Unlike most cost studies, this study recommends a statewide property tax to generate additional revenues.

Professional Judgment:

Minimum base cost of the five prototype school districts: $5,428 per pupil (in 2001-02 dollars) for the prototype large school district. The initial calculated base cost figure was $7,832 per pupil, but it was adjusted by 69.3 percent, which is the percent of students that were "nearing" proficiency levels under the successful schools approach.
Adjust for district size. For example, the base cost level for the very large school districts is $5,666.
Additional weights for specialized student populations: .90-1.25 for special education students; .29-.39 for at-risk students; .60 for ELL students.

Successful Schools: $5,679 (in 2001-02 dollars)

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) base figure is: $5,664 (in 2001-02 dollars)

Although the base figure is $5,428, the study suggests increasing the base level each year according to state expectations of performance increase until it reaches the 100 percent goal of $7,832 (adjusted by inflation) in 2013-2014.
484 out of 522 districts had spending levels below the "adequate" level.
The study suggests acquiring a portion of the new revenues through a uniform statewide property tax. However, it emphasizes that the state should not "bear the entire burden of the added costs associated with adequacy."
The study also makes two recommendations for a new school finance system: (1) creating an "equitable" school finance system that takes into account revenue disparities and differences in tax rates among the school districts; and (2) "linking" the school finance system with the state's education accountability system, so that school districts can reasonably be expected to meet state standards if adequate revenues are provided, and if they are not met it is "acceptable for there to be consequences."

Implementation: None.

Definition of Adequacy:

The study defined adequacy by considering state requirements of accreditation, the "Show-Me Standards" developed as a result of the Outstanding Schools Act, the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP), and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The study assumed that "nearing proficient" and above on the MAP tests would be considered proficient for NCLB. However, since the study, the Missouri State Board of Education adopted a higher standard, i.e., "proficiency" or better.

Professional Judgment:

The study created five prototype school districts according to the number of students - very small (fewer than 200), small (200-600), moderate (601-2,500), large (2,501-10,000), and very large (more than 10,000).
The study used three professional judgment panels consisting of Missouri educators.

The "school-level" panel estimated the resource needs of each prototype school.
The "district-level" panel reviewed the school-level panels and estimated added resource needs at the district level.
The study's consultants then estimated preliminary cost figures.
The "expert" panel then reviewed the work and suggested changes in the prices used to estimate costs.

Successful Schools:

School districts were considered successful if they met all of their performance indicators (including MAP test scores, course offerings, after high school placement, dropout rates, and attendance rates) on the Annual Performance Reports (APR). This approach identified 80 "successful" school districts (out of 522).
Under the DESE model, school districts qualified if they met all of the points on the MAP test and only missed one of the four other performance indicators. This approach identified 102 "successful" school districts.
The base figure is the average basic expenditure of the successful districts. This does not include the amount spent on programs and services for students with special needs.

Additional Factors:

Professional Judgment:
The study added weights for district size, and costs associated with serving special education (.91-1.25), at-risk (.29-.39), and ELL students (.60). It did not consider capital outlay or transportation costs.
The study only included costs of pre-K education for very small, small, and moderate size school districts. It did not include pre-K education costs for large school districts, and only for at-risk students in very large school districts.
Successful Schools:
The study did not separately consider the costs of serving students with special needs, the additional costs of small or very large districts, adjustments for cost-of-living, or costs associated with transportation, food services, capital outlay, or debt service.