What happens when a state fails to meet its constitutional obligation to provide all students with a sound basic education? If a court tells the state that it’s failing to appropriately fund public schools, how do we fix it within our system of checks and balances? In this episode, we’re joined by school finance expert and all-around super dude Eric Houck to help us make sense of the Leandro case, North Carolina’s decades-long school finance case. Eric is a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He's also a past president of the National Education Finance Academy and has just published a book on school funding in the US, Indian Country, and US Territories, so it'll be nice to have an actual expert with us! You don't want to miss this one! The Leandro case is fascinating because it's the first case in which a state court ordered the state to direct a specific amount of money to fund its schools. We also discuss two cases that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this term. Listeners of Chalk & Gavel will know these well; they are the Oklahoma religious charter school case (Episode 23) and Mahmoud v. Taylor, the case about parental opt-outs from LGBTQ books (Episode 12).

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Keywords: School Funding, Right to a Sound Basic Education, Separation of Powers, North Carolina, State Constitution Education Clauses, Religion, Charter Schools, Parental Rights, LGBTQ Curriculum