MANNING, S.C. - South Carolina legislators have failed to adequately fund education initiatives over the last three decades, Sen. John Matthews said during testimony in a school funding lawsuit challenging the way the state funds education.

"The General Assembly is not doing its job, and I don't think it has any intention of doing its job," said Matthews, D-Bowman.

The seven major pieces of education legislation enacted by the state Legislature since 1977 have turned out to be broken promises, said Matthews, testifying in the trial that resumed Monday after a three-week break.

"I think its border criminal behavior to tell people we can improve educational outcomes by reducing class size and then fail to do it," said Matthews, who is a member of the state's Education Oversight Committee. The EOC was formed in 1998 to oversee the implementation of the state's Education Accountability Act.

Robert Stepp, the attorney representing the state, said Matthews' criticisms of the Legislature are unfair and will challenge his testimony during cross-examination Tuesday.

About three-dozen school districts, mostly in the Pee Dee, want the courts to order the General Assembly to change the way it pays for education. The poorer districts say the formula for funding schools - a mix of local property taxes, federal aid and state money - does not provide them enough money to meet basic needs while larger, wealthier districts have an easier time.

Circuit Judge Thomas Cooper will have to decide if the state is providing students with a "minimally adequate education" ordered by the state Supreme Court decision in 1996.

Former Gov. Dick Riley, a senior partner in the law firm representing the eight named school districts in the suit, was at the trial Monday, watching from the plaintiffs table in the courtroom. Riley said he has been advising attorneys from Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in the case.

"I want to make it very clear I'm interested in (the case)," said Riley, who was U.S. secretary of education under President Clinton.

"If you step back and look at South Carolina and look at education, its like there's a hole in the state along the I-95 corridor, where most of the plaintiffs districts are located," he said. "And there's an enormous difference in what's happening there."

Information from: The State