I would like to thank Gaston Alonso for his kind review and his perceptive criticisms. We share many concerns about the state of urban education. Our differences center largely on what to do in response to the systemic failure of many urban school systems. Even here, though, I suspect that our differences are not as substantial as they first appear. While Alonso and his coauthors call for an infusion of resources into urban schools, I remain skeptical both that underfunding really is the source of their problems and that more money would be used effectively absent more fundamental reforms. But when an urban school district truly lacks sufficient resources to provide a safe and humane learning environment, then certainly more funding is called for. I would prefer that such funding be contingent on implementing additional reforms that ensure that the resources make their way to students, rather than being diverted or absorbed along the way.

Alonso is quite correct to point out the limited evidence for potential reforms to Kansas City. However, the small window for urban educational reform only opened recently and has been opposed by powerful entrenched interests intent on frustrating disruptive interventions. Thus, we are still in the early stages of studying the effectiveness of various remedies. In addition, the historically less-than-confidence-inspiring quality of education research, which Missouri v. Jenkins itself illustrates, should make one cautious about the efficacy of different reforms. It seemed wise to limit my discussion of what might improve the district because of both the paucity of research and my doubts that any single reform will provide a comprehensive solution. My suggestions, instead, emerged from the institutional problems afflicting the school district that the case exposed.

Our policy differences, it seems, stem at least in part from our slightly different methodological emphases. While I focused to a greater extent on institutional analysis, Alonso and his coauthors concentrated on the lived experiences of students and accorded great weight to those students' diagnoses of their schools' shortcomings. There is great value in this kind of close ethnographic study, which can highlight and magnify problems that are blurred or missed when viewed from a more remote distance. But there are also limitations in what such a study can tell us about solutions in response to those problems. I fear that viewing education primarily through the eyes of students and their preferences could actually mask either effective or ineffective instruction. Students might dislike demanding teachers precisely because they are demanding. Even when students know when they are victims of educational malfeasance, as Alonso and his coauthors show they often do, there is no guarantee that they know what can be done to correct it. In Kansas City, the local African-American community was often a font of wisdom and good sense, particularly compared to the experts myopically dispatched by the court to fix the city's schools. However, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the court's remedial plan, the local community was not always in agreement on what should be done. Such circumstances require scholars to exercise some judgment about the various alternatives.

Finally, and perhaps at the core of our differences, I believe that understanding the performance of schools requires a greater focus on educational systems as institutions and particularly how they shape incentives, generate power, and resist change. Missouri v. Jenkins illustrates the necessity of this institutional approach to the study of education. Explaining the failure of the court's intervention required an analysis not only of the strengths and, more significantly, weaknesses of the judiciary as a policymaking institution but also of urban education. The district court, despite wielding unprecedented power, unsuccessfully confronted a more powerful, or at least obstinate, institution. While my primary goal was to identify and explore a particular problem with judicial policymaking, the manifest inability of the court to improve the school system beyond building nice facilities was the most telling part of what happened in the case. Thus, Missouri v. Jenkins, through its failure, might teach us as much about urban education, and the difficult road ahead for those seeking to improve it, as it does about the judiciary.