The Nebraska Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the state's school funding system Friday because, it said, determining whether schools have enough money is a political question, not a legal one.

The court also said Nebraska's Constitution differs from most other states' in that it doesn't include any language describing the quality of education the state must provide. Without such language, the court said, it didn't have a standard for comparing spending.

"This court could not make that determination without deciding matters of educational policy in disregard of the policy and fiscal choices that the Legislature has already made," the court said in its ruling.

The lawsuit, which a Lancaster County judge dismissed in 2005, was filed by the Nebraska Coalition of Educational Equity and Adequacy, which represents 25 of the state's smallest school districts.

"Since it has been ruled a political question, I guess there will have to be a political answer to that," said Milford Smith, executive director of the coalition.

Smith said Nebraskans will have to decide whether schools are receiving enough money, because the court won't settle that question, and then Nebraskans will have to try to influence their state senators.

Attorney General Jon Bruning praised the court's ruling.

"The bottom line is that the elected legislators are in a better position to make these decisions than the courts," Bruning said. "I'm anxious for the day we stop spending money on lawsuits and start spending it on educating our kids."

Governor Dave Heineman said he hopes this ruling will mark the end of court disputes about school funding in Nebraska.

"It is my hope that this decision will pave the way for an end to protracted and expensive litigation on these issues, and that it will allow us to move forward in addressing the education of our children in a positive and collaborative manner," Heineman said.

The rural schools group had argued that funding has not kept up with the increasing cost of educating a growing number of students who are still learning English and are living in poverty. And some districts are relying on outdated facilities.

But the Supreme Court agreed with lawyers for the state who argued the Nebraska Constitution requires only that the state provide "free instruction" and that it does not go beyond that edict, as many other states do, by requiring "adequate or efficient" education.

The judges also said questions about school funding aren't likely to be immediately resolved and courts in other states have had trouble enforcing their school funding rulings. Those factors also make courts ill-suited to decide whether school funding is adequate.

"The landscape is littered with courts that have been bogged down in the legal quicksand of continuous litigation and challenges to their states' school funding systems," the court said. "Unlike those courts, we refuse to wade into that Stygian swamp."

Nebraska's state aid formula will distribute some $700 million to schools during the 2006-07 school year. At about 22 percent of the state budget, it is the state's largest single expenditure.

The state's complex funding formula determines the amount of state money a school gets by subtracting a district's resources, such as property taxes, from its needs.

The funding formula already takes into account factors such as property tax base, poverty, students learning English and whether the school is in an urban or rural setting, state lawyers said.