[JURIST] A judge for the Connecticut Superior Court [official website] Wednesday ordered [memorandum, PDF] school officials to overhaul the state’s educational funding system, finding that the current system is unconstitutional. In his opinion, Judge Thomas Moukawsher noted that poorer areas grossly under-performed in comparison with wealthier areas. The judge ordered the state to draft and submit proposals within six months, writing that “Connecticut is defaulting on its constitutional duty to provide adequate public school opportunities because it has no rational, substantial and verifiable plan to distribute money for education aid and school construction.”

In recent years legislation surrounding education and teachers has generated controversy in the US. Earlier this year an education reform group, Students for Education Reform Minnesota initiated a lawsuit [JURIST report] against the state claiming state laws governing teacher tenure violates students’ fundamental rights to an education. In August 2014 education advocacy groups in New York challenged the state’s teacher tenure laws [JURIST report], claiming that laws protecting teacher employment violate the civil rights of children to a quality education. In June of that year a judge for the Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled that the California’s system for tenure and seniority for public school teachers is unconstitutional [JURIST report]. In March 2014, the Supreme Court of Kansas held that the state’s legislature violated the Kansas constitution when it underfunded K-12 public education [JURIST report] during the 2009 through 2012 school years.