School Finance reform

It appeared to me that the arguments in H & S revolved around two main issues.

1: the value of the funding itself and the true extent to which money affects the quality of the students' education. Are there other variables that could make an increase in spending ineffective at solving the problems attribted to the lack of finaces?

2: the rights of the school system to take money from the rich and give it to the poor (so to speak) in an attempt to equalize (within the educational system) the inequalities that have evolved as a result of different financial means of the different communities/families. Does the state really have the right to take away/equalize the advantage that richer people may be able to afford their children since it is their right as americans to benefit from their labor and the right to pass it on to whomever they wish.

My Analysis
1. The arguments were many but very fairly varied on the actual effect of spending on the quality of the education, and therefore the quality of the opportunity awarded to each student (page 65) The idea proposed by the former comissioner of education of New York was that the physical effects of a lack of funding on the building has a negative psychological effect on the students. That they get the message that they do not count and that they should therefore not do well in school. This argument has generally been held up by the courts and the uneven distribution considered unconstitutional.
One issue that has been clearly stated and upheld as fact is the correlation between teacher pay and quality of teachers. Better paid teachers have been shown to produce better students. Students of well paid teachers are both academically and emotionally nurtured.
The last issue that struck me was the fact that the academically challenged students actually needed more money than average or gifted students (per capita) and that there was a higher concentration of challenged students in poorer communities. This meant that the states would need to increase funding to the poorer areas which had lower revenues, but in order to give the same opportunites they would have to provide "more' funding in pooerer areas than in more wealthy ones.
There was also the argument that there were too many factors affecting the performance and the quality of the opportunities afforded poorer students that could not be changed by pouring finances into the school system.
The advances in school reform have tended to take on a robin-hood style progression, taking from the rich to service the poor and needy, and the strongest arguments have been that the system was unconstitutional in its inequality. It appears to me that unless the distribution of wealth is somehow unconstitutional as well I find it strange that we find that we single out the area of education to level a very uneven playing ground in any other area.

2. It seems that the american constitution provides the rights for the courts and states to redistribute the money in ways that are more constitutional. I do not know much about the american constitution and basically wonder how it deals with the equality issue together with the idea of capitalism and a market economy. One side says everyone's voice is heard and everyone gets their fair share, the other says I work and keep what I get and as long as I did it legally, it is mine and it is your job to "find your own".
The answer to this question and the country's values in balancing this should be applied to the situation in education. If it is an issue without resolution, then I guess school reform will continue to oscillate back and forth following the wavering line that delineates those two opposing goals of this society.