The Handbook traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and the revenue sources used to finance these inputs to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. It shows how the current decision-making context in school finance inevitably interacts with those of governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of the important contemporary issues requires input from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a variety of disciplines. While many of the chapters cover complex state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand.