Tricks of the trade: State legislative actions in school finance policy that perpetuate racial disparities in the Post-Brown Era

This article discusses the tricks of the trade that legislatures in formerly de jure segregated states might use to maintain racial funding disparities in existence before Brown and whether such ploys might be vulnerable to legal challenges. The first section provides an overview of modern school finance formulas and explains how legislatures in de jure segregated states might use state aid policies to produce racial funding disparities. The second section, through macrolevel, quantitative analyses, identifies those states where state aid is allocated such that minority populations are disadvantaged and where that disadvantage is subsequently reflected in total state and local revenue. The third section presents in-depth case analyses of racial disparities in Kansas and Alabama that were identified through macrolevel analyses. The final section analyzes possible legal challenges that plaintiffs in those formerly de jure segregated states identified in our case analyses may bring to racially neutral state aid policies that place minority school districts at a financial disadvantage.