EFFECTIVE, TRANSPARENT SCHOOL FUNDING

For over 40 years, California’s education funding system was a complicated, irrational mess. One California school received over $60,000 per student, while another school that served children with similar challenges received just over $6,000 per student. In many instances, schools with children with the most obstacles received the fewest dollars. Money that was desperately needed in the classroom was stuck in state and local bureaucracy.

While the new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) enacted in 2013 is a significant improvement in getting resources from Sacramento to school district headquarters, there are still large inequities and a lack of transparency.  Many districts have been able to hold on to historic allocations above and beyond the LCFF apportionments, and charter public schools in the highest poverty neighborhoods receive less state support than traditional public schools in the same district.  Moreover, the state does not have a transparent system to ensure that every low-income student, English learner and foster youth is receiving increased or improved services from the extra resources sent to their district headquarters to help them.  This is unfair to our kids and compromises our future. It doesn’t have to be this way.

That’s why EdVoice fights to make funding formulas and allocations transparent at the state, district and school level, so everyone can see and understand where and how education dollars are spent. Beyond transparency, EdVoice works to reform the education finance system to ensure more dollars make it to the classroom and school site and that all investments are tactically planned to have the greatest possible impact on improving the achievement of all kids.