the California Supreme Court ruled in Serrano v. Priest (now known as Serrano I) that the California system of school finance based on the use of local property taxation violated the state and federal constitutional provisions for equal opportunity before the law for the children of California. The problem for the court was the fact that children living in property-rich school districts had access to greater resources for education than children living in property-poor school districts. A similarly argued case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, but in a 5 to 4 decision the Court rejected the equal opportunity arguments underlying the attack on local property tax financing as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Rodriguez decision returned school financing policies to the states. In a second Serrano v. Priest decision in 1976 (Serrano II), the California Supreme Court reaffirmed its Serrano I ruling, this time based solely upon the equal opportunity clause of the state constitution. To date 30 states have faced a state constitutional challenge to their use of local property taxation as the basis for funding public education. This symposium assesses the impact of these Serrano-inspired challenges for the financing of public education in the United States, seeks to understand why the reforms have, or have not been successful, and suggests likely directions for the future of school financing policy.
Has the court-led school finance reform movement had a significant impact on the financing of public education in the United States? While 30 states have