The role of state courts in defining educational finances is the focus of this book that results from a 2001 conference in the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University. The author explores the role of state appellate courts since the seminal case of Serrano v. Priest (1971) challenging the constitutionality of local property taxation to fund local schools. About one-half of subsequent state courts followed suit, but the other half did not.

The book reports overall and with variety the school finance schemes, differences that reflect the diversity of our federal system and the great variation among the states. Five state experiences illustrate this variety when appellate courts set standards for achieving equality in finances, for example, using such tests as “adequacy” of resources provided.

Against that diversity, John Yinger and colleagues explore the general and specific aspects of state financial reform under these court definitions. Moreover, they undertake individual analyses of reform in the five states in considerable economic analysis. Useful “guides” at the book's end summarize state court decisions and legislative programs in response, all set within a strong empirical economic analysis of school finances.

Over time, these state reforms report the decentralizing forces on policy that are drawn from the political and financial pressures of low- and high-spending districts. These pressures work against the uniform legislative efforts designed to equalize finances against the decentralized pull of local control of schools that still exists. Moreover, this research shows that the main goal of reform, namely, improving student learning, is unclearly settled.

While Helping Children Left Behind focuses primarily upon economic analysis of different equalizing reforms, it is also clear that the reform took place within a highly political context that is the norm of American education today. First, the reform arose out of citizen dissatisfaction with the distribution of public school resources. Second, the primary outlet for that dissatisfaction lay in the courts, as these reports point out. Third, there are political dimensions that arose within the legislative and administrative programs designed by the states. This response arose within a tension between state controls of increased spending versus the pull of local control of schools. The clash of downward and upward control was seen in all the cases studied here.

This clash had the differential effect of altering the balance found among the states. It was not surprising that the authors of state responses found a continuing gap between the budgets of high- and low-income districts even after new state laws had been designed to reduce it. The political result was the diversity of laws seeking to reduce this gap. Each side had its own political justification that reflected differing interests about schooling. Federalism theory would expect exactly such differences, due to the socioeconomic structures of the states that found different solutions in programmatic responses.

Looking ahead in this political context, one can see already the forces that work to weaken or increase such effects in school finances. Add to that the centralizing effects of the Leave No Child Behind law as it focuses on raising tests scores and economic penalties. Thus, in late 2004, many states were having problems following the law's control in implementation. This federal law had focused on the value of equality in achievement by use of test results, rather than on adequacy of funds for learning. Those value goals are often in basic conflict, as state experiences report in this book.

Overall, then, Younger and his colleagues have provided an illuminating focus on the conflicting school interests that arise in courts, legislatures, and administration. Its scholarship is first class, its analysis is precise, and its data use compelling. Let the Maxwell School try this approach a decade from now in exploring the role of policy driven by court action.