School Finance Reform Litigation: A Review and Analysis of High Court Cases

School finance litigation has been intended to serve many purposes over the past forty years, including seeking equity and adequacy in school funding. Historically, school finance litigation has been categorized using the three waves categorization which focuses on legal standards used and outcome trends. This project re-categorizes school finance litigation using two sets of criteria, legal standard and school finance concept. The legal standards used in the categorization are state equal protection clause, federal equal protection clause, and state education clause. The financial concepts used in the categorization are horizontal equity, pure vertical equity, vertical equity as adequacy, and pure adequacy. The project provides answers to the following questions via a process of briefing school finance cases that reached a state high court or the United States Supreme Court, and categorizing the cases based on legal standard, financial concept, and if the decision was in favor of school finance reform or against such reform. Research Questions: 1.What is the history of education finance reform litigation at the high state courts and U.S. Supreme Court levels with regard to the choice of finance concept being applied (horizontal equity, pure vertical equity, vertical equity as adequacy, or adequacy)? 2.Which legal standard was used historically in education reform litigation for each case and how does that connect with finance concept being applied? 3.Which party was successful in each legal decision? 4.Is there historically a most successful combination of finance concept and legal standard for plaintiff success in education finance reform litigation 5.Is there an emerging trend regarding school finance litigation? The main findings of the study indicate that the most frequently utilized finance concept was that of Horizontal Equity with Vertical Equity as Adequacy following with nearly as many instances of use as Horizontal Equity. Regarding the second research question, the study found that the State Education Clause was by far the most frequently used legal standard historically for school finance litigation cases. The most successful combinations of school finance concept and legal standard were the combination of the State Education Clause and Vertical Equity as Adequacy and the combination of the State Education Clause and Adequacy. The final research question addresses emerging trends in school finance litigation. A historical trend exists toward the use of adequacy as a standard paired with the used of State Education Clauses