The American education system is one of the most developed education systems in the world and the education finance has played an important role in supporting the development of basic education through contribution to the development of theories and the reform in basic education, which has ensured the progress towards the goal of a basic education system with equal opportunity, better quality and more choices.The paper reviews the development process of the US financial system for basic education both nationally and historically for an overall analysis of the basic laws and the development characteristics. It focuses on the analysis of the evolution of the US basic education finance system, the goal, historical cause, financial structure, impact factors and actions of reform in "US basic education finance; the linkage between finance system and the development of basic education; and the historical process of effort towards a goal of equity, efficiency and freedom to summarise the regular characteristics and experiences, which could be used for reference in the development of the Chinese finance system for basic education.The paper consists of four parts following the introduction. Firstly, the history of US basic education finance is divided into the origin and formation period, the improvement and development period, and the adjustment and reform period according to the historical process of the development of it. The first part analyses the origin and formation of US public education finance system to summarise the initial ideals and basic characteristics; the second part analyses the improvement and development of the US basic education finance system at the federal and state levels from the Post-World War II through the 1970s; the third part analyses the adjustment and reform of the US basic education finance system in the 1980s and the 1990s; the fourth part summarises the basic characteristics, the historical imperfection and the development trends to propose revelation and recommendations for the reform of the Chinese financial system for basic education