Abstract
The modern school finance litigation movement in the United States is largely based on the presumption that school funding is correlative to the academic success of poor and minority children. Although the start of this movement is generally recognized as beginning in 1971, its more notable precursors are the southern school equalization programs of the 1940s and 50s. This article explores the impact of a historic attempt to preserve de jure segregation through an equalized school funding program to black and white schools; it then compares that program and its effects to current levels of funding and achievement in the South’s mostly de facto segregated schools.