Matthew Albright is The News Journal's engagement editor. Contact him at malbright@delawareonline.com or at (302) 324-2428.

Chancery Court judge Travis Laster this week issued a tour-de-force opinion on Delaware school funding. It may foreshadow the most momentous education court ruling in this state since desegregation.

Laster seems ready to force state leaders to finally heed the generations of educators and families who have begged them to fix a broken, inequitable system.

The judge is currently hearing a lawsuit that alleges Delaware is failing its constitutional responsibility to provide a "general and efficient system of free public schools." Specifically, the civil rights groups that filed the suit say high-poverty schools receive less resources than those in affluent areas — despite the well-researched reality that high-poverty schools require more help, not less.

On Tuesday, Laster swatted down state officials' attempt to dismiss the lawsuit. To be clear, that doesn't mean the plaintiffs have won yet, but it's hard to follow the judge's logic in this exhaustive 133-page opinion without thinking they soon will.

Click here to read the opinion

Laster unequivocally rejected the state's argument that the Constitution doesn't require a quality education, just a general and efficient one. He sardonically said that, under the state's interpretation, it would be constitutional to "warehouse" 50 poor kids in a room with one textbook.

Laster also steamrolled the argument that it's up to the General Assembly, not a judge, to decide what constitutes adequate and fair school funding.

"In my view, the Education Clause directs the General Assembly to carry out a task," the judge wrote. "It does not say that the General Assembly gets to judge for itself whether it has fulfilled that task."

If I was Gov. John Carney or a state lawmaker, that phrase would make me sit bolt upright.

As Laster notes, the state's own lawyers do not attempt to argue that disadvantaged students' current academic situation is acceptable. That's probably because they can't: Barely a quarter of low-income students are proficient in math, and there are gaps of roughly 30-percentage points or more between low-income students and the state average.

So if Laster thinks he can rule on whether the system is fair or not, it seems likely he would say that it isn't.

If the judge does rule the funding system is unconstitutional, prepare for fireworks in Dover. There's a reason why decades of cries for change have fallen largely on deaf ears — there is no politically easy way to make the school funding system more equitable.

The biggest reason for funding disparities is that veteran teachers are far more likely to work in affluent schools than at-risk schools, and our pay system rewards experience above all else. But teachers are likely to vociferously oppose any major change to how they are paid and assigned to schools.

It would be less controversial to just increase funding to at-risk schools. But unless you take money away from better-off students, you'd have to invest major new money — which means cutting other programs or raising taxes.

Lawmakers haven't been able to muster the political will to machete their way through these policy and political problems. That's why the broken system has endured for so long, even though few can seriously defend it.

Quietly, some state leaders are rooting for Laster to rule against the state because that would give them political cover to do what they already know is right. Whoever their solution ends up angering, they can say, "Don't blame me, blame the judge!"

The recent elections brought major change to the face of the General Assembly. Democrats have stronger majorities in both chambers — and there are plenty of new lawmakers who want to use that new strength to pursue a more ambitious agenda.

Want to address income inequality? Want to build a fairer, more prosperous economy? I'm convinced that fixing our school funding system would make a bigger positive difference than almost any other change. It would make a bigger difference

We'll see if our leaders are ready to get it done — at long last.