State funding lawsuits could hit NCLB next.

Adequacy funding lawsuits have been around for years. But No Child Left Behind's demands appear to be driving more of them.

"In the last couple of years, there has been an increase in litigation, and it will continue," says Steve Smith, education analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "I think it's a trend and, with the two-year adequate yearly progress results under [NCLB], if schools don't meet AYP after two years in a row, they will require technical assistance."

Of the 25 states in school finance litigation now, "they all at least indirectly deal with No Child Left Behind. They're saying the system is inadequate" to meet the law's demands, Smith says.

Adequacy lawsuits, which mainly come from poor and disadvantaged districts, were first brought to federal courts in the late 1960s on grounds of inadequate funding. Lawsuits then shifted to fight for equity, or the amount of money spent on one group of students compared to another.

Following the 1983 release of A Nation at Risk, which lambasted American education, the nation's schools embraced standards-based reform, Smith says. Now, the plaintiffs, or districts, have a 70 percent success rate, with more states losing lawsuits.

Smith foresees more subgroups, such as special education students, suing. "The state has to remedy the situation and that often requires an increase in funding and an overhaul of education, such as in curriculum or teachers' salaries ... What we're finding, is that simply increasing funding will not improve student performance. The devil lies in the details: how states target resources."

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity agrees. Molly Hunter, director of legal research at CFE, says putting money into qualified teachers, preschool programs, early literacy programs and small class sizes in early grades have shown to make "a tremendous difference."

Students in small class sizes in the early grades have been shown to achieve more through high school with lower drop-out rates, according to studies in Kentucky, Vermont and New Jersey.