| This dissertation asks whether litigation is an effective strategy for achieving school finance equity. Over the last three decades, the school finance systems of nearly every state have been challenged in court by reformers seeking a more equitable distribution of educational resources. Despite the prevalence of such lawsuits and their enormous political and economic stakes, there is little evidence that "victories" in court for school finance reform translate into improved policy outcomes. On the contrary, existing literature on the question suggests that even when threatened or confronted with a court order, legislatures resist enacting a high-profile redistributive policy such as school finance reform.;In this dissertation I construct and test a politically realistic model of the relationship between school finance litigation and changes in school finance equity. My model is informed by theory on (a) the relative roles of courts and legislatures in the policymaking process, (b) the power of agendas in the policymaking process, and (c) the requirements of political coalition formation. I then test this model using data from forty-seven states over the period 1970-1993. This dissertation provides the first cross-sectional, longitudinal test of the relationship between litigation and equity in school finance and the first to control for the political factors that complicate the relationship.;Estimating the model using ordinary least-squares regression, I find that a pro-plaintiff verdict in a school finance lawsuit does have a significant independent positive impact on the equity of a state's school finance system. I also find, however, that challenging a state's school finance system in court and losing has a significant independent negative impact on equity, suggesting the risk of a backlash from the litigation strategy. The findings of this study are significant in a number of respects. First, this is the strongest support available in the literature on school finance reform that litigation does affect equity, although not always in the intended direction. Second, these findings contribute to broader debates about judicial efficacy in the policy process. Third, the findings have strategic implications for the future activity of the school finance reform movement. |
