Background/Context: In the 1973 "Rodriguez" decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not guarantee a substantive federal right to education. So far, this holding has not been adequately contextualized with many other statements the Court has made concerning the nature of education in the constitutional order. For…

Since the separate-but-equal era, students attending schools with high concentrations of Black students have attempted to improve the quality of their educations through school finance litigation. Because of the negative effects of racial isolation, Black students might consider mounting school finance litigation to force states to explicitly…

Raising academic standards and eliminating achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students are America's prime national educational goals. Current federal and state policies, however, largely ignore the fact that the childhood poverty rate in the United States is 21%, the highest in the industrialized world, and that poverty…

Discusses current trends in educational litigation as reflected by recent court decisions involving equal educational opportunity, school finance reform, and the constitutional guarantee of equal protection as it applies to public education. Much attention is focused on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Rodriquez v. San Antonio. (JG)

Discusses four philosophical approaches that might be applied by the United States Supreme Court in considering cases involving the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Emphasizes the probable impact of each approach on school finance cases such as the Rodriguez case. (JG)

The court refused to declare differences in per pupil district expenditures unconstitutional. Reformers must now look to the State courts for change in the present system of school finance. (Author/WM)

Contains the full text of the Texas case finding that the current method of funding public education in that State violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. (JF)

A series of articles by attorneys and educators on the impact of the recent Supreme Court decision on State school finance schemes. (JF)

Examines the "Levittown" case in which the Nassau County Supreme Court of New York declared the state's school financing statute invalid under both the New York and the United States constitutions. Available from New York University, 249 Sullivan Street, New York, New York 10012. (Author/IRT)

In this report, the author analyzes the recent United States Supreme Court decision, compares it with the preceding California case, Serrano vs Priest, and predicts future changes in State school finance systems as a result of this case. The author traces the Court's reasoning for finding that there was no violation of the Equal Protection Clause…

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…

Whether the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the Rodriguez v. San Antonio Independent School District (1971)'' decision or upholds it, ordering that state school finance systems not make expenditures a function of local wealth, federal aid can play an important role. (JM)

The nature of the interests in education that are protected by the Constitution may be ascertained by reference to certain due process and equal protection decisions of the Supreme Court reviewed in this paper. Although education is not a right granted by the Constitution, the Court has often recognized the importance of education, both to the…