ACR 10--Adequacy Study

The Nevada State Education Association supports the Adequacy Study and its results.  The goal of the study was to determine the level of funding that was needed for Nevada’s children to reach specific performance expectations by the 2013-14 school year.

• The Adequacy Study—ACR 10 from the 2005 Legislative Session—addressed the need to conduct a thorough study which will provide policy makers with a rational way to set spending levels in light of specific student performance expectations.

• The Adequacy Study provided many recommendations to improve student achievement.  The following recommendations will have the most impact on long term student achievement:

Smaller class sizesratios—15:1 for Kindergarten through 3rd grade, 25:1 for 4th and 5th grade;

Pre-school for at-risk students;
Longer school year;
Full-day Kindergarten;
Alternative classroom settings for disruptive students; and
Increased funding for special education students, English language learners, career and technical students, and at-risk students.

• Governor Gibbons’ recommended budget does little to address these recommendations brought forward in the study—it does not address class size reduction, it ignores additional days added to the school year for either instruction or professional development, it ignores weighted formulas to serve special needs populations such as special education and English language learners, it does not address inflation across all operating areas, and rolls back programs designed to attract and retain qualified teachers.

• Neither the Governor nor the Legislature should ignore this report. Standards and expectations for teachers and support professionals continue to rise, but adequate resources have not been provided to get the job done.

• The study found that Nevada would need to invest over a billion dollars into education by the year 2013-14.  It does not suggest the additional funding be implemented immediately or all at once.

• In our January 2007 poll, 60 percent of Nevada’s voters were “a great deal” or “quite a bit” concerned by the results of the study. 

• The firm who conducted the study—Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc.—are independent, qualified experts. They have over 20 years experience providing assistance to state lawmakers on school finance issues and have conducted similar studies in 18 other states.

• Since the Nevada Plan was enacted in 1967, there has been ONE legislative study specifically devoted to the financing of public schools (nearly 20 years ago). However, since that study, the legislature has studied higher education three times, prisons two times, and medical malpractice once to list a few.  This type of study was a first for Nevada.

• It is responsible to take this proactive approach because there may be serious and costly litigation if education is not funded adequately.

• The study result recommended that special needs students—at-risk, English language learners, career and technical, and mild, moderate and severe special education—be funded using a weighted count formula.