the Coalition's claims for lack of standing. The trial court, Dubay, J. , denied the motion.
The defendants claim that Judge Dubay improperly denied their motion to dismiss the Coalition's claims because, at the time that the original complaint was **684filed, the Coalition had no parent members who would have had standing to bring this action in their own right, and a jurisdictional defect cannot be cured retroactively. To support this claim, the defendants rely on Fairchild Heights Residents Assn., Inc. v. Fairchild Heights, Inc. ,
In Fairchild Heights Residents Assn., Inc. , the plaintiff claimed that the defendant had violated various provisions of General Statutes § 21-82 (a) governing, inter alia, a landlord's responsibilities in operating a mobile home park. See Fairchild Heights Residents Assn., Inc. v. Fairchild Heights, Inc. , supra,
In Connecticut Associated Builders & Contractors v. Hartford , supra,
Thus, Fairchild Heights Residents Assn., Inc. v. Fairchild Heights, Inc. , supra,
Second Prong of the Worrell Test
The defendants also claim that the Coalition fails the second prong of the Worrell associational standing test, i.e., that "the interests [that the Coalition] seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose"; Connecticut Assn. of Health Care Facilities, Inc. v. Worrell , supra,
As noted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, courts "have not been uniform in their approach to the presence of conflicts of interest in an association seeking standing." Retired Chicago Police Assn. v. Chicago ,
The courts that have held that conflicts of interest among members of an association generally do not deprive the association of standing have relied on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Brock ,
Other courts, however, have recognized that there may be circumstances under which conflicts among the members would deprive an association of standing. For example, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has held that an association lacks associational standing when "conflicts of interest among members of [an] association require that the members must join the [action] individually in order to protect their own interests" by taking a position adverse to that taken by the association, and the association initiated the litigation without first informing its membership. Maryland Highways Contractors Assn., Inc. v. Maryland ,
With these principles in mind, we address the defendants' claim in the present case that the conflicts of interest among the Coalition's members deprive it of associational standing. Although the defendants' claim highlights the immense complexity of the state's educational system and the wide variety of interests that the state must consider when formulating educational policies-circumstances that certainly support the notion that courts have very limited institutional competence to craft educational remedies for the types of claims raised in the present case and, therefore, must be extremely cautious when inserting themselves into this area-we conclude that the conflicts of interests among the Coalition's members are not so profound as to deprive the Coalition of associational standing. There is no evidence that a majority of the Coalition's members disagrees with the Coalition's claim that the defendants have deprived students in the state's poorer school districts with a suitable and substantially equal educational opportunity in violation of article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20; the Coalition's primary litigation goal is not directly at odds with the interests of part of its membership; no members objected to the Coalition initiating this action; no member of the Coalition has expressed the belief that the relief sought by the plaintiffs in this action would not be generally beneficial to the state's educational system; there is no evidence that any member has challenged or intends to challenge the Coalition's claims in this litigation in **692court;22 there is no evidence that the Coalition is operating for the purposes other than those stated in its bylaws;23 and there is no claim that the *53Coalition brought this litigation without first informing its members or following the procedures in its own bylaws. In the absence of any such evidence, any harm resulting to any member of the Coalition as the result of this litigation would be simply "part of the cost of obtaining the benefits of the association." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Retired Chicago Police Assn. v. Chicago , supra,
Third Prong of the Worrell Test
The defendants next contend that the plaintiffs cannot satisfy the third prong of the Worrell test, i.e., that "neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the **693[action]." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Assn. of Health Care Facilities, Inc. v. Worrell , supra,
We disagree that the plaintiffs have not satisfied the third prong of the Worrell test. Nothing in Justice Palmer's concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
**694II
WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT APPLIED AN IMPROPER CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARD TO THE PLAINTIFFS' CLAIMS PURSUANT TO ARTICLE EIGHTH, § 1
We next address the defendants' claim that the trial court, after determining that plaintiffs did not establish that the state has failed to provide children in any school district in this state with a minimally adequate educational system under the Campaign I criteria, improperly applied a constitutional standard of its own devising to conclude that the defendants have violated the plaintiffs' rights under article eighth, § 1. The plaintiffs disagree and argue that, if we agree with the defendants' claim, the trial court's interpretation of the Campaign I criteria nonetheless was unduly narrow. We agree with the defendants and *54conclude that the trial court properly interpreted and applied the Campaign I criteria adopted by Justice Palmer in his concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. , but then went on to improperly apply a constitutional standard of its own devising.
A
We begin with the standard of review. The scope of the right guaranteed by article eighth, § 1, is a question of law subject to plenary review. See Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
As we have previously explained herein, the trial court concluded after a trial that the Campaign I criteria for a minimally adequate system of free public **695schools were met. The trial court also concluded, however, that the state's educational system would not satisfy article eighth, § 1, unless the state "deploy[ed] in its schools resources and standards that are rationally, substantially and verifiably connected to teaching children." The trial court apparently derived this standard from Justice Palmer's statements that the state's educational programs and policies would be unconstitutional if they were "so lacking as to be unreasonable by any fair or objective standard"; Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
The defendants claim on appeal that, once the trial court concluded that the Campaign I criteria were met, that court should have concluded that the state's educational system does not violate article eighth, § 1, and it should not have gone on to consider whether the state **696"deploy[ed] in its schools resources and standards that are rationally, substantially and verifiably connected to teaching children." We agree. We conclude that Justice Palmer's statements that the state's educational programs and policies cannot be "so lacking as to be unreasonable by any fair or objective standard" and that the state must operate "within the limits of rationality" mean that the efforts that the state makes to comply with its obligations under article eighth, § 1, must reasonably address the minimal educational needs of the state's students, as described in Campaign I , and that the standard applied by the trial court is inconsistent with Justice Palmer's repeated statements that courts *55are ill equipped to address the complex and intractable problems of financing and managing a statewide public school system. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
As we have indicated, under the Campaign I standard, the state must provide (1) "minimally adequate physical facilities and classrooms which provide enough light, space, heat, and air to permit children to learn," (2) "minimally adequate instrumentalities of learning such as desks, chairs, pencils, and reasonably current textbooks," (3) "minimally adequate teaching of reasonably up-to-date basic curricula such as reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies," and (4) "sufficient personnel adequately trained to teach **697those subject areas." Campaign I, supra,
Justice Palmer never suggested, however, that, after determining that the specific instrumentalities, facilities, curricula and personnel that the state is required to provide in its elementary and secondary schools reasonably address the minimal educational needs of their students, the courts must nevertheless examine all of **699the state's educational policies and programs, such as its funding formulas, school construction policies, graduation standards, teacher evaluation practices, teacher compensation practices and special education policies, to ensure that they are "rationally, substantially and verifiably connected to teaching children." Rather, if the state is providing a minimally adequate educational opportunity to all of its elementary and secondary school students under the Campaign I criteria, the fact that some educational policies and programs are not, in the trial court's personal view, "rationally, substantially and verifiably connected to teaching children" is constitutionally irrelevant. For example, if a court concludes that the state's educational system satisfies the Campaign I criteria, the fact that the state spends large sums of money on special education that, in the court's personal view, would be better spent on hiring teachers for regular classrooms is no more relevant than the fact that the state spends large sums of money on its Medicaid program or on road construction. It is irrefutable that the court's role is not to determine how programs should be funded, both within the educational system and beyond, but, instead, only to ensure that the state is meeting the minimal constitutional requirements for education.
