## Facts

- Multiple Ohio school districts, officials, teachers, students, and parents sued the State of Ohio and education officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Ohio’s public school financing system.
- The challenged system funded K–12 education primarily through state aid under the School Foundation Program, supplemented by substantial local revenue from voter-approved property tax levies and limited federal funds.
- The funding formula’s basic-aid calculations did not reliably reflect the cost of educating a student and included “guarantee” provisions that tended to favor wealthier districts.
- Structural features in the financing scheme impaired revenue growth and increased disparity, including tax-reduction factors affecting property-tax collections, “phantom revenue” assumptions within the formula, and borrowing and emergency loan mechanisms for fiscally distressed districts.
- The record showed significant deficiencies in low-wealth districts, including unsafe or deteriorating facilities, shortages of textbooks and supplies, and other inadequacies affecting educational opportunity.
- The trial court upheld the system as constitutional; the plaintiffs appealed directly to the Supreme Court of Ohio.

## Issues

1. Whether Ohio’s statutory system for financing public elementary and secondary education satisfies Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution requiring a “thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state.”
2. Whether the State may fulfill that duty through a system in which local property taxation is the dominant driver of educational funding, producing substantial interdistrict disparities and inadequacies.
3. Whether specific statutes implementing the School Foundation Program and related borrowing, emergency loan, and facilities provisions are unconstitutional as part of an overall unconstitutional scheme.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Ohio reversed the trial court and held Ohio’s elementary and secondary public school financing system unconstitutional under Article VI, Section 2.
- The Court concluded the system’s structure and operation produced unconstitutional disparities and failed to assure sufficient resources for all districts to provide an adequate educational opportunity.
- The Court declared unconstitutional multiple provisions governing the School Foundation Program and related borrowing and emergency school assistance loan statutes, and held the Classroom Facilities Act unconstitutional to the extent it was underfunded.
- The Court stayed the effect of its judgment for twelve months to permit the General Assembly to enact a constitutional funding system.
- The Court remanded to the trial court with instructions to retain jurisdiction to ensure legislative action conformed to the constitutional requirements articulated in the decision.

## Legal Principles

- Article VI, Section 2 imposes a statewide, mandatory duty on the General Assembly to secure a “thorough and efficient” system of common schools.
- A “thorough” system requires that every district have sufficient funds to operate; an “efficient” system requires adequate teachers, code-compliant and safe buildings, and sufficient equipment to provide students an educational opportunity.
- The constitutional obligation is statewide and cannot be satisfied by a scheme that effectively makes educational opportunity depend on local property wealth.
- Local property taxes may be used as a component of school funding, but they may not be the primary mechanism by which the State satisfies the thorough-and-efficient requirement.
- When a statutory funding framework is designed and funded in a manner that predictably creates major disparities and persistent inadequacies, the system may be declared unconstitutional, and courts may retain jurisdiction to ensure compliance following legislative revision.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Ohio held that the State’s K–12 funding scheme—built around the School Foundation Program and heavy reliance on local property taxes—failed to provide a constitutionally required thorough and efficient system of common schools, invalidated key statutory components, stayed its ruling to allow legislative repair, and ordered continuing trial-court jurisdiction to monitor conformity with constitutional standards.


DeRolph v. State, 78 Ohio St. 3d 193, 677 N.E.2d 733 (Ohio 1997)