What is Adequacy?
Consideration of adequacy rather than equity has allowed courts to focus on the concrete question of what resources are needed to provide the opportunity for a quality education to all students, and the extent to which those resources are actually being provided.[3] Lawrence Picus, chair of the Division of Policy and Administration at the Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, notes that the courts have considered fiscal adequacy as early as 1979 (Pauley v. Kelly, West Virginia). Picus states: “…to be adequate, a school finance formula must provide sufficient money so public schools can teach all students – or at least all but the most severely disabled – to reach standards as established by the state and local districts.”[4] In The Concept of Adequacy and School Finance[5], Heather Rose notes that the concept of adequacy includes two distinct components: 1) school policy geared toward achieving high minimum outcomes for each student, and 2) a finance system
