Understanding the Equity Consequences of School-Finance Reform

Abstract

In this essay, Lee S. Friedman and Michael Wiseman discuss the economic, legal,and logical implications of school-financing methods now practiced in several states, including Illinois, New York, and California. Examining the Serrano case in California, the authors contend that an important inconsistency in the court requirements resulted from the apparent failure of both the courts and the legislatures to specify the logical relationships between several competing concepts of equality. To this end, Friedman and Wiseman provide a logical analysis of several concepts needed to measure the fair distribution of school revenues and resources. Using Illinois as a case study, they then construct empirical tests for each of those concepts both before and after the Hoffman-Fawell reform in school financing. Those data, finally, are used to suggest an analytic framework that can be employed for evaluating and perhaps predicting the impact of school-finance reforms on a wide range of state systems.