Educational Opportunity: The Illinois Dilemma.

Abstract

The Article Linking top-down standards-based reform and bottom-up school finance reform has the potential to affect American education well into the future. However, to align resources with curriculum and performance standards, funding systems need to be reinvented for an information age and global economy. Current school finance systems are obsolete and antiquated; they have failed to achieve equity or to incorporate adequacy. They finance minimums and basic skills, not excellence in education and proficiency outcomes for all children and schools, and they present a formidable obstacle to reform. Lack of financial support is also a problem--the number one problem facing public schools today, according to a Gallup poll of the public's attitude toward the public schools.