ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the discussion of the issues by noting how inequality in public school spending has run counter to the trend of greater economic inequality in the United States. It shows that equity in spending has not occurred through an increased financial commitment to education, but rather through a change in its distribution. The chapter suggests that the benefits of redistribution have in many cases been diminished by a leveling down of spending. It argues that a fundamental cause of this result is that advocates of school finance equity and adequacy who succeed in forcing reform through the courts are much less able to influence the tax and spending policies that largely remain the prerogative of popularly elected legislatures. Finance reform has opened school finance to pressures from a variety of interest groups that have succeeded in at least partially undoing the reduction of inequality.
