A Look Back: Fair financing of public schools, as seen by Kappan authors

Questions about how best to fund public schools have concerned authors in Phi Delta Kappan for decades. In this column, Teresa Preston reviews how Kappan authors have addressed school funding formulas that rely on property taxes and court cases related to these formulas. Although authors tended to agree that basing school funding on local taxes was inequitable, not all of them held the same views on the legal arguments against such formulas. As cases moved through the courts, states reacted with new funding systems, relying more on state funding and allocating funds according to student need. Any new approach to funding, whether at the local, state, or federal level, will require considerable debate