In 1993, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) in New York City filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming that New York State had failed to live up to its constitutional obligation to provide a "sound, basic education" to all its students. Eight years of litigation later, State Supreme Court Judge Leland DeGrasse decided in favor of CFE, ruling that Gotham students were not being given a sound, basic education because the state was not providing the city adequate educational funding. Last year the New York Court of Appeals upheld DeGrasse's decision, warning, as the New York Post put it, that the state "had better find some way to solve the money problem, fast." Of course, left unanswered was the question of how much money would be needed for "adequate" funding in New York City (and elsewhere). As it is, New York City spends more per-pupil than most U.S. school systems. And, despite his January 2003 rejection of, as Sol Stern characterizes it, the "popular but misguided ideal that inadequate funding was the reason for the miseducation of the city's school children," Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are now siding with CFE, which recently called for the state to provide "$8.9 billion in construction aid to the city over the next five years....[and] $5.3 billion in additional operating aid to city schools." (One wonders where this additional $14 billion will come from when the state is already grappling with a $5 billion budget shortfall.) On Tuesday, in fact, Klein delivered an ultimatum to state lawmakers: Give city schools billions of dollars in additional aid or "I'll see you in court." It's a shame that neither CFE, nor the judges who heard the case, nor the mayor and schools chancellor, heeded the evidence presented by experts like economist Eric Hanushek, who argue convincingly that more money makes education more expensive, not more effective.
"New York's fiscal equity follies," by Sol Stern, City Journal, Spring 2004
"The school-spending racket," New York Post, April 14, 2004
"Klein tells Albany: Pay up or I'll sue," by Carl Campanile, New York Post, April 14, 2004