Indeed, Justice Palmer expressly recognized that "courts are ill equipped to deal with issues of educational policy" and *57"lack [the] specialized knowledge and experience to address the many persistent and difficult questions of educational policy that invariably arise in connection with the establishment and maintenance of a statewide system of education." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
Relatedly, requiring courts to determine, as an issue entirely distinct from the question of whether the state is providing minimally adequate schools under the narrow and specific Campaign I criteria, whether the state's educational policies and programs "are rationally, substantially and verifiably connected to teaching children" would be entirely inconsistent with Justice Palmer's rejection of the plurality's suggestion that it would be appropriate "to craft the constitutional standard 'in broad terms' [because] the broader the standard, the more vague it is likely to be. In addition, the broader the standard, the more difficult it will be for the parties and the court to understand and apply it." Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra, at 342-43 n.17,
The plaintiffs contend that this conclusion cannot be reconciled with Justice Palmer's suggestion that an "education funding system [that] is 'arbitrary and inadequate,' and not related to the actual costs of providing an education that meets constitutional standards" would be unconstitutional.
B
The plaintiffs claim on cross appeal that, if we agree with the defendants' claim that the trial court improperly **703applied the "rationally, substantially and verifiably connected to teaching children" standard to conclude that the defendants have violated article eighth, § 1, we should also determine that the trial court's interpretation of the Campaign I criteria was unduly narrow. We disagree.
The plaintiffs contend that the subsequent history of the Campaign I case shows that the court in Campaign I contemplated a far broader standard than the trial court applied in this case. The plaintiffs point out that, after the court in Campaign I remanded the case for application of the standard that it had adopted, the trial court conducted a searching and detailed examination of New York City's educational system and concluded that the Campaign I standard was not met. See *59Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State ,
We are not persuaded. Rather, a review of the subsequent history of Campaign I shows why Justice Palmer's concurring opinion did not contemplate that the trial court would apply the broader standard that the New York trial court applied in Campaign II. The trial court in Campaign II considered on remand a broad range of factors that were not specifically mentioned in Campaign I. See footnote 28 of this opinion. The trial court also applied a comparative standard, repeatedly considering whether the educational instrumentalities, facilities, curricula and personnel provided by New York City schools were equivalent to those provided elsewhere in the state,30 despite the fact that nothing in **705*60Campaign I had suggested that, in determining whether New York City's school system was minimally adequate, the trial court should consider the level of resources provided by other school districts.
Moreover, the trial court in Campaign II was not persuaded by the state's contention that it was "required only to provide the opportunity for a sound basic education" and that "students' failure to seize this opportunity is a product of various socioeconomic deficits experienced by the large number of [at risk] students in New York City public schools." (Emphasis in original.) Campaign II, supra,
We see no evidence in Justice Palmer's concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. , that he contemplated that the narrow and specific criteria that he had identified for determining whether the state is providing minimally adequate educational resources would be subject to modification on remand. To the contrary, he repeatedly emphasized that a broader standard was inappropriate, that the trial court should give great deference to the **706legislature's educational policy choices, and that the court's primary focus should be on the adequacy of educational inputs, not on the level of educational achievement. See Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
The plaintiffs also contend that the standard applied by the trial court was too narrow because Justice Palmer recognized that the Campaign I criteria "must be evaluated in light of current educational standards, which continue to evolve." See Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
The plaintiffs further rely on Justice Palmer's suggestion that their allegations that "many [students] attend schools that do not have the resources necessary to educate their high concentration of poorly performing students" and that "the state has failed to provide the resources necessary to intervene effectively on behalf of [at risk] students, that is, students who, because of [a] wide range of financial, familial, and social circumstances, [are] at greater risk of failing or experiencing other unwanted outcomes unless intervention occurs" were sufficient to withstand a motion to strike because, if proven, they might establish "a violation of the standard articulated in this opinion." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
This interpretation simply cannot be squared, however, with Justice Palmer's unequivocal statement elsewhere in his opinion that schools "cannot be constitutionally required to overcome every serious social and personal disadvantage that students bring with them to school, and that seriously hinder [s] the academic achievement of those students." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
We are compelled to conclude, therefore, that when Justice Palmer determined that the plaintiffs' allegations were sufficient to withstand the defendants' motion to strike, he did not intend to suggest that the Campaign I criteria were merely one part of a broader constitutional inquiry that should include an analysis of whether the state's educational offerings are sufficient to overcome disadvantaging conditions outside of the state's control that affect educational outcomes.
**709Rather, he was recognizing that the allegations were sufficiently broad and general that the evidence that the plaintiffs presented to support them at trial might support a conclusion that the narrow and specific Campaign I criteria had not been met.33 See
Finally, to the extent that the plaintiffs contend that, even if the Campaign II standard does not apply, the trial court failed to apply the Campaign I criteria properly because it did not consider whether the state's educational offerings reasonably address the minimal educational needs of the state's children, we disagree. As we have explained, it is implicit in the Campaign I standard that the educational *63opportunities offered by the state must be sufficient to enable a student who takes advantage of them to attain a level of knowledge of reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies that will, in turn, enable the student to perform the basic functions of an adult in our society.34 See footnote 25 of this opinion. There simply is no sense in which a teacher providing instruction pursuant to a particular curriculum under particular classroom conditions could be considered a minimally adequate educational opportunity if the teacher, the curriculum or the conditions were not sufficient to enable a student who attends to the instruction to obtain a minimally adequate education. In turn, there is no sense in which an education can be considered minimally adequate if a person who has acquired that level of education is unable to perform the basic functions of an adult. Accordingly, the trial court's finding that the state's educational offerings satisfy the Campaign I criteria for a minimally adequate educational opportunity necessarily encompassed a finding that those educational offerings reasonably address the minimal educational needs of the state's children.35 **711The dissent disagrees, and would conclude that the trial court improperly applied the Campaign I criteria. In support of this conclusion, the dissent claims that (1) although the Campaign I criteria are necessary components of a minimally adequate educational opportunity, the trial court improperly assumed that, if satisfied, the criteria are sufficient to establish a minimally adequate educational opportunity; (2) the trial court failed to consider whether the state is making an effort "to ensure that [the minimal educational offerings required by Campaign I ] are designed to address the basic educational needs of at risk learners in underprivileged communities"; (3) the trial court improperly stripped out "rationality review" from its Campaign I analysis; (4) the trial court improperly assessed the Campaign I criteria on a statewide basis, instead of at the school district or school level; and (5) the trial court failed to consider whether the poor educational outcomes in the neediest school districts are "the result of specific deficient educational inputs, or [have been] caused by factors not attributable to, or capable of remediation by, state action or omission ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
These claims, however, simply cannot be reconciled with Justice Palmer's concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
With respect to the dissent's claim that the trial court failed to consider whether the state's educational offerings are "designed to address the basic educational needs of at risk learners in underprivileged communities," the dissent has failed to explain why the courts must make this determination when it agrees that they are barred from requiring the state either "to overcome **713every serious social and personal disadvantage that students bring with them to school"; Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
In any event, even if this were the proper standard, the trial court expressly found that there are numerous state and federal programs that are designed to provide needy students with "breakfast, lunch, and many times food to take home," even during the summer months when school is not in session, to provide parental education, to address the needs of homeless *65students, to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, to address the needs of students who are parents as well as pregnant students, and to provide mental health programs. The **714court concluded that the existence of these programs shows that "the state is devoting to needy schools a great deal more in resources than is required by the modest standard [set forth in Campaign I ]." As we conclude in part III of this opinion, we see nothing in the record that would compel a different conclusion, and the dissent provides no guidance on the nature or quantity of the additional resources that the state would be required to devote to needy students in order to meet the dissent's new standard.
