Discusses the California Supreme Court decision in Serrano v. Priest relating to the financing of local school systems through general property tax. (RJ)

Argues that local school districts in California have been rendered essentially obsolete by state funding and control due to the combined effects of the "Serrano" decision (requiring statewide school expenditure equalization) and Proposition 13. One board president and two superintendents take issue with this judgment. (TE)

This paper is part of a collection of 54 papers from the 48th annual conference of the Education Law Association held in November 2002. It addresses education finance litigation generated by "Serrano v. Priest." (Considered a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of California, "Serrano" resulted in victory for funding-equity…

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…

In response to the funding crisis generated in part by the "Serrano vs. Priest" decision and by Proposition 13, parents and volunteers in over 100 California school districts have formed tax-exempt nonprofit corporations to improve the quality of education by raising supplementary funds, usually through donations from parents of children…