A year ago, Leland DeGrasse, a justice of the New York State Supreme Court, issued a decree to save New York City's floundering schools. The state, Mr DeGrasse ordered, must give the city an extra $5.6 billion to run its schools, plus $9.2 billion for construction. Only if this were done, he said, would city students receive a "sound basic education". His order was delivered with legal and moral authority. But New York's leaders are now fighting over school spending ahead of an April 1st budget deadline, the court order largely eclipsed by politics as usual.
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