The school districts argued that whether these schools actually meet the Minimum Standards does not appear to matter. Either the superintendents and principals in the districts are stretching their interpretations of the standards, or the standards are so indefinite as to have no real meaning. In either case, it is evident that the Minimum Standards are not a reliable means of guaranteeing adequacy.

The Superior Court concluded its analysis of Count I by stating that the school districts failed to meet their burden of proving that constitutional inadequacies exist and that those inadequacies are a result of the state's excessive reliance on local property tax revenues.

Given the ambiguous standards of the state's definition of educational adequacy, it is hard to imagine any condition in the school districts that would be considered constitutionally inadequate. Even if a condition were considered inadequate, given the system of shared responsibility, it would never be attributed to the state because the state has benevolently established a system that makes it possible for the school districts to have the resources, raised by local property taxes, to correct any constitutional inadequacies.

There is another category of evidence that the Superior Court could have used in its 180-page Decision that is worth mentioning. That is the category of testimony from former state commissioners of education.

Repudiating the state's defense of the system, the school districts presented the testimony of former state Commissioners of Education Dr. Jack MacDonald, Charles Marston and Deputy Commissioner of Education Doug Brown. All three former commissioners concluded in their testimony that the state was not providing every educable child with an adequate education and adequate funding.

The state did not put the current state commissioner of education on the witness stand.

In Count II, the petitioner school districts challenged both the manner in which the state funds education and the amount of funding supplied by the state. Under the current system, the manner of funding places the primary responsibility to fund education upon school districts with vastly different fiscal capacities.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court stated in its 12/93 Claremont decision,

" We do not construe the terms Ôshall be the duty ... to cherish' in our constitution as merely a statement of aspiration. The language commands, in no uncertain terms, that the state provide an education to all its citizens and that it support all public schools."