This article describes the Oregon Quality Education model (OQEM), an adequacy funding model that attempts to connect the resources provided to schools with the student-learning outcomes that should result. The OQEM employs “prototype schools” to delineate the elements and costs of a quality education. Local school districts retain the ability to develop their own instructional programs but must be as effective as the prototype schools. The OQEM specifies quality indicators that ascertain how effectively the prototype schools are assumed to be functioning. Outcome measures set by the OQEM use performance on state assessments to establish the learning that results from the prototype schools. The OQEM connects several key components of state education policy: funding, school improvement, system performance, and accountability. The model illustrates how state and local control can be balanced within a framework that defines state responsibility to fund education adequately and local responsibility to deliver quality programs accordingly.
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