The piper link: Money, control, and equity in public school finance

This dissertation examines the significance of localism as an obstacle to school finance reform. Opponents of equity-based school finance reform have argued that centralization of education funding at the state or national level will lead to centralization of other aspects of education governance and a corresponding weakening of local education decision making. Through multivariate regression analysis of multi-state data and comparative case studies of local school politics, the dissertation finds that state centralization of school financing does not lead to a centralization of other aspects of educational governance and does not reduce local policymaking authority. Why, then, have local control concerns played such a prominent part in finance reform debates? Through multivariate regression analysis of state-level public opinion data, the dissertation examines the factors that influence attitudes on reform. It fords that support for localism is influential not when people perceive a loss of local discretionary authority but when they believe their taxes will increase to increase funding to less affluent areas. The dissertation concludes that localism matters in school finance reform debates not because finance reform jeopardizes some strong commitment to local government but because affluent, primarily white suburbanites wish to preserve their relative privilege. More broadly, while these findings suggest it is possible to decentralize decision making while centralizing financing in order to achieve greater equity, such reform efforts are hampered by the preference of the affluent for localism as a mechanism for separating themselves from the problems of the poor. Thus this dissertation argues that efforts to decentralize policy governance have less to do with a desire to preserve the United States' traditional attachment to localized decision making than the desire of suburbanites to maintain both high levels of service for themselves and low taxes.