This paper begins by describing the dramatic changes in both the scale and mode of financing of public education in the United States during the past century. It then sketches and critiques the theoretical interpretation of those trends provided by neoclassical economics, a line of interpretation which hinges on such concepts as "human capital" and "external benefits." Marxian political economy is then offered as an alternative, and superior, theoretical framework with which to analyze the evolution of public school finance. The paper concludes with a Marxian interpretation of school finance reform in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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