On March 22, 1993, the Tennessee Supreme Court found the method used by the state to fund local school districts to be unconstitutional. This finding culminated litigation filed by 77 mostly small, rural school districts known as the Tennessee Small School Systems (TSSS), claiming that the state's system of funding education was inequitable and violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution. The TSSS maintained that the inequity in funding was a determining factor in an apparent gap in achievement levels between the plaintiffs and those districts perceived to have adequate revenues. In 1992, the Tennessee legislature enacted legislation mandating a more equalized funding formula with a 5-year phase-in for full funding, and a new assessment system, the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS). A study compared TVAAS scores for grades 2-8 by year and grade level for the rural litigant and non-litigant districts during the 5-year phase-in period in the areas of mathematics, reading, language, science, and social studies. Findings indicate that the gap in standardized test scores between the two groups showed no real change as funding was equalized. (TD)