Topeka ? The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow-PUSH Coalition has joined a growing list of friends of the Kansas Supreme Court who have been allowed to weigh in on a lawsuit challenging the state’s school finance scheme.

Chief Justice Kay McFarland granted the request from Jackson’s Chicago-based organization on Tuesday.

McFarland has approved similar requests from the Kansas Taxpayers Network and Kansas Action for Children.

The seven-member Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Aug. 30 on the state’s appeal of a Shawnee County District Court judge’s Dec. 2 ruling, which declared the state’s system for distributing $2.7 billion aid to public schools unconstitutional.

A Supreme Court decision could come as early as October.

The lawsuit was filed in 1999 on behalf of parents and administrators in the Dodge City and Salina school districts. They argued the school finance law distributes funds unfairly, hurting poor and minority students in particular.

Attorneys for the state appealed the lower court’s ruling, submitting their briefs to the court in May. They acknowledged that legislators might need to revise the finance formula but contended the state is doing a good job of educating its children.

The state must reply to the plaintiffs’ briefs and those from friends of the court by July 27.

Jackson was in Kansas in May for the dedication of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site and said repeatedly that the nation had yet to fulfill the promise of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down segregated schools.