The courts have bought into claims that New York, the biggest education-spending state in the union, doesn’t spend enough on schools, at least in New York City. They might rethink their demands if they read the Manhattan Institute’s latest study, which finds that New York schools are spending the money they already have wastefully.

For a long time it’s been obvious to anyone who cares to know that throwing more money at schools accomplishes next to nothing. School spending for each pupil has actually doubled in America over the last 30 years, adjusting for inflation, while test scores and graduation rates are flat. Structural reform, not more money, is what schools really need.

But New York is actually worse than most states when it comes to wasting education money. Our study, the first of its kind, measures the educational results states get relative to their student demographics and the amount of money they spend on education.

We wanted to draw fair comparisons, so we began by measuring 16 demographic characteristics that researchers agree affect students’ ability to learn. New York students, not surprisingly, suffer from more poverty, crime, language barriers, and other problems that hinder learning than the national average. Overall, the disadvantages we measured were 7.9% worse in New York than the average for all states.

Then we calculated the academic outcome we would statistically expect to see in each state given the characteristics of its student population and its spending level. We measured this statistical prediction against the actual academic achievements of its students.

New York didn’t do very well. Its students perform at only 74% of the level we would expect given their demographics and the state’s colossal spending. That leaves New York down at a dismal 48th in the nation for education efficiency.

The problem isn’t academic performance as such. If we don’t take spending into account and just look at academic outcomes, New York schools do fine. Their raw test scores are 25th in the nation even though their student population is somewhat worse off than the national average.

No, the problem is that New York spends a ton to get these results. The state spends $12,375 per student, more than any other state, and the city spends $11,122, the fifth highest out of the nation’s 100 biggest school districts. To justify that river of money, New York schools would have to perform exceptionally well.

By comparison, Colorado has a similarly disadvantaged student population, with problems 6.7% worse than the national average. But its students perform at a substantially higher level than New York’s, with raw test scores 12th in the nation, even though it spends only $7,542 for each student. We find that Colorado’s students perform at 120% of the level we would expect given their student population and spending. Colorado’s schools are doing something right that New York’s aren’t.

It’s true that New York’s higher cost of living plays a role here. But even after we adjust the spending numbers for the local cost of living, New York still comes out in the red. With that adjustment, New York students perform at only 93% of expectations. That’s still 37th in the nation, a poor performance that ought to make the judges sit up and take notice.

Our study also suggests how New York could get better schools for about the same amount that’s being spent now. We find that states with more school choice or stronger accountability testing have significantly better performing schools when we adjust for student characteristics. So the plan to open new charter schools in New York City should help boost the performance of the city’s regular public schools by providing healthy competitive incentives.

New York schools already have enough money to educate students successfully. In fact, they’re doing a fairly good job given the higher disadvantages their students face. But with the enormous amount of money lavished on them every year they should be doing a lot better. The taxpayers of New York shouldn’t be forced to throw even more money at a system that isn’t making good use of what it already has.