If enacted, it would end more than 25 years of legal disputes over disparities in education financing.

But they also know the Clinton Administration is talking more about budget cutting than education financing.

When it comes to education financing, the divisions among federal, state and local government entities are mostly artificial.

Arizona, like most other states, has a huge deficit and is cutting education financing.

City officials are feuding with the state over the level of education financing.

Last year, the battle over education financing helped push the budget into August.

Schools that fail to comply with such groups' requests for information can lose federal education financing.

A proposal to allow three new sites for video lottery machines was also aimed at education financing.

"But it is our hope that after three years, each of these schools would be self-sufficient," with money from school systems and higher education financing.

To assert that only public schools should be the recipient of education financing is to confuse the means with the end.