The dissent also claims that the trial court stripped "rationality review" from its analysis pursuant to Campaign I. For the reasons that we have already explained, we disagree. We further disagree with the dissent's claim that "there is no indication that the court considered any of [the specific factual findings that the plaintiffs rely on] ...." We decline to presume that the trial court made 1060 specific factual findings, filling 157 single-spaced pages, only to then conclude that the findings were completely irrelevant to its legal analysis.36
We also disagree with the dissent's contention that the trial court improperly applied the Campaign I criteria on a statewide basis instead of determining on a school by school or school district by school district basis whether the state's educational offerings are constitutionally adequate. As we have already explained at length, the trial court made copious factual findings regarding conditions in specific schools and school districts and expressly found that the state is meeting its **715constitutional obligations in the poorest and neediest schools.37
Finally, the dissent contends that, in applying the constitutional standard, the trial court was required "first [to determine] whether students have in fact been unable to obtain a minimally adequate education" and then to consider whether any poor educational outcomes that the court discovered were " 'the result of specific deficient educational inputs, or [have been] caused by factors not attributable to, or capable of remediation by, state action or omission ....' "38 This is yet another variation on the theme that the trial court was *66required to consider educational outcomes as part of its Campaign I analysis, a theme that is completely discordant with the overall tenor of Justice Palmer's concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. , in which he emphasized that the trial court's focus must be on inputs. See Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
In short, the dissent has adopted a new constitutional standard that is far broader and vaguer than the Campaign I criteria that Justice Palmer adopted in his concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. , which is controlling. This new constitutional standard is entirely inconsistent with Justice Palmer's conclusions that the criteria for determining whether the state's schools are minimally adequate must be narrow and specific, that the courts must defer to the educational policy choices of the political branches, that the state is not constitutionally **717required to overcome all disadvantages that students bring with them to school and that courts have little institutional competence to address the intractable and complex questions that arise in the area of educational policy. We believe that, to the contrary, because the role of the court is to apply the precedent on which the parties and the trial court reasonably relied, the narrow and specific Campaign I criteria that Justice Palmer outlined in his concurring opinion in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. , provide the correct constitutional standard, and we conclude that the trial court properly applied that standard.
III
PLAINTIFFS' CLAIM THAT THE TRIAL COURT IMPROPERLY CONCLUDED THAT THE EVIDENCE DID NOT SUPPORT THEIR CLAIM THAT THE CAMPAIGN I CRITERIA WERE NOT SATISFIED
The plaintiffs next claim that the trial court improperly concluded that the state has not violated article eighth, § 1, by failing to provide educational resources that comply with the Campaign I criteria adopted by Justice Palmer in his concurring opinion in *67Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
The plaintiffs' claim involves a question of law subject to plenary review. See Right v. Breen ,
In support of the plaintiffs' claim that the trial court's factual findings cannot be reconciled with its conclusion that the state is providing the neediest schools with **719constitutionally adequate teachers, classroom facilities, educational technologies and instructional resources, the plaintiffs rely on these court findings: Bridgeport has filled 11.5 teaching positions with permanent substitutes instead of certified teachers; during the 2015-16 school year, New London High School filled four teaching positions by hiring substitute teachers who could teach for only a maximum of forty days, some of whom were not familiar with the subjects that they were assigned to teach; some classrooms in Bridgeport and New Britain are overcrowded, with up to twenty-nine students; East Hartford has allotted zero dollars in its budget for school library books; and Danbury High School has provided zero dollars in its budget for textbooks.39 *68We are not persuaded. Although it may be cause for concern that a school district or a school has filled a small number of teaching positions with substitute teachers for a specified period, that fact does not compel the conclusion that the overall level of teaching in the district or school is inadequate. Similarly, although a class size of twenty-nine students might not be ideal for needier students, we are unable to say that classes of that size render a school inadequate as a matter of **720law. Indeed, the trial court expressly found that the scientific research on the impact of class size on educational outcomes is inconclusive. Finally, the fact that, during particular years, particular schools have no money budgeted for library books or textbooks does not compel the conclusion that those schools lack minimally adequate books.40
With respect to the other factual findings relied on by the plaintiffs, such as the findings that there are low test scores in schools with large numbers of poor and needy students and the findings that the state has provided inadequate socioemotional and related support services, specialist teachers, interventionists and preschool opportunities to its poorer students, we conclude that, in contrast to the court's findings regarding the adequacy of teachers, class size, library books and textbooks, these findings do not relate to the narrow Campaign I criteria.41 See **721Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
IV
PLAINTIFFS' CLAIM THAT THE TRIAL COURT INCORRECTLY CONCLUDED THAT THEIR EQUAL PROTECTION RIGHTS UNDER THE STATE CONSTITUTION HAVE NOT BEEN VIOLATED
Finally, we address the plaintiffs' claim that, contrary to the trial court's determination, the evidence that they presented at trial compels the conclusion that the defendants have violated their rights under the state constitution's equal protection provisions, article first, §§ 1 and 20, by failing to provide a substantially equal educational opportunity to all of the state's schoolchildren.42 We disagree.
**722As we previously have indicated herein, the trial court found that, since 2012, the state had funneled "over $400 million in new money" into the state's thirty lowest performing schools. In addition, the state had provided $13 million in financial support to fourteen "failing schools" in 2015, plus $4 million per year for school improvement grants to approximately thirty high needs schools under the state's Alliance District program.43 Finally, the court noted that there are numerous state and federal programs that are designed to provide meals to needy students, even during the summer, to invite parents into schools to share in learning, to attend to the needs of homeless students, to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, to attend to the needs of young parents and pregnant students, and to provide mental health support. The court found that "[a]ll of this extra spending benefits poor districts but not wealthier districts. It is on top of basic education aid that has a history of strongly favoring poor districts over wealthier ones."
