This lawsuit for more school funding just makes me scratch my head.

It claims "adequate" education funding requires somewhere between $133 million to $405 million more than the $517 million currently allocated for 2007. In the last four years, state education spending has gone up an average of about $16 million a year, and schools also have $154 million in reserve funds.

A 2004 "Report Card on American Education" lists South Dakota as seventh in academic achievement and 41st in per-student spending. By contrast, Washington D.C. spent the most at a whopping $14,542 per student to come in at 51st in achievement. This certainly proves buck doesn't necessarily equal bang.

U.S. Department of Education statistics say teachers make up only 50.6 percent of elementary and secondary education staff, or about 65 percent if you throw in guidance counselors and aides. If the product is classroom instruction, the remaining 35-49 percent seems like a high ratio of support staff, to me.

But even more troubling than missed opportunities to make better use of our tax dollars is the lawsuit's foundation. It asks the courts to establish a fundamental "right" to a "free" public education where no such right has previously existed.

It also wants the court, not your elected representatives, to define what an "adequate" education budget looks like.

Rights are usually good things, but what does a "right" look like? Typically, a "right" doesn't cost another person anything. For instance, you have a right to free speech, but you don't have a right to force taxpayers to buy you a newspaper or TV station to broadcast your speech.

You have the right to keep and bear arms, but you don't have the right to force the taxpayers to buy you a gun or pay for your shooting lessons.

And what should "adequate" education spending look like? Should it resemble the Washington, D.C., model, which is more than three times our current South Dakota spending? Remember, "free" public education isn't free. We, the taxpayers will pay for it. Is the D.C. model what we want the courts to establish? Do we trust the courts to make it less?

When it comes down to it, if some parents believe their children aren't getting a good education from the half a billion dollars we're currently spending, they can hire a tutor, put their children in a private school, homeschool the child themselves, or even elect a different legislator who more closely reflects their spending priorities.

But it's an insult to the hard-working taxpayer to say $517 million just isn't enough. And it's an insult to the voters and the legislators to give the decision to the courts.

Government entities suing other government entities for more money makes about as much sense as a husband suing his wife for more hunting or fishing money, or a wife suing her husband for more money to spend on clothes.

I'm just a taxpayer, but to me the whole thing is an expensive, silly-looking waste of time.

Bob Ellis lives and works in Rapid City. Write to bobellis@dakotavoice.com.