Political dispositions and education finance equity: An analysis of court decisions across the United States

Background. Mounting evidence demonstrates that money matters in children's educational provision. Nevertheless, countless schools cannot provide adequate educational opportunities because of states' underlying fiscal capacities and their education funding mechanisms and formulae. Across the country, states have faced education finance litigation to address inequities, but state supreme court outcomes are notoriously unpredictable. Neither traditional legal interpretations nor statistical analyses including state and judicial factors explain satisfactorily the variation in outcomes. This research explores the politics of education funding litigation as an explanatory factor.; Design. To control for socio-political variability, the contiguous United States were entered into a statistical clustering model to create comparable groups of states from which to draw cases. The model included measures of states' income and tax equity, political ideology, educational values (measured by achievement and attainment), and educational challenge (measured by poverty and race). Five discrete clusters emerged, from which eighteen case states were selected for political analysis. Cases were paired within periods of litigation, equity or adequacy; one case overturned the finance system despite a weak education clause, one upheld it despite a strong education clause.; Findings. A holistic interpretation of the education clause, including rhetorical qualities and contextual characteristics, produces a more systematic relationship between case outcomes and constitutional language. Still, political issues play a strong role in justices' decisions. States' political ideologies, whether conservative or liberal in relation to other cluster states, bear a strong relationship with outcomes. Justices also wield immense power in the selection of their interpretive lenses; these interpretive approaches have more impact than litigation approaches. Historical interpretive lenses within the case states almost universally sought evidence that neither equity nor adequacy were part of the state's history; justices accordingly ruled for states. "Plain language" and holistic interpretive approaches almost universally found education so important that it necessitated provision of a more equitable and/or adequate educational system. Further, justices recently have been subject to repercussions when ruling for plaintiffs; this likely will further increase the political nature of decisions. The findings call for a more open discussion of standard of equity or adequacy in addition to other kinds of standards.