State school finance litigation is a tedious – often annoying –politically charged process.  Often, school finance litigation involves extensive debate over tedious statistical and other details underlying estimates of how much is should cost for states to meet their constitutional obligations. Too often, it seems, these debates over tedious statistical details serve to distract the conversation from broader principles of plainly logical fair treatment for kids.

In these cases, states continue to vigorously defend their right to fund – or not – schools as they see fit… when they see fit…. whether or not they see fit.  A relatively consistent pool of experts continue to advise states on strategies for their defense. These strategies have evolved somewhat over time.  For many years, the central “expert” strategy was simply to argue that there’s no proof that adding more money would matter anyway because there is no systematic relationship between funding and…