A study of the history of public financing of elementary and secondary education in Ontario and the issues and choices presently facing the province's finance system suggest that proposals for radical change must be considered. Current pressures on the mixed provincial-local system of finance come from the slow rate of economic expansion generally evident and the new public awareness of the tax cost of government and are intensified by the problems of declining enrollment and public dissatisfaction with education as a panacea. Either increasing provincial grants and property tax levies or seeking new sources of local revenue appears to be infeasible given the present economic situation. The provincial take-over of education, on the other hand, offers a logical extension of the trend in Ontario's educational policy since the war and would separate the issues of property taxes and education. A more radical proposal that deserves study is experimentation with educational vouchers, which would permit individual parents a direct voice in the educational system. (Author/WD)