This book presents the ideas of several authors who share the viewpoint that social values play an important role in determining financial policies in public schools. The first section reviews the historic and social context of school financing, summarizing U.S. school finance policy from 1955 to 1980 and describing the political environment of school finance policy in the 1980's. Section Two discusses attempts to create equity in public school finance from a tradition of local control to current conditions under which the state assumes an increasingly active role. The third section describes the role of efficiency in educational policy making and its relationship to concepts of equity and local freedom of choice. This section emphasizes the impact of home life on school achievement. The need for new educational policies to meet the demands of a growing number of families who have expressed dissatisfaction with public schools is discussed in Section Four. The final chapter describes the voucher system as an option for improving the responsiveness of public schools. (JEH)