The Not-So-Hollow Hope: A Process-Tracing Analysis of Adequacy Era School Finance Litigation

Abstract

Can State Courts of Last Appeal (SCOLAs) effectively shape education policy? This thesis argues they can. Applying a process-tracing methodology to two case studies of Adequacy Era school finance litigation (SFL), this thesis asserts that SCOLA decisions striking down the constitutionality of a state’s education system causally induced lawmakers in Kansas and Ohio to increase education funding and institute significant education policy reforms. These reforms were implemented because lawmakers viewed judicial compliance as a binding obligation that would induce legal, political, and institutional costs if transgressed. This causal dynamic is conceptualized as the Judicial Conversion Mechanism (JCM), and it operated in these case studies under contextual conditions that aligned with the conditions for court efficacy expounded by Gerald Rosenberg in The Hollow Hope. This thesis is significant as it (1) applies process-tracing to the school finance and judicial politics literature, (2) develops a novel causal mechanism in the JCM, (3) draws a causal connection between Adequacy Era SCOLA decisions and subsequent education policy reforms, and (4) carries real-world policy implications for school finance litigators.