Reviewing literature on educational finance and law, this paper analyzes the rationale for the recent school finance reform movement and recounts the movement's progress from 1965 to 1979. An overview of the problem discusses state equalization programs' ability to provide financial equity and the relationship of financial equity to equal opportunity. Discussion of the reform movement's first phase (from 1965 to 1973) covers federal standards on students' needs and fiscal neutrality, standards for judicial review in equal protection cases, the relationship of judicial review to fiscal neutrality, and miscellaneous circumstances contributing to successful reform. The second phase identified (from 1973 to 1979) includes several major state court decisions; changing standards of equity; reform legislation, briefly summarized; and school finance reform in California, particularly the state's responses to 1972 and 1976 decisions in "Serrano vs. Priest" and to the passage of Proposition 13. References are included. (MCG)