The high court on Monday ordered the case back to a lower court to decide if the public school finance law is constitutional.

A coalition of 14 mostly rural school districts and 47 parents challenged a ruling by the Colorado Court of Appeals earlier this year that the state Legislature gets to decide if funding for public schools is "thorough and uniform" as required by the state constitution.

The parents and school districts claim that the system is severely underfunded and allocates funds on an arbitrary and irrational basis.

The Supreme Court didn't rule on the merits of the law itself. That will be up to the state district court in Denver, where the law was passed.