ELC enforces education rights across the country, working to ensure that all public school students receive the funding, educational opportunities, and resources they need to reach their full potential, while protecting public schools as the trusted centers of our communities and a cornerstone of our democracy. Our National Program focuses on three core areas: advancing fair and adequate school funding, fighting the spread and diversion of funds to private education vouchers, and defending student rights and the institution of public education.
School Funding Equity
Through our National School Funding Project (NSFP), ELC works to support and strengthen school finance reforms by tracking, analyzing, and litigating to ensure states meet their constitutional obligation to fund public education. Our work includes:
- Impact Litigation: Initiating and assisting in landmark lawsuits to secure fair school funding with local advocates and pro bono law firms;
- Data and Research: Publishing Making the Grade, an annual report analyzing public education funding in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.;
- Legal Infrastructure: Convening experienced school finance litigators annually, cultivating new school finance attorneys, bridging the legal and nonlegal communities in the school funding arena, and maintaining a comprehensive school finance litigation database;
- Federal Advocacy: Fighting for robust federal investments in public education and ensuring federal funds are distributed and used lawfully and effectively.
Private Education Vouchers
Through our Public Funds Public Schools (PFPS) project, ELC serves as the leading national authority fighting private school vouchers and other policies that divert public funds from public schools. We combine strategic litigation, legislative tracking, research, information sharing, coalition-building, policy advocacy and technical assistance to ensure that public funds are used to support and strengthen public education.
Student Rights
ELC works to break down barriers to educational opportunity and challenge discriminatory laws and policies that deny students access to a high-quality public education. Through strategic litigation and amicus advocacy, we advance legal protections for students and defend the fundamental principles of public education. This work includes:
- School Integration: Fighting for diverse, equitable, and inclusive classrooms;
- Civil Rights: Protecting the rights of students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, and other students facing discrimination;
- Freedom to Teach and Learn: Challenging censorship, book bans, and other policies that restrict students’ access to knowledge;
- Religious Charter Schools: Opposing the establishment of religious charter schools that use public funds while operating outside the constitutional and accountability requirements that govern public schools.
Technical Assistance
Through our Educational Law Technical Assistance Center (ELTAC), ELC provides extensive technical assistance – including research, legal analysis, policy advocacy, presentations and convenings, among many other forms of support – to state and national advocates, parents, educators, and policymakers so they have the tools they need to protect local public schools, state and federal investment in public education, and students’ civil rights