Anecdotes and the Adequacy Issue

By Lonnie Harp

New Orleans--Some things just never seem to end, like a Louisiana rainstorm and the question of what constitutes an adequate education.

Under gray skies and another downpour, participants at the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting here last week packed a convention-center room where the program promised a discussion of the adequacy issue.

Lawmakers from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Kentucky, as well as school activists from the District of Columbia and Alabama, pondered the question and offered anecdotes...