The school finance equity efforts that began in Illinois in the early 1970s collapsed during the early 1980s, partially as a result of poor economic conditions affecting the entire state budget. This monograph opens with a review of the school finance reform events that have unfolded in Illinois since 1973, when major reforms were first enacted into law. The monograph then describes the underlying values, focused around equalization of educational opportunity, according to which the effects of the 1973 refoms and the subsequent modifications of those reforms should be evaluated. A description of procedures used to monitor school finance equity in Illinois follows, and the results of the monitoring process are analyzed. The monograph concludes with an assessment of the forces working against a concern for equity in Illinois school finance and reviews the "wave theory" of revolution and reform, a theory that suggests that efforts to change and efforts to resist change alternate in their influence through history. Appendixes contain charts and tables documenting the findings of the equity monitoring process. Factors in the computation of Gini coefficients are also appended. (PGD)