The politics of judicial decision-making in educational policy reform litigation

Ever since Brown v. Board of Education,(I) scholars, researchers, and commentators have both bemoaned and celebrated judicial intervention in educational policy-making and schooling.(2) Nowhere is the thumbprint of the judiciary more evident than in the arena of educational finance policy. Between 1970 and 2000, state supreme courts in some thirty-six states reviewed their states' school funding schemes pursuant to charges that state policy-makers had failed to provide an equitable or adequate distribution of educational resources to children in the state.(3) In nineteen cases during that same time period, the courts struck down their states' school finance policies and ordered their legislatures and governors to try again.(4) Although nominally focusing on the mechanisms by which states choose to finance schools, these litigations and judicial decisions have frequently addressed the substantive aspects of education and, increasingly, the systems of accountability and oversight designed to ensure equitable and adequate educational opportunities(3).