Zuni Public School District No. 89, et al. v. Department of Education, et al. (550 U.S. 81)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 17, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 550 U.S. 81 · 127 S. Ct. 1534
- Decided
- April 17, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2006
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. A federal statute sets forth a method that the Secretary of Education is to use when determining whether a State’s public school funding program “equalizes expenditures” throughout the State. The statute instructs the Secretary to calculate the disparity in per-pupil expenditures among local school districts in the State. But, when doing so, the Secretary is to “disregard” school districts “with per-pupil expenditures . . . above the. 95th percentile or below the 5th percentile of such expenditures. ..in the State.” 20 U. S. C. § 7709(b)(2)(B)(i) (emphasis added). The question before us is whether the emphasized statutory language permits the Secretary to identify the school districts that should be “disregardfed]” by looking to the number of the district’s pupils as well as to the size of the district’s expenditures per pupil. We conclude that it does. I A The federal Impact Aid Act, 108 Stat. 3749, as amended, 20 U. S. C. § 7701 et seq., provides financial assistance to local school districts whose ability to finance public school education is adversely affected by a federal presence. Federal aid is available to districts, for example, where a significant amount of federal land is exempt from local property taxes, or where the federal presence is responsible for an increase in school-age children (say, of armed forces…
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