With a broad coalition of parents and school districts suing the state to get more money for K-12 schools, legal experts and politicians say that despite dire predictions of financial Armageddon for Colorado, there's no easy answer to an obvious question:

What happens if the plaintiffs win?

"It's such uncharted territory," said University of Colorado law-school professor Rich ard Collins, "that it's very hard to get a handle on it. One can speculate all over the place about answers to the question."

In other states where such school-funding "adequacy" suits have prevailed, court decisions have forced greater spending on schools. But those other states don't have Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, which requires tax increases to be approved by voters.

Collins said it's unlikely courts would rule that a "thorough and uniform" system of education — meaning more