A Quality Education for Every Child: Stories from the lawyers on the Front Lines

Michael A. Rebell, Executive Director of the Campaign for Educations Equity, Professor of Law and Educational Practice at Teachers College at Columbia University, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, compiled a book of essays discussing the different roles state courts have played in funding inequities and inadequacies that have plagued our country's public school systems for decades.

Parker Poe attorney Robert W. Spearman served as one of the principal attorneys for the low-wealth plaintiffs in Leandro v. State of North Carolina, and his testimony is featured as one of the book’s collection of essays.  In 14 years of litigation, the Leandro case resulted in two major State Supreme Court opinions.  The first ruled that North Carolina schoolchildren have a judicially enforceable constitutional right to a sound and basic education.  The second, affirmed a series of later superior court decisions after trials, and held the State had wrongfully denied this right to many State schoolchildren.  This resulted in a variety of educational reforms and new programs.

Please click here to read the book’s introduction and Mr. Spearman’s chapter, The Leandro Case: Leandro v. State of North Carolina.