The Court of Appeals on Tuesday largely dismissed a blanket claim by an education advocacy group that Albany has been shortchanging schools statewide, but said claims could be brought by individual districts.

The majority of the court dismissed most claims brought against the state by New Yorkers for Students' Education Rights, or NYSER, an advocacy group backed by parents of schoolchildren, the state's Parent Teachers Association, and several school districts. But the judges permitted claims against Syracuse and New York City to proceed.

The lawsuit argued that the state hasn't fulfilled the requirements of a 2006 landmark case, in which the Court of Appeals ruled that the state was underfunding New York City schools and not meeting its constitutional mandate to provide a “sound, basic education” (NYLJ Sept. 9, 2016). The NYSER complaint alleged state inadequacies in funding using several districts statewide as an example.