Using the social fabric matrix to analyze institutional rules relative to adequacy in education funding

This article explains findings of part of a research project that uses the social fabric matrix (SFM) to analyze Nebraska's State education finance system with regard to adequacy and rules. The emphasis is about how to approach such a problem and to demonstrate the use of mathematical expressions to articulate social beliefs as instituted through rules, regulations, and requirements. While the concept for adequacy in educational finance has become more refined and grounded in reality, the concept of rules in economics has become more abstract and divorced from reality. The effort to use the SFM is aimed at developing a series of new state policies that construct a new funding model guided by social beliefs of equity and adequacy and based on instrumental scientific methods of measuring the actual costs of educational goods, services, and technologies needed in public school classrooms. The research is guided by the court decisions favoring adequacy.