The court concluded that this "tilt" in spending was "fatal to the plaintiffs' equal protection claim .... In [ Horton v. Meskill ,
The plaintiffs now claim that, in reaching this determination, the trial court failed to properly apply the three part standard that this court adopted in Horton II , supra,
Before addressing this claim, we address the defendants' claim that the trial court properly declined to apply the three part Horton II standard because the plaintiffs failed to establish that they are not receiving a minimally adequate educational opportunity under the Campaign I standard. See id., at 38,
We conclude, however, that we need not determine whether the plaintiffs have established a prima facie showing of more *74than de minimis disparities because, even if they have, we conclude that the defendants have satisfied the second and third parts of Horton II , requiring them to prove that disparities in education spending are justified by a legitimate state policy and are not so great as to be unconstitutional. See Horton II , supra,
The plaintiffs contend, however, that this court rejected the maintenance of local control of schools as a legitimate public policy that would justify disparities in education spending in Horton I , supra,
Under the third part of Horton II , the state must prove that the effect of the state's education funding system is "to narrow significantly disparities in the ability of local communities to finance local education and to increase significantly the state's share of overall educational costs for public schools." (Footnote omitted.) Id., at 40,
Although the plaintiffs have convincingly demonstrated that in this state there is a gap in educational achievement between the poorest and neediest students and their more fortunate peers, disparities in educational **732achievement, standing alone, do not constitute proof that our state constitution's equal protection provisions have been violated. The plaintiffs have not shown that this gap is the result of the state's unlawful discrimination against poor and needy students in its provision of educational resources as opposed to the complex web of disadvantaging societal conditions over which the schools have no control. Indeed, the trial court found that the state is providing significantly more educational resources to schools with large numbers of poor and needy students than to other schools. We conclude, therefore, that the plaintiffs have failed to establish that the defendants have violated article eighth, § 1, and article first, §§ 1 and 20, by failing to provide a minimally adequate and substantially equal educational opportunity to all students in this state.
The judgment is reversed with respect to the trial court's determination that the defendants are violating article eighth, § 1, of the Connecticut constitution and the case is remanded to that court with direction to render judgment for the defendants on that claim; the judgment is affirmed with respect to the trial court's determination that the defendants are providing a substantially equal educational opportunity under article first, §§ 1 and 20, of the Connecticut constitution.
In this opinion EVELEIGH, VERTEFEUILLE and ALVORD, Js., concurred.
PALMER, J., with whom ROBINSON and SHELDON, Js., Concurring and Dissenting.
"[A] sound education is the 'very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed **733in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.' Brown v. Board of Education , [
I
A
Before I explain the nature of my disagreements with the majority, I begin by noting the substantial overlap between my views and those of the majority. As an initial matter, I agree, for the reasons articulated in the majority opinion, that both the individual plaintiffs1 and the named plaintiff, the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc., have standing to pursue the present action. I also agree with the majority's analysis of the equal protection issue and with its conclusion that the trial court correctly determined that there was no equal protection violation.
**734Turning to the principal substantive question-whether the state has satisfied its obligation to provide underprivileged children with minimally adequate educational opportunities as required by article eighth, § 1, of the Connecticut constitution-I agree with the majority's threshold determination that my articulation of the Campaign I2 test in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell ,
Second, I agree with the majority that, when we consider whether the various Campaign I factors have been satisfied, we do not do so in a vacuum, divorced from the goals and purposes of a minimally adequate education. Instead, the state's compliance with its constitutional mandates must be evaluated in light of **735whether the specific educational facilities, instrumentalities, curricula, and personnel; see part I B of this opinion; that the state provides are rationally calculated to allow a student who takes advantage of them to become a functional member of society. As the majority explains, "[i]t is implicit in the Campaign I criteria ... that the educational opportunities offered by the state must be sufficient to enable a student who takes advantage of them to attain a level of knowledge of reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies that will enable the student to perform *77the basic functions of an employable adult in our society, such as reading newspapers, tax forms and other basic texts, writing a basic letter, preparing a household budget, buying groceries, operating cars and household appliances, serving on a jury and voting." Footnote 25 of the majority opinion.
Third, the majority properly emphasizes that judicial review of the state's education policies and spending priorities under article eighth, § 1, should be highly deferential, as such considerations are quintessentially legislative in nature. As I explained in Rell , "the plaintiffs will not be able to prevail on their claims unless they are able to establish that what the state has done to discharge its obligations under article eighth, § 1, is so lacking as to be unreasonable by any fair or objective standard." Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
Fourth, the majority recognizes that the scope of my disagreement with the plurality in Rell was quite **736narrow. See footnote 46 of the majority opinion. My primary concern in Rell was that certain language in the plurality opinion could be construed to mean that article eighth, § 1, requires that the state guarantee that each student will receive a minimally adequate education.5 I concluded, by contrast, that the state constitution only guarantees each student the opportunity to obtain such an education. As the majority puts it, "the state's offerings [must be] sufficient to enable a student who takes advantage of them to become a functional member of society." Text accompanying footnote 25 of the majority opinion. Requiring that each student actually be adequately educated would place an unreasonable burden on the state, insofar as schools "cannot be constitutionally required to overcome every serious social and personal disadvantage that students bring with them to school, and that seriously hinder[s] the academic achievement of those students." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
Finally, as I discuss more fully in part II B of this opinion, I agree with the majority that the trial court exceeded its mandate and failed to apply the proper standard of review in the second half (parts 5 through 8) of its memorandum of decision, in which it scrutinized the rationality of the state's various educational policies, procedures, and spending priorities. In the remainder of this opinion, I explain in what respects I do not agree with the majority opinion.
B
Before I explain in what respects I think that both the trial court and the majority have gone astray, it will be helpful briefly to review the Campaign I test and to set forth with greater precision certain aspects of that test that could perhaps have been stated more directly in my concurrence in Rell. At the most basic level, Campaign I stands for the proposition that, to afford students the opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate education, the state must ensure the presence of certain core or essential components: "Children are entitled to minimally adequate physical facilities and **738classrooms which provide enough light, space, heat, and air to permit children to learn. [Facilities]. Children should have access to minimally adequate instrumentalities of learning such as desks, chairs, pencils, and reasonably current textbooks. [Instrumentalities]. Children are also entitled to minimally adequate teaching of reasonably up-to-date basic curricula such as reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies [curricula], by sufficient personnel adequately trained to teach those subject areas. [Personnel]." Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State ,
Although these four components are individually necessary to the provision of a minimally adequate education, neither my concurrence in Rell nor Campaign I itself suggested that they are jointly sufficient. As I observed in Rell , for example, "[i]t goes without saying that a safe and secure environment also is an essential element of a constitutionally adequate education." Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
It also bears emphasizing that the provision of books, teachers, buildings, and the like is not an end in itself, but all to the purpose of giving students the opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate modern education. What constitutes a minimally adequate education is, within reasonable limits, to be left to the discretion of the legislature. See, e.g.,
It follows from these principles that the state, in designing an educational system and delivering educational services, must make at least some reasonable effort to account for the distinct learning challenges that confront many of our state's least fortunate children. Although it may be assumed that many if not most of the students in Connecticut's more affluent towns have had their basic needs satisfied and arrive at school ready to learn, the same cannot be said for children who have spent their entire lives in poverty. Residents of our poorest communities, even those hungry to learn, may have to overcome a host of obstacles before they are able to attend to fractions and Fitzgerald. These run the gamut from homelessness, malnutrition, and illness, to violence in the home and in the community, to the pervasive and pernicious effects of racism. Some students struggle to learn in a non-native tongue; others wrestle with undiagnosed disabilities, whether physical, academic, or emotional/psychological.
