Equal Educational Opportunity, Hollow Victories, and the Demise of School Finance Equity Theory: An Empirical Perspective and Alternative Explanation

Abstract:     
Note: The following is a description of the article and not the actual abstract.

The pursuit of equal educational opportunity persists and strikes deep chords in American legal and popular imagination. Increasingly, debates surrounding equal educational opportunity focus on the distribution of educational resources, especially funding. Most modern school finance issues, once re-cast for litigation purposes, seek to advance an adequacy theory. Adequacy theory stands in sharp contrast to school finance litigation's earlier mooring in equity theory. Although reasons for the sharp demise of equity theory have received extensive scholarly attention, a coherent explanation eludes legal scholars. This article explores one such explanation -- judicial inefficacy -- from an empirical perspective.

JEL Classification: I22, I28

Accepted Paper Series