Slow Progress: School Finance Reforms and Racial Disparities in Funding

School funding has become more economically progressive but remains unequal by race/ethnicity. As desegregation efforts decline, school finance reforms (SFRs) are increasingly important for addressing racial/ethnic funding disparities, but their implications are unclear. We build on existing work by estimating SFR effects on funding by income, race, and ethnicity, extending analysis through 2022, using recently developed difference-in-differences models to address variation in SFR timing, and examining additional and recent SFRs. We find that SFRs increased funding equality by income but at best had only modest benefits for equality by race/ethnicity. SFRs were more effective at reducing racial funding inequality in states with low initial inequality and low race-by-income segregation. Results highlight limitations of class-based state reforms to address racial/ethnic disparities.