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This study analyzes the legal decisions that emerged across the nearly 45-year spectrum of Texas public school finance court cases, culminating in the judicial opinions and legislative actions that rather than bringing fundamental reform to the system has seen the enactment of temporary stopgap measures in 2006 that threw the system into further incertitude and undermined its basic tenets of constitutionality, eliciting the eighth round of lawsuits filed in 2011 and 2012 against the State, which charge that the school finance system is inequitable, inadequate, and inefficient. This is not to say that the decades-long litigation has not produced some beneficial results. In the intervening years since the initial filing in 1968 of the Rodriguez case, Texas has seen the development of a more equitable and adequate school finance system. Following Rodriguez, the Texas Supreme Court opinions in Edgewood I (1989) and Edgewood II (1991) were instrumental in spurring the legislative reforms that increased the overall funding of the system as well as provided the larger allocations that went to low-wealth school districts. Although the litigation strengthened the gains in equity in this initial period, the subsequent Texas Supreme Court opinions produced judicial ambiguities and redefinitions that left the Texas school finance system in a continual state of constitutional uncertainty with respect to its fundamental mandate to provide an equitable and adequate education. The decisions in Edgewood IIa (1991), Edgewood III (1992), Edgewood IV (1995), West Orange-Cove I (2003), and West Orange-Cove II (2005) have nonetheless been instructive in demonstrating how the Texas school finance court cases have altered the dynamic of equality and adequacy and the basic assumptions and ideals that have defined the fundamental right to an education, with the implications that these altered policy approaches have on the distribution of educational resources for all children. Importantly, the state’s trajectory in school finance litigation offers an illustrative example of the tenuous but often contentious partisan interrelationship between the different levels of the judiciary and the legislative and executive branches of government that too often has deprived Texas public school students of an equitable and adequate education. / text

The following research completes several statistical analyses of per pupil expenditure data in the Commonwealth of Virginia to assess the degree of fiscal equity in the statewide finance model for public elementary and secondary education. Five years, between 2004 and 2020, were selected for analysis to examine whether trends noted in a 2005 study of fiscal equity in Virginia have remained constant or whether the degree of equity has increased or decreased. A historical overview of the funding of public schools in Virginia and revisions to the Virginia Constitution and its Education Articles provide information about the development of public education in Virginia. This commentary is followed by an explanation of the current funding model, Standards of Quality formula, and legislative criticism of the design elements thereof. School finance reform litigation from across the nation is then reviewed to demonstrate how the constitutionality of state public school finance models has been challenged in both federal and state courts over time. The school finance litigation discussion begins with the broad topic of equal protection guarantees in the federal Constitution and how those guarantees shaped early equity lawsuits. A survey of school finance reform cases is presented to show a progression from equity suits to adequacy suits. The litigation commentary concludes with a discussion of the most recent school finance case in Virginia, Scott v. Commonwealth (1994). After establishing the precedents for the analysis of state funding models, a series of dispersion statistics are calculated based on per pupil expenditures for each of the 132 school divisions in Virginia. These statistics include Range, Restricted Range, Coefficient of Variation, Gini Coefficient, and McLoone Index. The findings of the 2004-2020 analyses are compared to the findings of the 2005 study of fiscal equity in Virginia. The noted results of the analyses have implications for policy makers in the Commonwealth. / Doctor of Education / The following research completes statistical analyses of educational spending data to assess equity in the statewide finance model for public elementary and secondary school in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Five years—2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020—were selected for analysis to examine whether trends noted in a 2005 study of fiscal equity in Virginia have continued or whether the degree of equity has increased or decreased. A historical overview of the funding of public schools in Virginia and revisions to the Virginia Constitution and its Education Articles provide information about the development of public education in Virginia. This commentary is followed by an explanation of the current funding model (the Standards of Quality formula), legislative criticism of the formula, and an overview of school finance reform litigation from across the nation. The school finance litigation discussion begins with equal protection guarantees and develops to show a progression from cases that challenge equity in funding to cases that challenge the adequacy of funding. The litigation commentary concludes with a discussion of the most recent school finance case in Virginia, Scott v. Commonwealth (1994). After establishing the precedents for the analysis of state funding models, a series of statistics are calculated based on per pupil expenditures for each of the 132 school divisions in Virginia. The findings of the 2004-2020 analyses are compared to the findings of the 2005 study of fiscal equity in Virginia. The noted results of the analyses have implications for policy makers in the Commonwealth.