Examination of California's experience with school finance reform was part of a nine-volume, six-state study of the impact of finance reform on poor and minority students. Researchers used correlation coefficients and measures of central tendency and dispersion to analyze data on educational revenues, school district wealth, tax effort, district expenditures per pupil, ethnicity, family income, and urban location. This volume of the report presents the background to California's finance reform efforts (including the 1971 Serrano v. Priest decision), describes the disparities in California's public school finances, and analyzes the changes occurring after the 1972 reform law in fiscal neutrality, distribution of revenues among ethnic and income groups, and spending disparities among districts with different ethnic and income compositions. Among the authors' conclusions are that different ethnic groups are geographically concentrated in different ways and that the 1972 law caused (1) a mildly positive reform in school finances, (2) no significant decrease in wealth discrimination, (3) a small decrease in spending disparities, and (4) a small increase in state aid to urban districts. (RW)