This report describes and evaluates the record of reform in several states that have revised their school finance systems since 1971. The introductory chapter provides an overview of reform's recent successes, shortcomings, and prospects. Six subsequent chapters offer a close look at its main features. Chapters 2 and 3 analyze new school aid legislation designed to place additional dollars behind high-cost children or to channel greater state aid into urban and rural areas. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the fiscal management of new reform laws, the former focusing on taxing and spending controls, the latter on revenue needs. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with two issues that state legislators are facing in their efforts to build more equitable school finance systems. Chapter 6 discusses the issues involved in developing a cost of education that will enable more state aid to be directed to areas with extraordinary education costs. And chapter 7 relates the issues involved in meshing of state and federal education aid programs to bring about more fiscal equity for local taxpayers and poor children. In sum, this booklet is intended to help the concerned state legislator and his staff to better understand how states can improve their basic school finance laws. The appendix contains selected statistical data on school finance revisions for Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin. (Author)