LITTLE ROCK — Lawsuits aimed at compelling legislatures to increase school funding have been filed in some 42 states. Courts have found for the plaintiffs in more than half of the cases on the grounds that schools are not "adequately" funded. These decisions have, in effect, changed the way education appropriations are made, moving decision making from legislatures to the courts. Instead of flowing from the political process, determinations of adequate appropriations come from judgeswho are informed by paid consultants. Recently, adequacy plaintiffs have suffered some serious setbacks.

The PISA results came out recently, and they were greeted in the normal manner: The vast majority of U.S. citizens, both educators and populace, presumed that the discussion was about a bell tower in Italy and went on to something else. Germany was at the other extreme. Virtually every local newspaper covered the results on its front page.

Solution Two: Focus on School Incentives. Same Amount of Money Should Yield Better Results by Eric A.

Viewpoints: Test evaluation put teachers on the spot Eric A. Hanushek Special to The Bee Published Friday, Nov. 12, 2010 In an unexpected action last summer, the Los Angeles Times published the ratings of teacher effectiveness for 6,000 teachers by name. This is a potential game-changer. The publication created a firestorm. The unions were apoplectic. A vocal set of commentators attacked this action from a variety of viewpoints. Nonetheless, it shows signs of spreading – to New York City and elsewhere.

Now that the state Court of Appeals has once and for all settled the New York City school finance lawsuit, state and city officials must soon initiate the next necessary discussion, which should prove much more interesting — about what needs to be done to improve the city's schools. The 13-year-old Campaign for Fiscal Equity suit — perhaps the most important national case about school finance — claimed that funding of city schools was inadequate to provide a sound basic education.

June 30, 2003 -- THE state of schooling in New York City returned to the news Thursday with the highest court coming down on the side that the city's schools fail to meet constitutional requirements. The court has now turned the spotlight back on the state Legislature to "fix things." Court decisions on school-finance issues are always expected to be a mixture of constitutional arguments, public-policy views and political cross-currents.