Gov. Brown’s budget boosts education but pay off uncertain
G ov. Jerry Brown signed a $125 billion state budget Tuesday for the fiscal year that began Saturday that gives $3 billion more to public schools.
For yet another year Brown refrained from using his line-item veto so the budget the legislature passed in June remains intact, according to the Associated Press.
“This budget provides money to repair roads, invest in schools and provide Medi-Cal health care for millions of Californians,” Brown said.
The funds supporting schools is disbursed according to a formula that will offer a greater per-student share ($31 million) to schools with underprivileged children.
Four years ago the state discarded a confusing system for funding public schools and replaced it with a simpler formula aimed at closing an achievement gap.
The way the Local Control Funding Formula works is: all California school districts receive the same per-pupil base grant, yet ones that enroll disadvantage students, get 20 percent more, a supplemental grant and districts where needy students comprise more than half the student population, get 50 percent on top of that with a concentration grant.
Various cohorts qualifying for funds include students eligible for reduced or free meals, foster children, English learners and others.
So, where a well-to-do district in Silicon Valley may get $8,000 from the state for each student, low-income Imperial Valley can get $14,000 per pupil, noted CAL matters.
This is a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture based in Sacramento devoted to explaining state policy. They recently completed a study of the state’s largest 15 school districts where nine of 10 children qualified for extra aid. Their findings maintain as many as three-quarters of disadvantage students continue to fail state tests.
Recently launched, the California School Dashboard shows the California Common Core State Standards alignment, for the 2017 reporting year. Scores are posted for kindergarten through eighth graders and 11th graders for exams given in the 2015/2016 year. Dashboard is an online tool launched in March 2017. It is a mechanism for Californians to see how children perform in a number of areas, noted Todd Evangelist, Imperial County Office of Education director of development and community relations.
The reality is a lot more goes on than just one high stakes test score with Dashboard, Evangelist explained. It not only reports exam results but attendance records, graduation rates, suspension rates, English learner progress and college/career levels. A five-gradation color/pie chart allows at-a-glance snapshots of various performance criteria with blue/full pie plate the highest level descending to green/four slices, yellow/three, orange/two and red/one at the lowest level. Anybody can visit Dashboard at: www.caschooldashboard.org for their district.
But CAL matters maintains the state achievement gap is substantial. In various subjects they cite a gap of 30 percent with well-to-do students over low-income ones on exam results from 2003 to 2013.
Yet Imperial Valley progress reports appear to cut across a broad spectrum. At Central Union High School District, Dashboard shows for English Learners kindergarten to 12th grade their status was rated, High, 76.8 percent. The change from the prior year was an increase of plus 2.4 percent. Graduation rates are rated high at 90.3 percent, a change of plus 1 percent. In English Language Arts, 11th graders status is 24.9 points above level 3, and a change of plus 10.5 points. For math, 11th graders status is 63.7 points below level 3 but a change of plus 21.9 points. When CUHSD first started with LCFF in spring of 2014 the message from stakeholders was clear, noted Renato Montano, CUHSD superintendent. “As a result in the last two years we’ve introduced seven new career technical education courses, two new advanced placement courses and 11 new international baccalaureate courses included in the schools’ master schedules,” he said.
Montano added, CUHSD is modifying their English Learner program to tailor it to student needs. The district offers added afterschool tutoring to attain Common Core standards.
Supplemental funds also helped to retain: a supervisor of instruction, two EL assistant program positions and two EL program testing clerk positions. And CUHSD authorized 100 specific expenditures though its Local Control Accountability Plan to schedule English Language Development and Structured English Immersion support classes, and hire a full-time counselor for intervention with attendance, foster youth and at-risk/low-income students.
The Dashboard report for Calipatria Unified School District shows English Learners attained a status of Medium, 71.7 percent, and saw change posted at Maintained with minus 1.3 percent. Their graduation rate was a status of Medium, 85.5 percent and a change posted at Declined Significantly at minus 5.7 percent. In English Language Arts, 11th graders status is 38.8 points above level 3 and a change of plus 6.9 points. For math, 11th graders status is 64.4 points below level 3 and a change of plus 8.2 points. Angie Ortiz, Calipatria Unified School District associate superintendent, noted the results are at about the level they have been in years past. The administration would love to see performance levels in the blue designation instead of green. And they recognize they have some work to do in math.
“The results are still too early to determine what results exactly pinpoint,” she said. “We’ve changed curriculum from regular California standards to Common Core so it raises questions of where we need to fine tune. The systems have changed over three years with new assessment methods.”
Since it is the first look at Dashboard data, Ortiz noted it requires them to more intensely examine students who are falling through the cracks and what can improve achievement. They received supplemental grants for students receiving free or reduced meals. And the biggest investment is in staffing, technology and curriculum, such as instructional materials, staff training and student tools.
“But we could use more money for career technical training,” said Ortiz. “There is not enough staff to provide extended day tutorials. And we need the ability to pay staff to be available. Also we require the necessary hard and software to implement supplemental learning opportunities.”
But CAL matters complained shifting responsibility to local levels means the state does not track how much grant money each district gets and how it is spent. “The state has spent billions trying to lift up poor kids and not one penny evaluating whether any of it is working,” said Bruce Fuller a University of California, Berkeley education policy professor. “It’s time to discern what’s effective and where we’re wasting money.”
But ICOE’s Evangelist disputes that and noted school districts accurately account for all funds supporting the LCFF. That formula gives districts prerogative to spend supplemental funding but they are required to correlate purchases with a specific academic goal that improves student achievement. And that goal is part of the annual strategic plan referred to as the Local Control Accountability Plan.
“LCAP outlines why money was spent for a product or service and must justify why the expenditure was made,” he said. “A lot of value in the LCFF lies in allowing local districts to make changes in education programs that impacts students rather than adhering to a state or federal mandate.”