Or does the NYC school system deserve the amount of money that a judge feels is necessary to provide one? It's obviously an important distinction, one not lost on Queens PTA mom Dianne Payne, who is profiled at length today in the N.Y. Sun. In case anyone needed more clues that the Campaign For Fiscal Equity case is more about feeding the beast of a system that is the NYC Department of Education than it is about helping each of the city's 1.1 million students, Justice DeGrasse has never been more clear than his decision last week to deny an immediate "sound basic education" remedy for two of Payne's children.

In a city where so many people are afraid to shift the focus back to kids because of the obvious political pressure from the usual suspects, Payne is showing an unusual amount of guts in fighting for her kids.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Despite the "obvious grandstanding" that the city's Department of Education has engaged in over the "impressive results" of its massive effort to create smaller, more intimate high schools, the Mayor's Management Report released yesterday showed the 4-year high school graduation rate has DECLINED to 53.2% from 54.3% the previous year. At least DeGrasse didn't tell Payne that she should be happy that her kids have at least a 52% chance of graduating. Although that really is the problem isn't it: politicians like DeGrasse know the system is a disaster for kids, they just don't have the gonads to do anything about it that will upset the political machinery and the hand that feeds (and strokes) it.