Fiscal Support for Education in American States: The "Parity-to-Dominance" View Examined

Many policy analysts have characterized the 1980s as a period of emerging state activism. This view is clearly supported in public school financing at the aggregate level, where the state share has shifted from a "parity" to a "dominance" status over the past decade. This article examines this prevailing parity-to-dominance perspective by conducting an analysis of state school aid in each of the 50 states from 1968 to 1986. Instead of finding states converging toward activism, our analysis shows significant interstate diversity in school financing. Only a very small number of states have actually followed the parity-to-dominance path. More important, each of the 50 states can be systematically classified into one of several distinct patterns, each of which can be defined in terms of (1) a state's fiscal support status (i. e., parity or dominance) at the initial period (i. e., late 1960s) and (2) whether state support has increased, remained stable, or decreased over the 19-year period. Through a synthesis of the literature on fiscal federalism, political culture, state legislative politics, and public policy, we shall look for explanations for the persistent interstate divergence in school financing.