The lawsuit charges the state with having reneged on its constitutional guarantee to provide all students with at least the bare essentials necessary for an education. The suit also charges California with having violated state and federal requirements that equal access to public education be provided without regard to race, color, or national origin.

Plaintiffs have been subjected to the following conditions as part of their everyday educational experience:

Lack of Materials and Basic Resources

• no textbooks or other educationally necessary curricular material

• too few textbooks or other educationally necessary curricular material
• outdated or defaced textbooks
• no or not enough basic school supplies
• no access to a library
• no or not enough access to computers or computer instruction
• no or not enough labs
• no or not enough lab materials
• no access to music or art classes
• no or too few guidance counselors

• as few as 13% teachers with full teaching credentials
• chronically unfilled teacher vacancies
• heavy reliance on substitute teachers
• no homework assignments due to lack of materials

• classes without enough seats and desks, so students sit on counters
• cramped, makeshift classrooms
• multi-track schedules that curtail the calendar length of courses
• multi-track schedules that prevent continuous, year-to-year study in a given subject
• multi-track schedules that force students to take key exams before completing the full course of study

• broken or nonexistent air conditioning or heating systems; extremely hot or
• cold classrooms
• toilets that don't flush; toilets that are filthy with urine, excrement, or blood
• toilets that are locked
• lack of working water foundations
• unrepaired, hazardous facilities, including broken windows, walls, and ceilings
• vermin infestations
• leaky roofs and mold

The lawsuit charges that thousands of California's school children are forced to study in "overcrowded, unsafe, poorly ventilated buildings with terrible slum conditions." These conditions include infestation of cockroaches, rats, and mice, toilets that back up or leak, faucets that do not work, and lack of air conditioning and/or heat, leaving children in a constant sweat in temperatures of 90 degrees and above or with a persistent chill so severe that they have to wear coats, hats, and gloves in the classroom.

"Education is the key to providing equal opportunity to children of all backgrounds," said Matthew Kreeger, of Morrison & Foerster. "Our current system of public education is failing to serve this purpose. This lawsuit aims to establish that the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that children receive the basic tools for education falls upon the State of California."

"Too many California schools have been allowed to fester while some of our best minds wither on the vine," said John Affeldt, Managing Attorney at Public Advocates in San Francisco. "The lawsuit holds the State accountable for ensuring each child has the opportunity to achieve."

Shannon Carey, a teacher at Stonehurst Elementary School in Oakland, describes the conditions. "This January 24, the roof in my classroom leaked over half of my room, ruining a great many diligently done projects. The roof had been leaking for years -fourteen years, in fact-and yet not one repair was undertaken to prevent its eventual collapse."

"At the dawn of the 21st century, thousands of California public school children still are suffering under learning conditions that were appalling and unacceptable in the 19th century," said Catherine Lhamon, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. "These children try to learn in schools where they have no books, where they routinely share space with rats and roaches, where their teachers are underprepared. The children who attend these schools are overwhelmingly poor and children of color. They are children the State has forgotten."

The suit was filed by the ACLU of Northern California, ACLU of Southern California, Public Advocates, the law firm of Morrison & Foerster, and several other public interest legal organizations, and attorneys.