cure the violation properly obligated the courts to determine the extent of noncompliance and to direct a remedy. When courts undertake to resolve a controversy that others have brought before them, they appropriately resort to the tools of the judicial tradetestimony, evidence and fact-finding. The referees thus conducted seven days of evidentiary hearings on the primary question before themthe actual cost of a sound basic education for New York City schoolchildren. Based on the testimony of 15 witnesses, expert evidence, and extensive briefing{**8 NY3d at 36} and argument, they rationally determined that the actual cost of providing a sound basic education in New York City required an annual increase in operational funding of $5.63 billion, calculated in 2004-2005 dollars. The Appellate Division, too, determined that constitutional compliance required additional annual expenditures of between $4.7 billion and $5.63 billion. The majority, however, rejects the findings of the referees, and indeed the very process undertaken by the courts, and instead accepts at face value $1.93 billion as sufficient to satisfy the Education Article. [*15] The origins of that number are instructive. In response to our decision in CFE II, the Governor established the New York State Commission on Education Reformthe Zarb Commissioncharged with, among other things, "study[ing] and mak[ing] recommendations regarding . . . [t]he actual cost of providing all children the opportunity to acquire a sound basic education in the public schools of the State of New York" (Executive Order [Pataki] No. 131 [9 NYCRR 5.131]). The Commission, in turn, retained Standard & Poor's School Evaluation Services, which produced a lengthy Resource Adequacy Study offering a wide variety of possible amounts of education spending, each based on different assumptions and variables as to the desired level of educational achievement and the costs required to attain it. Inasmuch as the Commission was asked to study statewide costs, even though this Court's mandate had been limited to New York City, Standard & Poor's used each scenario to calculate both statewide amounts and their citywide equivalents. With respect to New York City, Standard & Poor's calculated resource gapsdefined as the difference between the amount actually spent in the most recently completed fiscal year and the amount that would be required to fund the particular scenarioranging from $1.93 billion to $7.28 billion in core operating expenditures.[FN3] In so doing, however, Standard & Poor's itself repeatedly made clear that it "does not recommend any spending level or the adoption of any particular achievement scenario" (Standard & Poor's School Evaluation Services, Resource Adequacy Study for the New York State Commission on Education Reform, at 23 [2004]). Relying on the Resource Adequacy Study, and specifically endorsing the "cost effectiveness" variable{**8 NY3d at 37} considered by Standard & Poor's, the Commission similarly reported a wide range to the Governorthat is, from $2.45 billion to $5.57 billion statewide, which translated to between $1.93 billion and $4.69 billion for the Cityconcluding that "[t]he State's elected leaders should make a choice of funding within this range" (New York State Commission on Education Reform, Final Report, at