For decades, the “new math”–as it’s been variously interpreted–has been debated in the press, at School Board meetings, and over parent and teacher coffee klatches. Now the argument has moved to the courtroom.

In an administrative hearing on Tuesday, opponents of Seattle Public Schools’ math curriculum, led by UW atmospheric science professor Cliff Mass, asked King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector to throw out the district’s high-school math curriculum. The judge said she would decide by Feb. 12.

Even the plaintiffs’ lawyer admits his case is a long shot. “No judge wants to second-guess the School Board,” says Keith Scully.

Mass says he and fellow plaintiffs decided to pursue the matter in court out of “desperation. We did everything else we could,” he says, including testifying at School Board hearings and trying to get on curriculum committees.

The district picked the “Discovering Mathematics Series,” from a California company, in May. The “Discovering” textbooks, like others the district uses in elementary and middle schools, downplay traditional math formulas in favor of student “investigations” that explore different ways of solving a problem. A state Board of Education study criticized that approach, saying it fails to teach that one method might be better than another.

Mass says students aren’t learning with the current approach, as evidenced by the abysmal math skills of his own UW students.

The plaintiffs’ case rests on two arguments. One is that the district’s pick of the “Discovering” series was “arbitrary and capricious.” The law sets that as the bar for court intervention in school affairs. To meet it, Scully says, the judge must determine that “no reasonable person could have made the same decision.”

Plaintiffs are also arguing that the curriculum violates the state constitution’s guarantee of equal education. They cite the dismal achievement gap in math between white students and students of color.

Scully says he’ll rely on records rather than the testimony of witnesses. “The advantage to us is that there’s not a lot in the record supporting the pick of this series,” he says. District spokesperson Patti Spencer-Watkins declined to comment on the case.