Is there an "adequacy" lawsuit in your state's future?

Two articles in Education Next tell why those lawsuits are problematic for education, finance, and democratic governance itself.

In "Courtroom Alchemy," James W. Guthrie and Matthew G. Springer argue that expert opinions on the "true" cost of education are no substitute for political judgment. "In the politically polarized domain of school-finance litigation, the professional judgment approach has evolved into a den of foxes guarding the henhouse." Meanwhile, a second approach is no better. "In their current state, cost function analyses are simply inadequate for guiding changes in state education-finance policy."

In a companion piece, Josh Dunn and Martha Derthick warn that No Child Left Behind may lead to a nationalization of education policy, and vastly increase the leverage of of the education lobby.

"The standards-and-accountability movement--which spread nationwide through the 1990s and reached a climax with passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002--has provided a political stepstool to adequacy suits."

"The successes of the adequacy movement in state courts thus are to be seen as stepping stones to the broader arena of national legislation and litigation. If the adequacy-cum-equity advocates succeed--wedding centralization and judicialization in a regime of a federally guaranteed right to education and federally prescribed school spending--transformation of the traditionally local and democratic governance of schools in the United States, already far advanced, will be complete."