Equity and Adequacy of Funding Schools

Equity in funding education in America has become one of if not the most critical issue over the past decade. Litigation based on state constitutionality of funding systems for education is prevalent in state and federal courts across the nation. Both sides, property poor and rich public school districts, have banned together, forming coalitions to challenge the legality and constitutional appropriateness of state educational funding formulas and methods of financial resource distribution. In federal courts, litigation has been filed based on the Fourteenth Amendment, equal protection under the law clause, resulting in little effect on fairness in funding education.

Over the past three decades, public school finance court decisions have been predominantly in favor of the property poor plaintiffs. The initiative to reform school finance in many states has fallen victim to political pressures, legislative manipulation and lobby interest. As a result, two camps of judicial theory emerged in the 1990s: (1) those courts that ruled their states' school finance systems invalid and called for a quality education and (2) those courts that upheld their states' school finance systems, thus validating the provision of a minimal, basic education to their citizens. Case law once based on the issues of educational “equity,” “equality,” and/or “efficiency” has recently turned toward a more accountable standard known as “adequacy” of funding for education. After three distinct waves of challenges and litigation on the issues, the attempt to equalize funding has resulted in minimal impact on schools in states that continue to rely on real property as a major source of tax base.

Beginning with Texas in 1989, state courts have been influential in establishing a new wave of decisions based on standards of inputs and outputs. Groundbreaking decisions in Kentucky, Montana, Ohio, and New Jersey have opened the door for a higher standard focusing on quality of education. This wave of decisions initiated and shaped advancements in constitutionally required standards for quality of education. In addition, court-established standards of measurement for inputs and outcomes resulted from these cases. As a final point, adequacy over and above equity emerged as the expected measurement of excellence in school finance reform and the benchmark test for the courts.