School funding court findings

Just before Christmas, the Washington Supreme Court found that the state legislature isn't working hard enough to fulfill their responsibilities on school funding:

In January, the Supreme Court ruled the state isn’t meeting its constitutional obligation to amply pay for basic education. In the past decade, education spending has gone from close to 50 percent to just above 40 percent of the state budget, despite the fact that some education spending is protected by the constitution.State lawmakers have in recent years been dealing with large budget deficits, and earlier this year they cut $300 million in state funding.The Supreme Court has given the Legislature until 2018 to fix the problem, but it wants to see yearly reports that “demonstrate steady progress.”

It will be interesting to see if the Legislature makes any progress for this coming fiscal year.

Likewise, today's New York Times pointed out, in an article laying out education recommendations going to Governor Cuomo, that New York is likewise not funding education as required:

Several observers said that the commission’s ideas came at a time when the state owed roughly $5 billion in aid to poor school districts, under a 2007 agreement that followed a lawsuit and a Court of Appeals ruling.

So...watching FY14...