The new Governor of New York faces a significant challenge stemming from a major ruling by the Court of Appeals, the State’s highest court. The Court found that the more than one million children in New York City’s public schools were not provided with the sound basic education guaranteed to them by the State Constitution.

It has been more than three years since the ruling and yet the plaintiffs and the State’s political leaders have not agreed on a suitable remedy for students in New York City, and by extension for hundreds of thousands of additional students in other school districts around the state who also have been denied their constitutional right. Facing their failure to appropriately shape a responsive policy that will affect so many lives and drive many billions of dollars, it is the duty of the Governor and the Legislature to finally enact and implement much-needed reforms.