Noting that American society has conventionally relied on both the political process and the marketplace to arrive at a "definition" of adequate education, but that the political process fails to account for individual preferences while the marketplace can cater to many individual preferences, this paper attempts to combine the two processes in a way that will minimize the drawbacks of each while maximizing the strengths. Defining an adequate education politically has involved specifying adequacy of resources, processes, educational content, and outcomes, usually by state level agencies. While the system is flexible, it requires compromises and concessions. The establishment of adequate education using free market processes involves the provision of private education. Concepts allowing for public access to a publicly funded private education include unregulated voucher plans and tuition tax credits, compensatory voucher plans, and regulated vouchers. A satisfactory synthesis of the benefits of public and private education would involve providing public support for those aspects of education judged necessary (or "adequate") for the society, while permitting families free choice among public schools and the right to purchase coupons with which to secure educational experiences not mandated by the state but enabling students to attain individually defined "adequate" educations. (Author/PGD)