Now that the state Court of Appeals has once and for all settled the New York City school finance lawsuit, state and city officials must soon initiate the next necessary discussion, which should prove much more interesting — about what needs to be done to improve the city's schools...

He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign - an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library...

If Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer and the State Legislature hold to the spending floor set by the state’s highest court this week and allocate $2 billion a year in additional education aid for New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein will have to slash their long and expensive wish list for the city’s public schools...

The death last week of Milton Friedman, "the grandmaster of free-market economic theory," as The New York Times accurately labeled him, ended a great life...