This paper was part of a symposium examining, from a multiple perspective, the lessons to be learned from the past decade of school finance reform and outlines a research and political agenda for state and federal activity in the 1980s. The issues that school finance litigation has addressed during the 1970s are reviewed, the current cases and their relationship to the school finance movement of the 1970s are examined, and future directions for school finance litigation in the 1980s are discussed. (Author/MLF)