As I acknowledged in Rell , article eighth, § 1, is not a panacea for all of society's ills, and the state cannot be expected *80to "overcome every serious social and personal disadvantage that students bring with them to school ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
The majority correctly notes that elementary and secondary schools are not the only source of support services, and that the state may choose to address the social, economic, and mental and physical health needs of underprivileged students through other state agencies, preschools, and other programs. See footnote 41 of the majority opinion. It is important to bear in mind, however, that article eighth, § 1, requires that the state , not the schools, provide students with the opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate education. If the plaintiffs *81were able to establish that (1) such needs can be met through reasonable interventions, (2) the schools are not meeting such needs, and (3) the failure to meet such needs is denying high needs children the opportunity to receive a minimally adequate education, then the state must prove that it is addressing such needs outside of the school environment. In other words, the fact that the state has the discretion to address educational impediments through nonschool agencies does not relieve the state of its ultimate constitutional responsibility to ensure adequate educational opportunities.7 **743II
In order to understand how this constitutional standard applies in practice, it will be helpful to briefly review where and how the trial court went astray. Although it is not entirely clear, I understand the trial court to have taken the following path.8
A
The court appears to have concluded that the Campaign I test that this court articulated in Rell involves two components, each of which is subject to a different standard of review. The first component is adequate funding. In the first half (parts 3 and 4) of its memorandum of decision, the trial court evaluated aggregate state funding of facilities, equipment, teachers, and curricula, and assessed whether those expenditures were constitutionally sufficient. The trial court reviewed the state's educational expenditures according to a highly deferential standard, as prescribed in my concurrence in Rell , proceeding according to the principle that "any constitutional standard the courts set for overall spending levels must be modest." The court evaluated whether overall state educational spending levels exceed the bare constitutional minimum, bearing in mind that, to find a violation, it had to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the resources that the state dedicates to education are "unreasonable by any fair or objective standard ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Assessing the trial evidence according to this standard, the court concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the state's aggregate educational expenditures are constitutionally insufficient.
**744In this first portion of its analysis, the trial court also specifically concluded that the state has spent more than the constitutional minimum-whatever that sum might be-on new school building projects. It noted that the state (1) allocated $1 billion per year to spending on school buildings, (2) increased such spending over the course of the prior decade, and (3) approved and helped to fund more or less every new building project proposed by poor school districts such as those in the cities of Bridgeport and Hartford. The court further concluded that, when judged by a "minimal standard," there was no evidence that there was a "statewide failure"
*82to provide schools with adequate resources to train their teachers, to acquire reasonably current books and other suitable equipment and facilities, or to deploy interventionists, teacher coaches, and technical support staff. In addition, the court discussed the various financial resources that are available to help the lowest performing districts invest in areas such as school improvements, student meals, after-school programs, and services for homeless and pregnant students, young parents, and individuals with mental health needs. Although the court's primary focus in this section of its decision was on financial resources, the court did also briefly observe that Connecticut's children are taught by minimally adequate teachers and provided with reasonably up-to-date basic curricula, and also that there was no evidence that the state's schools, when considered in the aggregate, lack enough light, space, heat, air, desks, chairs, pencils, or textbooks to permit children to learn. On the basis of these findings and conclusions, the court ultimately concluded that the Campaign I test that this court adopted in Rell had been satisfied and that the plaintiffs had failed to establish a constitutional violation in that respect.
The second portion of the trial court's analysis involved a more wide ranging review of the state's specific **745educational policies, procedures, and priorities. In parts 5 through 8 of its decision, the trial court scrutinized everything from the amount of money spent on educating severely disabled students to the formula for teacher compensation set forth in individual school districts' collective bargaining agreements; from social promotion policies to the role that pork-barrel politics play in deciding which school construction projects will be authorized. The court appears to have concluded that its assessment of the rationality of these various policies and priorities was subject to a heightened standard of review rather than the highly deferential standard that I articulated in my concurrence in Rell and that the trial court itself applied in parts 3 and 4 of its decision when it assessed the state's aggregate spending in accordance with the four Campaign I factors. Specifically, the court proceeded on the assumption that not only specific educational policies and priorities but also the "first principles" that underlie them must be "rationally, substantially, and verifiably" related to teaching.
B
In analyzing the plaintiffs' claims under article eighth, § 1, in this manner, the trial court failed to properly apply the Campaign I test in several respects. First, and most fundamentally, the court should not have treated educational funding and educational policy as distinct legal issues, subject to different legal standards. Rather, the proper approach was to evaluate whether the state's comprehensive system for delivering educational services-including financial and other resources, policies, and procedures-is rationally designed to ensure that each student will have the opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate education.
In this respect, I agree with the majority insofar as it holds that the trial court, having once concluded that the Campaign I test was satisfied, should not have **746proceeded to assess the rationality of the state's various education policies. There is no rationality test above and beyond the Campaign I standards. Rather, the rationality test is part and parcel of Campaign I.
What the majority fails to recognize, however, is that the trial court improperly stripped out this rationality review from its Campaign I analysis and thus fundamentally *83misapplied that test. As I set forth in greater detail in part III of this opinion, it is clear that the trial court ultimately concluded that schools in many of our state's less affluent cities and towns are "utterly failing ...." The court found that underprivileged students attend schools staffed by inexperienced and unqualified teachers. It determined that some cities and towns routinely ignore or under identify students with learning disabilities, and that guidance, counseling, and early intervention resources are woefully inadequate. It observed how the elimination of school bus services in Bridgeport requires some high school students to switch multiple transit buses just to make it to school in the morning. It concluded that many impoverished students, and many racial minorities, reach adulthood without having achieved even basic literacy and numeracy skills, and suggested that dedicating additional resources to programs such as high quality preschool could improve high school success rates. Many of these findings would, presumably, be highly relevant to the question of whether the state is affording minimally adequate educational opportunities to all of its students.
And yet there is no indication that the court considered any of these findings in parts 3 and 4 of its decision before it concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the state does not provide minimally adequate facilities, instrumentalities, curricula, and personnel.
**7479 Although the court made a few references to "anecdotal evidence" of physical deficiencies in some schools and of teachers having to purchase their own supplies, it appears to have proceeded on the assumption that the Campaign I test is concerned largely, if not exclusively, with financial matters-whether the state is spending large sums on education, in the aggregate, and is helping cities and towns to build new schools and to pay for support services.10 In other words, the court appears to have believed that it was not free to consider most of the potentially relevant evidence before it when it was conducting its constitutional analysis.11 I fail to understand *84how that could not constitute reversible error. See part III of this opinion. **748A second problem with the trial court's Campaign I analysis is that the court appears to have been operating under the mistaken belief that the four Campaign I factors are to be assessed solely at the statewide level, rather than with regard to specific districts and schools. In the course of its analysis, the court made numerous statements suggesting that it felt constrained to evaluate the state's educational spending, and compliance with the Campaign I requirements more generally, solely in the aggregate. The court began by noting, in the context of discussing its standard of review, that "the judiciary is constitutionally unfit to set the total amount of money the state has to spend on schools." (Emphasis added.) "Thus, if the court weren't limited by the minimal elements listed in [ Campaign I ], it would still reject an expansive view of its power to set overall state educational spending levels." (Emphasis added.) Turning to the first Campaign I factor, namely, facilities, the court began and more or less ended its analysis with the observation that the state spends $1 billion per year on school buildings. The court proceeded to emphasize that the state has committed $378 million for new projects in Bridgeport alone and briefly alluded to "anecdotal evidence of physical deficiencies in some schools ...." Nonetheless, it dismissed such concerns not by concluding that each such deficiency failed to reach the level of a constitutional violation but, instead, by explaining that the record contained **749"nothing to suggest a statewide failure to provide adequate facilities ...."12 (Emphasis added.)
The court's analysis of the other Campaign I factors likewise suggests that the court was concerned only with whether the plaintiffs could establish systemic, statewide failures to provide minimally adequate educational opportunities. With regard to instrumentalities, the court reasoned: "[T]here is no proof of a statewide problem caused by the state sending school districts too little money.... There are certainly some hardships with computers and significant disparities in computer access, but against a minimal standard the plaintiffs have not proved ... that there is a systemic problem that should spark a constitutional crisis and an order to spend more on school supplies." (Emphasis added.) The court's analysis of the state's educational personnel was in the same vein: "No one suggests that teaching in Connecticut is broadly incompetent. The claim is that opportunities for good teaching are not being rationally marshaled in favor of needy kids. Judged against a low minimum and judged as a system , the plaintiffs have plainly not met their burden ...." (Emphasis added.) True, the court proceeded to consider whether the state dedicates enough resources to "needy schools," concluding that it does. Even *85there, however, the court considered such spending only in the aggregate. The theory seemed to be that, if the state budget contains a sizable line item for needy school support, then the constitutional requirement is necessarily satisfied. No consideration was given to whether there are particular schools in which spending on particular academic programs or needs is insufficient to **750provide the students who attend those schools with minimally adequate educational opportunities.13
The trial court made other, different missteps in the second half of its decision. In that section of the analysis, the court properly considered the specific quality of education afforded to students in individual school districts such as Bridgeport, specifically, whether schools receive adequate financial support to hire and retain essential support staff, whether students are provided with adequate transportation, whether they are able to master basic literacy skills, and how they perform on standardized assessment tests and based on other measures of high school achievement.
But, here, the court applied a standard of review-requiring that the state's educational policies and priorities be reasonably, substantially, and verifiably related to teaching-that finds no support in Rell and that had the practical effect of shifting to the state the burden of proving that every aspect of its educational system complies with article eighth, § 1, by requiring that all of the state's "efforts" be "verifiable enough to be measured ...." Having adopted this novel standard of review, the trial court proceeded to identify various, purported irrationalities in the system that required the court to choose sides on philosophical questions that are hotly contested by educators and academics, some **751of which the plaintiffs had not even challenged.14 All of this ran afoul of my warning in Rell that "[t]he very complexity of the problems of financing and managing a statewide public school system suggests that there will be more than one constitutionally permissible method of solving them, and that, within the limits of rationality, the legislature's efforts to tackle the problems should be entitled to respect.... In such circumstances, the judiciary is well advised to refrain from imposing on the [state] inflexible constitutional restraints ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
So what should the trial court have done? It should have performed a single legal analysis, applying the Campaign I test, as articulated in my concurrence in Rell , to the specific educational failings that the plaintiffs allege exist in specific schools and school districts. It should have determined whether, in light of its factual **752findings regarding both financial and nonfinancial considerations, the state's educational programs are reasonably calculated to satisfy each of the Campaign I criteria so as to ensure that students in those districts have the opportunity to secure the fruits of a minimally adequate education. And it should have made these determinations in light of the "special needs of ... particular local school system[s]," as defined in Justice Borden's dissent in Sheff v. O'Neill , supra,
III
My disagreement with the majority over the controlling legal standard compels me to part ways with respect to the appropriate resolution of this appeal. The majority concludes that the trial court (1) applied the correct legal standard in parts 3 and 4 of its decision, and (2) properly determined that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that Connecticut's schools have delivered less than a minimally adequate education. For this reason, the majority would simply reverse the judgment of the trial court-because it exceeded its mandate in parts 5 through 8 of its decision-with direction to render judgment for the defendants.
The plaintiffs argue that they are entitled to an opportunity to prevail at a new trial under the Campaign I standard, as properly applied. They emphasize, and the majority acknowledges, that the trial court found, among other things, that (1) the Bridgeport public schools have been forced to cut key support personnel and even school bus service at the same time as some wealthier districts have received an influx of new state funds; see footnote 1 of the majority opinion; (2) other high needs schools have inadequate classroom facilities and shortages of experienced teachers, specialists, interventionists, and counselors, (3) large numbers of high needs students are not even approaching appropriate **753educational outcomes, (4) preschool opportunities are unavailable for large numbers of low income students, despite their proven link to improved educational outcomes, and (5) the state has provided inadequate socioemotional and related support services for high needs students. Indeed, the majority readily acknowledges that "the plaintiffs have convincingly demonstrated that in this state there is a gap in educational achievement between the poorest and neediest students and their more fortunate peers ...." Nevertheless, it is the view of the majority that such findings are simply irrelevant under the "narrow Campaign I criteria."15 Text accompanying *87footnote 41 of the majority opinion.
