CAN STATE COURTS PRODUCE SOCIAL REFORM? SCHOOL FINANCE EQUALIZATION IN KENTUCKY, TEXAS, AND NEW JERSEY

Abstract

One model of judicial capacity holds that litigation can produce significant social change when courts promulgate a clear remedy, monitor closely the legislative response, and enforce aggressively their rulings. But this framework cannot adequately account for the outcomes of a series of prominent state supreme court rulings in the area of school finance equalization. An examination of the relationship among courts, political institutions, public opinion, and education reform in Kentucky, Texas, and New Jersey provides support for an alternate model of judicial capacity. Litigation can produce social reform, but only when there is existing support for reform goals in the public and in the legislative or executive branches, and then only when the judicial decision provides flexibility for the political actors who support these goals.