Kentucky Adequacy Study Says State Must Add $740 Million Annually to Schools

On April 3, 2003 the Kentucky State Education Department released a statewide adequacy study authored by school finance consultants Allan Odden of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Larry Picus of the University of Southern California. The study concluded that in order to provide every student in Kentucky with the opportunity to meet the state's performance goals, the state needs to spend $740 million dollars per year, of which $175 million would go to expand existing preschool programs to serve all low-income children. Other notable recommendations included full-day kindergarten for every child, classes of 15 in the elementary grades and 25 thereafter, one-on-one tutoring for struggling students, and a substantial increase in professional development for teachers.

While most costing-out studies use either the professional-judgment or successful schools methodologies, Odden and Picus used a technique based on effective programs. This methodology identifies programs backed by recent educational research, determines the cost of the different aspects of the programs, such as teacher salaries, and then uses that cost figure to develop an adequate base of spending for every school. Odden had previously identified seven schoolwide research-based programs and devised a theoretical system of funding that would allow schools to choose from among the seven. He and Picus adapted this earlier research to Kentucky by establishing prototype schools of 500 students and costing out what they considered to be the necessary resources for adequate education opportunity. They compared the price to what Kentucky now spends, and the difference amounted to $873 per pupil.

According to reports in the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal, State Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit supports the study's findings, although he said that the state would have to phase in the resources gradually. He is concerned that Kentucky has "not continued to support elementary and secondary education" at the level it did immediately after passage of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act. In 1989, in Rose v. Council for Better Education, the State Supreme Court found Kentucky's funding system unconstitutional, and, as a result, the legislature enacted a far-reaching reform package that aims to bring all students up to ambitious state standards by 2014. Picus and Odden assert that the $740 million a year will be necessary for the state to meet its goals.

This adequacy study is one of four issued recently to find that Kentucky is not spending enough money on education. A February study by the Council for Better Education said that the state needs to add $892 million annually, the governor's office said $400 million, and University of Virginia researcher Deborah Verstegen calculated that $1.2 billion would be needed.

In January 2003, 16 students and their parents filed suit against Kentucky on the grounds that education financing is inequitable and inadequate. A 2001 study by Odden and Picus found that, while not adequate, the Kentucky school-funding system is considerably more equitable than those in other states and has made great strides since the changes adopted in 1990.

Prepared April 4, 2003