TOPEKA, Kan. (Legal Newsline) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has announced a 6-year-old federal lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the Kansas school funding system has been dismissed by its plaintiffs.
In 2010 a group of parents and students in the Shawnee Mission school district filed a lawsuit arguing that state-imposed limits on how to raise and spend money on local schools violates the U.S. Constitution. After two appeals to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, as well an unsuccessful attempt to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to try the case, the plaintiffs dismissed their lawsuit.
"We have successfully defended Kansas law against this challenge in federal court," Schmidt said.
Petrella v. Brownback was dismissed in July. A separate state law challenge to Kansas' school finance law, Gannon v Kansas, is still ongoing – pending Kansas Supreme Court oral arguments in September.