The basic purpose of this paper is to marshal the arguments for and against full State funding and to begin delineating the practical problems of moving to full funding in New York State. Full State funding is defined as the assumption of substantially all responsibility for financing local elementary and secondary education from State and Federal revenues. The paper also attempts to supply at least some benchmarks against which to estimate the cost of achieving a substantial measure of full State funding. In discussing full State funding, the paper deals with operating expenses only, exclusive of transportation and building costs. The principal categories of educational finance problems that prompt consideration of full State funding are presented as: (1) the lack of equality of educational opportunity, (2) the Balkanization of the metropolitan as well as the rural areas by local school districts and other governmental units, (3) the cost pressures arising from market forces that operate on teacher salaries, (4) the cost pressures arising from the increasing success of militant public service unions, (5) the intermittent concern of the State legislature for meeting the State share of educational costs, and (6) the increasingly inadequate property tax base whereon rests the great bulk of local support. (Author)