I disagree. As I explained in part II B of this opinion, I believe that the trial court misapplied Campaign I in several respects. "We have often stated that a party is generally entitled to a new trial when, on appeal, a different legal standard is determined to be required, unless we conclude that, based on the evidence, a new trial would be pointless." McDermott v. State ,
A
I agree with the majority that the trial court's primary focus in evaluating whether the state has complied with its constitutional obligations should be on the adequacy of educational inputs, rather than on students' level of academic achievement. As I explained in Rell , "student achievement may be affected by [too] many factors outside the state's control" for the state to be able to guarantee academic outcomes. Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
I have never suggested, however, that educational outcomes are uninformative or irrelevant to the constitutional analysis. See
More fundamentally, evaluation of educational outputs will, in many instances, be a fundamental and necessary starting point in evaluating claims brought under article eighth, § 1. This is because outcomes provide the clearest evidence of *88whether Connecticut's students are in fact receiving a minimally adequate education. Although one can imagine extreme cases in which the failure to achieve educational objectives may be presumed,17 challenges such as those brought by the plaintiffs in the present case are most reasonably resolved by first determining whether students have in fact been unable to obtain a minimally adequate education, as defined by the state. If the plaintiffs can establish such a deficiency, then the trial court must determine whether "the failure of students to achieve the goals of a constitutionally mandated education [are] the result of specific deficient educational inputs, or [have been] caused by factors not attributable to, or capable of remediation by, state action or omission ...." Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
In the present case, the trial court found that a number of the state's schools are "utterly failing" and that one third of high school students in poorer communities such as Bridgeport, Windham, and New Britain fail to reach even the most basic levels in math and reading. In the trial court's words, "[n]ot reaching the most basic level means they [do not] have even limited ability to read and respond to grade level material. There can be **756no serious talk of these children having reached the goals set for them." The trial court made numerous specific findings regarding the failure of different underprivileged student populations to achieve minimal academic success according to various objective benchmarks established by the state.
With respect to economically disadvantaged students, the court found, among other things, that Connecticut's fourth and eighth grade students who qualify for free and reduced lunch services rank among the lowest in the nation on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math assessments. Between 80 and 90 percent of the state's poor students failed to reach the minimum standards for high school reading as assessed by Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) tests. More than 70 percent of the impoverished students entering the state's higher education system lack basic literacy and numeracy skills.
The court also found that success rates for economically disadvantaged students vary dramatically between school districts, which suggests that differing academic outcomes may arise from differing inputs and educational strategies rather than any intractable barriers to learning created by poverty. On the 2015 SBAC mathematics test, for example, only 9.1 percent of Bridgeport students and 11 percent of New Britain students who qualified for free or reduced lunch performed at level 3 or above, whereas over 40 percent of students who qualified for free and reduced lunch reached that level in towns such as Darien, Ridgefield, and Weston. At the other end of the spectrum, approximately two thirds of students eligible for free and reduced lunch in Bridgeport and New Britain performed only at level 1, more than twice the rate as in Darien.
More generally, the trial court's findings highlight the dramatic differences in educational outcomes between **757the state's more affluent and less affluent communities. The court found that students in *89struggling elementary schools in poor communities are not acquiring basic reading, writing, and math skills, and that virtually none of the students in many inner-city schools has the skills needed to progress beyond third grade. On the 2013 Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) mathematics assessment, over 38 percent of students in New Britain, over 41 percent of students in Bridgeport, and nearly one half of all Windham students scored in the "Below Basic" range. In more affluent towns such as Westport and Weston, by contrast, the number of students scoring in the "Below Basic" range was negligible. Similar disparities were observed on the CAPT reading and science assessments.
With respect to the secondary level, out of 1177 students attending Bridgeport's Bassick High School in 2013, only 6 percent even attempted to take an advanced placement (AP) exam, and, of those who did, only 3 students earned a qualifying score, which indicates an ability to complete college level work. By contrast, approximately one fourth of all students at Darien High School took AP exams and almost all earned qualifying scores. No more than 15 percent of high school graduates in Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, and Waterbury were deemed to be college and career ready. As judged by Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) scores, less than 2 percent of students in Bridgeport were on track to be college and career ready.
The court also made specific findings with respect to the academic success of students who are not native English speakers or are racial minorities. As of 2012-2013, for example, the school districts of Bridgeport, Danbury, East Hartford, Hartford, Meriden, New Britain, New Haven, New London, Norwalk, Norwich, Stamford and Waterbury all had failed to meet Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAO) performance **758targets for English as a Second Language students for the previous ten years. This means that English language learning students do not have the language or vocabulary skills needed to pass a language proficiency test. On the 2013 CAPT mathematics assessment, nearly 50 percent of all African-American students scored in the "Below Proficient" range versus 10.6 percent of white students.18 Ultimately, on the basis of such findings, the trial court concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that, "for thousands of Connecticut students there is no elementary education, and without an elementary education there is no secondary education." (Emphasis omitted.)
B
There is little dispute that educational inputs represent the most important consideration in assessing whether the state has satisfied its constitutional obligation to ensure that Connecticut residents have a reasonable opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate education. If students in each school have access to adequate facilities, equipment, teachers, and curricula, as well as other essentials such as transportation and security, then a presumption arises that they have been afforded this opportunity. By contrast, the failure to provide these basic essentials supports a conclusion that the state has failed to meet its obligations under article eighth, § 1.
In the present case, notwithstanding its conclusion that the four Campaign I factors have been satisfied and that the state *90invests heavily in the lowest performing and highest needs schools, the trial court clearly was of the view that academic inputs in our state's most disadvantaged communities are not reasonably calibrated to achieve minimally adequate academic **759outcomes. With respect to staffing levels, for example, the court emphasized that schools with higher percentages of low income and minority students are forced to hire inexperienced and unqualified teachers and administrators at higher rates, and that more than one half of the professional staff in such schools depart, on average, within five years. Moreover, although wage premiums are often required to attract teachers to high poverty and high minority school districts and thereby improve student achievement, state educational funds have flowed in the opposite direction. Although educator salaries in the state's poorest communities are significantly lower than the state average, wealthy school districts have been allowed "to raid money desperately needed by poor towns ...." For instance, the state recently cut educational aid to the poorest school districts by over $5.3 million, forcing districts such as Bridgeport to cut essential staff, including guidance counselors and special education paraprofessionals, while simultaneously increasing aid to many comparatively wealthy towns.
Schools in low income, high poverty districts already had significantly fewer counselors and academic support staff per student, despite demonstrably greater needs. Among the court's many specific findings in this regard: Bridgeport's Bassick High School has only 4 full-time guidance counselors for nearly 1200 students and New London has only 3 to serve over 900 students. Windham has only 4 full-time school psychologists serving a population of almost 3200 students; the student to psychologist ratio is far lower in more affluent towns such as Greenwich and Westport, even though those towns have a lower percentage of students with disabilities. Waltersville School in Bridgeport, which has a student population of approximately 600 ranging from prekindergarten to eighth grade, has only one literacy coach, one guidance counselor, and no social workers **760available to meet the socioemotional needs of students who do not have individual education plans. Roosevelt School and Bryant Elementary School in Bridgeport suffer from similar staffing shortages. Ultimately, the court found that inadequate staffing levels meant that schools in certain less affluent school districts were unable to satisfy their legal requirements to meet the needs of special education students.
Turning to East Hartford, the trial court found that economically disadvantaged school district has only one translator, who speaks Spanish, even though the district's students collectively speak 50 different languages; has 4 or 5 elementary schools that do not have a social worker; has only 1 social worker for 400 ninth grade students, which is insufficient to meet their varied socioemotional needs; has only 1 high school reading intervention teacher, which leaves many students who are far below grade level unable to access reading support services; and employs only 1 high school psychologist who, despite working 70 to 90 hours per week, is unable to meet the needs of the district's 1700 high school students.
Some of the court's findings in this respect were so dramatic that it is questionable whether the Campaign I factors are being satisfied even under the narrowest reading of that case. For example, there are no reading teachers or reading interventionists to provide necessary literacy interventions in Bridgeport's comprehensive high schools. During the 2015-2016 school year, New London High School *91filled a Spanish language instruction position with a substitute teacher who could not even speak or read that language. New Britain has no significant programs for homeless students, despite having approximately 500 homeless students in the district.
The court also found that, while there is widespread agreement that high quality preschool is perhaps the **761single most effective tool for narrowing achievement gaps and preparing underprivileged students for success at the primary and secondary levels, a great number of children in Connecticut do not participate in preschool programs, and not all children who live in poverty have access to affordable programs. The court also found that insufficient funding was a significant impediment to broader access. Although there is no express constitutional requirement that the state provide free preschool programs, the state is required to take reasonable steps to ensure that students are able to learn, with an eye toward all of the available tools and their proven effectiveness. See part I B 3 of this opinion.
Finally, with respect to transportation and facilities, the trial court found that Bridgeport no longer provides school bus service to the comprehensive high schools, forcing students to transfer between multiple public transit buses to get to school in the morning. Some Bridgeport schools also have unreliable boilers, and ceilings fell in one building. In light of these findings, the trial court's ultimate conclusion appears to be that our "constitution's promise of a free elementary school education" could be realized if additional resources were marshaled in support of "drastic interventions" for the most troubled school districts.
C
Finally, the trial court identified various policies and procedures that, in its view, the state could modify in order to improve educational outcomes for underprivileged students. Indeed, the court went so far as to conclude that "many of our most important [educational] policies are so befuddled or misdirected as to be irrational."
As I explained in part II B of this opinion, I agree with the majority that the trial court generally overstepped its authority in parts 5 through 8 of its decision.
**762Some of its policy prescriptions and related findings fail to afford sufficient deference to the political branches and to school administrators, taking sides in ongoing debates among educational experts or requiring that the state adopt or reject one among many facially reasonable approaches. In other instances, the court invalidates certain educational policies without making the necessary predicate finding that those policies have resulted in the state's failure to afford minimally adequate educational opportunities.
That is not to say, however, that policy questions fall completely beyond the legitimate ambit of the court's authority to review alleged violations of article eighth, § 1, or that a violation of that provision might not result from policy choices rather than from inadequate resourcing. This idea is implicit in Campaign I , which requires that schools adopt modern, age appropriate educational curricula. The majority concedes as much when it recognizes that "if the plaintiffs had shown that the state was providing elementary school students with books and curricula only intended for advanced college students, a court could conclude that the state was not reasonably meeting the minimal educational needs of these students ...."
The majority fails, however, to follow this hypothetical to its logical conclusion. If the constitution is violated when schools do not provide students with *92learning materials reasonably suited to their level of cognitive development, why is it not also offended if, for example, a school fails to provide instruction or instructional materials that are comprehensible to a substantial subpopulation of students whose primary language is not English? At a minimum, it would seem that public schools must supply adequate professional staff to screen for and identify students who have serious impediments to learning and to refer them for appropriate services. In the present case, the trial court **763found, among other things, that some poor school districts consistently ignore or under identify students with special educational needs and, therefore, fail to provide them with appropriate support services. In the face of such findings, I am unable to conclude that, if the plaintiffs were afforded the opportunity to prove their allegations under the correct legal standard, it is impossible that they could demonstrate that their right to a minimally adequate education has been violated.
IV
The state's duty to act rationally in developing and implementing a system for affording all students the opportunity to receive a minimally adequate education is not a duty disconnected from reality but a duty that must be exercised with a clear-eyed view of its essential purpose and a commitment to dealing with those circumstances of modern life that tend to frustrate that purpose. It is not enough to seek success in some places, for some children. Our schools must carry on in the faith that all students can learn, and our state must aspire to no less. Although the ultimate measure of an adequate educational opportunity for purposes of article eighth, § 1, cannot be educational outputs, the educational system must be reasonably designed to achieve results in every district and neighborhood. Our state constitution simply will not allow us to leave our neediest children behind.
Because the plaintiffs were not afforded the opportunity to prove their case according to the correct legal standard, and because there is reason to believe that the trial court may have found one or more violations of Campaign I if that test had been applied properly, I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion that directs judgment for the defendants. Instead, I would remand the case for a new trial.
Footnotes
The defendants rely on the statement of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Disability Advocates, Inc. v. New York Coalition for Quality Assisted Living, Inc. , supra,
We note that the opinion by Justice Palmer in this case concurs with the majority in part and dissents in part. For purposes of simplicity, we refer to it as the dissenting opinion.
The plaintiffs also contend that the state is not providing minimally adequate access to modern technology in some schools. Even if we were to assume, however, that the adequacy of computer access must be considered under the Campaign I criteria; cf. Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, Inc. v. Rell , supra,
We recognize that the statistical evidence that the court cited in Horton II did not expressly correlate these spending disparities among the towns to disparities in the wealth of the towns as reflected in their property tax bases. See
The trial court noted that in 2016, in the face of "a bone crushing fiscal crisis," the state cut education funds to fourteen of the neediest school districts by approximately $5.3 million at the same time that it increased funds to twenty-two comparatively wealthy school districts by approximately $5.2 million. Such anecdotal evidence, however, does not compel the conclusion that, contrary to the trial court's finding, there are systematic and ongoing disparities in the education funds that the state provides to needy districts as compared to wealthier districts, especially in light of the trial court's finding that, since 2012, the state had funneled "over $400 million in new money" into the state's thirty lowest performing schools. Indeed, we take judicial notice that, in 2017, the legislature adopted a budget that cut primary state grants to public schools by $30 million overall, but shielded the thirty Alliance Districts from any cuts. See J. Thomas, "Education Aid: Here's What is in the Bipartisan [Connecticut] Budget Plan," The Connecticut Mirror, October 25, 2017, available at https://ctmirror.org/2017/10/25/education-aid-heres-what-is-in-the-bipartisan-ct-budget-plan, last visited January 17, 2018.
For the same reason, the majority's reliance on the assumption that the court found that "the state's educational offerings, even in the poorest school districts, are sufficient to enable students who take advantage of them to become functional members of society" is misplaced. There is no indication whatsoever in the trial court's memorandum of decision that the trial court ever made such a finding, and the majority is unable to point to any language to support its reading of the court's decision.
176 A.3d 28 (Conn. Coal. for Justice in Educ. Funding, Inc. v. Rell) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.