The findings of the study lead to several conclusions related to the system of public school finance in Oklahoma, 1977-78. They were as follows: (1) The Oklahoma system of public school finance did not provide for as much equalization as was possible. (2) The State finance system did not facilitate full and equal educational opportunities for each child in Oklahoma. (3) The State did not assume its responsibility for equalizing the disparities in local fiscal capacity. (4) The sum effect of State appropriated revenues reduced the potential of State appropriation to provide for equality of funding.

There were 16 hypotheses statements tested in this study. Product-moment correlation was used to test Hypotheses 1 through 10. Of these hypotheses statements, only those which provided negative correlation coefficients, significant at the .05 level were accepted. The correlation coefficients for the accepted hypotheses statements were subjected to Fisher's z transformation to determine if significant differences could be observed in the calculated correlation coefficients.

This study was designed to determine the effect legislative appropriation had on equity of financing public schools of Oklahoma during the 1977-78 school year. The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between the per capita valuation and the amount of State support received by local districts in 1977-78. A secondary purpose of the study was to identify the methods of State support possessing the greatest potential to provide equity of funding in the Oklahoma Public School Finance System. Two populations were utilized and analyzed separately in the study. The 623 Oklahoma school districts were classified in 1977-78 as Independent and Dependent. These populations included 457 Independent and 166 Dependent school districts.