Is the U.S. Supreme Court inviting litigants to take aim at unraveling injunctions in institutional reform litigation--especially consent decrees in the schools? In "Horne v. Flores" (2009), the court remanded a 17-year-old school reform case to a federal judge with orders to look beyond consent decrees on financing, reducing class…

The possibility is examined that school choice programs could be a means to reducing the achievement gap. Data based on meta-analytic research and the examination of nationwide data sets suggest that school choice programs that include private schools could reduce the achievement gap by 25%. The propounding of this possibility is based on research…

This article examines the failure of school districts to distribute nonmoney resources--controlled primarily by the board of education--equally among students in affluent neighborhoods versus low-income areas. It is largely an urban phenomenon, although some county-wide and large suburban school systems display similar patterns. Such practices…

This article reviews educational initiatives of state and federal government that were designed to remedy the effects of racial segregation on Black public school students in the United States after the famous "Brown v. Board of Education" decisions. Several policy and legal initiatives are reviewed, including school desegregation,…

Funding streams among impoverished school districts are influenced by interpretations of the constitution regarding educational legislation. Title I, in the current framework of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), has challenges that will affect urban policymakers' ability to serve the increasing Hispanic population entering the public school system.…

Although analyses of state school finance systems rarely focus on the distribution of funds to students of different races, the advent of racial discrimination as an issue in school finance court cases may change that situation. In this article, we describe the background, analyses, and results of plaintiffs' testimony regarding racial…

This article examines support for school bonds among minority group members in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which includes the city of Charlotte. A survey was conducted shortly after a bitter court case and shortly before a proposed bond referendum. Support for bonds in the minority community was fairly moderate. Support was not related to…

Centralization, coordinated bargaining, and multi-unit representation are not the inevitable consequences of changes in school finance. Rather, bargaining structure continues to be a result of a complex interaction that includes many factors. (Author)

Examines educational changes--and theoretical and technical advances--making possible the collection of usable and appropriate information on school-site and classroom-level spending, and the legal precedents for using school spending in determining equity and thus the legality of public education funding structures. Final comments address the…

This article proposes that four major educational developments resulted from the Supreme Court's decision in "Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka": Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I and Title VII, school finance, affirmative action, and multicultural education. Each of these major efforts was targeted to overcome discriminatory…

School finance drives policy and practice in public education, yet most citizens and some practitioners know very little about how their schools are funded. The purpose of this article is to address the financial issues related to urban schools and the challenge of balancing expectations of higher levels of education with the values of equity,…