have, at best, small and uncertain effects on student achievement. Defendants' expert Dr. Hanushek is one of the leading exponents of this school. 34 There is, of course, a significant body of research that purports to demonstrate that resources do matter. 35 It is not the court's job to resolve this longrunning academic debate but rather to decide the issue as it pertains to New York City public schools based on the evidence introduced at trial. Accordingly, the first order of business in examining causation is to evaluate the parties' evidence regarding whether resources affect student outcomes. A causation analysis is also complicated by the fact that public school funding in New York State—in common with most States—is a joint undertaking of the State, local, and, to a lesser extent, Federal Governments. Currently New York State school districts receive 56% of their funding to support educational programs from local revenues, 40% from the State, and 4% from other sources, including the Federal Government. The relative mix of State, local and Federal revenue has fluctuated over time and among districts. For example, State revenue over the last decade has ranged from 38% to 43% of total education spending. The percentage of Federal spending has consistently been in the low single digits. Defendants argue that the State's funding mechanism provides more than enough resources to assure New York City public school students the opportunity for a sound basic education, and that any failure to provide such an education is due to BOE's alleged mismanagement of the resources available to it. Additionally defendants argue that any funding shortfall that exists must be blamed on the inadequate financial contribution of New York City to its own public schools. The court discusses these contentions in the following sections. A . T h e A n a l y s e s o f D e f e n d a n t s ' E x p e r t s t h at P u r p o r t t o S h ow t h at R e s o u r c e s D o N o t A ffe c t S t u d e n t Outcomes Defendants presented two expert witnesses who testified concerning analyses they performed to determine whether [187 [187 Misc.2d Misc.2d 70] 70] educational resources could boost student achievement. Some of the analyses of one of these experts, Dr. Hanushek, are discussed above in section IV (F). Defendants' other expert in this area was Professor David Armor, a sociology professor at George Mason University. According to defendants these experts' analyses demonstrate "the lack of any systematic relationship between spending and achievement, both in New York City and the State." 36 Before discussing these experts' analyses, the court notes that the State's own Education Department, and the Board of Regents, have long taken an opposing view. Both SED and the Regents have long pressed for more resources for New York City's public schools, and both have unequivocally stated that all students can learn with sufficient resources. While SED and the Regents have acknowledged that socioeconomic disadvantages create a high probability of lower academic performance, they have taken the position that such disadvantages may be overcome by sufficient, targeted resources. 1 . D r . A r m o r ' s Te s t i m o n y Dr. Armor offered his regression analyses as proof that socioeconomic background is such a crucial factor in student success that student performance is essentially unaffected by school funding. Dr. Armor first compared the City's scores on the State PEP tests with the rest of the State's. He attempted to adjust test scores for the 1997-1998 school years according to students' socioeconomic status. Dr. Armor used individual student data regarding whether a student received free lunch and was classified as LEP. He also incorporated 1990 census data that concerned individual school districts as a whole, including the average household income in a district, the percentage of adults with baccalaureate degrees in a district, and a composite variable designed to capture the number of at-risk families in a district. For the State PEP test scores for general education students in math and reading, Dr. Armor performed a regression that predicts the scores of general education students based on their socioeconomic status. He then used this analysis to "level the [187 [187 Misc.2d Misc.2d 71] 71] playing field" between New York City, with its high percentage of at-risk students, and the rest of the State, with its significantly lower percentage of such students. Once he removed the effect of the socioeconomic factors on student test scores, Dr. Armor found that there was almost no difference between City and State general education students on the sixth and third grade PEP reading and math tests. Dr. Armor also looked at City general education public school students' scores on State and City tests in the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 school years to determine if they bore any relation to five school resource measures: (1) teacher experience, as defined by five or more years on the job, (2) teacher education as defined by the percentage of teachers with a Master's degree or better, (3) teacher certification, (4) pupil-teacher ratio, and (5) per pupil spending. He analyzed single-year performance of four cohorts of students: (1) fifth grade students in the 1996-1997 school year, (2) sixth grade students who in 1997-1998 attended schools that went from kindergarten to sixth grade, (3) eighth graders in 1997-1998, and (4) sixth graders in 1997-1998 who had attended schools that went from kindergarten to fifth grade. He again adjusted student test scores by their socioeconomic status in an attempt to level the playing field for a comparison of student test scores. He concluded that there was little or no statistically significant causal relation between student test scores and the five school resource measures. Finally, Dr. Armor conducted a series of regressions in which he found that there were no statistically significant correlations between per pupil spending and the levels of teacher certification, teacher education or teacher experience in New York City's public schools. According to Dr. Armor each of these measures of teacher quality relied upon by plaintiffs do not increase when funding increases. Dr. Armor's analyses are not persuasive. First, all of Dr. Armor's studies are flawed by their reliance on analyses of single years of data. As noted above, education is a cumulative enterprise, and student outcomes are dependent not just on the resources that they receive in a single school year, but on the resources that they receive over years of schooling. Dr. Armor's analyses are not probative because they rest on the premise that students' test results in a single year can be compared to the resources available to the student in that single year to gauge the effectiveness of resources. The court also finds that all of Dr. Armor's results are skewed by his decision to "level the playing field" by adjusting test