In this lawsuit, plaintiffs assert that the Education Article establishes a particular quality standard, and that New York City's public schools do not offer students the opportunity for an education that meets this quality standard. Plaintiffs then argue that the reason for this failure is necessarily inadequate State funding, even though the New York City public school system receives substantial school aid and has benefitted from huge increases in school aid over the life of this litigation. Plaintiffs' proof of a causal link amounts to nothing more than an article of faith: the New York City public school system is not what we would like it to be or what it needs to be, and more money is always better; therefore, the system's shortcomings are attributable to inadequate funding, for which the State is always entirely responsible because of the obligation placed upon it by the Education Article. As the Appellate Division recognized, this is not proof of a causal connection, it is a recipe for "limitless litigation" (295 2 1, 9 [2002]). Moreover, I would not expect this "limitless litigation" to be confined to litigants concerned about New York City's public schools. The success of plaintiffs' theory here will no doubt inspire a host of future litigants representing other communities and school districts throughout the State.[37] In fact, of course, educational deficiencies are not always attributable to the lack of money or necessarily cured by the infusion of more funds.[38] A wide variety of non-financial factors (not to mention socio-economic factors) may contribute to academic failure, including mismanagement, excessive administration, misassigned teachers, misplaced spending priorities, outright corruption, and an improper emphasis on some programs. For example, the majority points to excessive class size as a measurably deficient "input." Certainly, the Board of Education might hire more teachers if increased funds were made available for this purpose. Class size, however, is also a function of how the Board deploys its teachers. Before their recently negotiated collective bargaining agreement, the City's teachers had a shorter contractual teaching day than was the case in any other school district in the State or in other large urban districts across the nation. New York City has one teacher for every 14.1 students, placing it in the top 10 percent of large districts across the nation. By comparison, Los Angeles, the second largest school system in the nation, has one teacher for every 20.8 students. Further, the Board of Education employs thousands of teachers who are not assigned classroom teaching duties.[39] Thus, although the City employs roughly the same number of teachers