The decision of Judge Leland DeGrasse of New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan to appoint three special referees to examine proposals for fixing the school-funding deadlock is a victory for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity and a defeat for the taxpayers. The referees, described by CFE attorneys as “wise men of the New York bar,” have 120 days to complete their work. The referees, or special masters, will have all the powers of a judge and will even have the authority to dictate specifics such as class size, teacher training, and personnel.

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a coalition of community organizations and activist groups, claims to act in the interest of New York’s schoolchildren. What it’s really after is more money for the school bureaucracies. The group has proposed a $10 billion increase over the next five years, more than double the budget proposed by the governor. Though lawmakers are often eager to throw more money at the problem, increases in education funding have consistently failed to yield the desired improvement.

Consider the example of Kansas City, Mo. In 1985,a federal district judge, Russell Clark, took control of a lagging school district in the city. He ordered that $2 billion be spent to desegregate the schools, improve facilities, and boost sagging test scores. To finance this, Judge Clark increased state aid to the district, doubled property taxes within Kansas City, and imposed a surcharge on the income taxes of commuters. Yet by the end of Judge Clark’s 12-year reform effort, student performance had not improved and racial segregation had grown. The billions produced some noticeable changes. The district hired more teachers, raised their salaries, and built lavish new facilities, including a zoo and a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary.

When judges embark on these ventures, what all to often happens is that the courts boost the funding but the money is wasted. No doubt this is why the founders of America allocated the “power of the purse” to an accountable legislature. As one of Missouri’s senators — John Ashcroft — remarked in respect of Kansas City in 1997, the “planetariums, pools, and pay increases stand only as a testament to tyranny, an appalling judicial activism that is contrary to all that the Framers hold dear.”

This is the danger facing New York. An attorney for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Joe Wayland, described the proceedings as “a day of shame for the legislative process.” The appointment of the special masters came after the Legislature missed a July 30 deadline for improving New York City’s public schools. The Court of Appeals, which imposed the deadline, had determined that the schools failed in their constitutional obligation to provide a sound, basic education.

New York’s Legislature, which today meets a record for the latest state budget in history, is nothing if not sluggish. But late budgets are common in school districts across the country. What’s more dangerous is a judicial system trying to implement a political agenda. “Courts are trying to find some way to assume legislative roles,” Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow in education policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, told us.

None of the special masters came from Mr. Pataki’s list of recommendations. The judge has the discretion to nominate any special masters he believes possess adequate expertise. However, questions of what constitutes “expertise” hinge on political judgments about the right direction for education policy. That’s a matter the judicial system is singularly unequipped to tackle.

For the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the right direction means more money. The group is committed to getting as much funding as possible. Whether New York will actually improve education by funneling more money into a budget that already spends more on each pupil than almost any state remains an open question. It’s one best left to open debate in a Legislature that’s accountable to the taxpayers who get stuck with the bill. Unfortunately for New York, lawmakers in Albany have become so crippled by their own gridlock, they’ve rendered themselves superfluous.

But if Judge DeGrasse perceives the Legislature’s failure as a mandate for him or his special masters to impose whatever education policy they prefer, he’s courting an enormous backlash. The judge may have long ago decided that New York’s schools needed more money. And if the Court of Appeals had not constrained his original decision in the case, the judge would have taken it upon himself to rewrite the school funding formula for the entire state. The governor’s lawyers, however, argued in a letter to the court that Judge DeGrasse is obliged to respect what the Legislature has decided so far, determining where it falls short of the constitutional requirements identified by the Court of Appeals and ordering the state to correct specific deficiencies.

Judge DeGrasse shows no signs of respecting the governor’s wishes in this matter, though, which suggests that he is not prepared to defer to the doctrine of the separation of powers. In the long run, it’s a recipe for disaster in the state.