No results yet from state’s experiment with school funding

As students begin heading back to school this week, the Legislature is working to figure out whether the dramatic change in how California funds its schools is working. There are few answers.

The state adopted the Local Control Funding Formula in 2012, overturning four decades of “categorical” funding that attempted to micromanage school district spending from Sacramento.

The new formula gives more state money to districts with disadvantaged youths — low-income, foster and English learner students — who need additional educational supports. The result: The funding gap between the state’s wealthiest and the poorest school districts has narrowed — a huge and notable achievement. But it hasn’t translated into improved educational opportunities in the low-income districts or markedly narrowed the achievement gap.

Legislators and education experts say they can’t evaluate a program that lacks transparency. Everyone agrees on this: The state should not go back to categorical funding.

The concern categorical funding sought to address, however, remains. That is, how does the state fund schools so teachers unions and middle-class parents don’t grab a disproportionate share?

The governor and state Board of Education championed the “little d” democracy behind Local Control Funding. School districts would receive lump sums and the school board, working closely with district parents and teachers, would decide how to spend the funds. Each district must prepare a plan that sets goals, outlines expenditures and actions needed to achieve them, and establishes metrics to measure progress.

Schools seemed a natural setting for this kind of intense participatory budgeting. Parents care deeply about how well schools prepare their kids. Locally elected school board members would be more accountable to parents and voters than faceless Sacramento bureaucrats. But that isn’t how it has worked out — so far.

Stanford researchers found that parents interacted with schools, but not school districts, where the decisions are made. School board agendas had little mention of local control and accountability plans, which should reflect ideas developed with the community over months, until just before the board vote to adopt the plans in June.

Districts that did try to involve parents, holding hundreds of hours of meetings, too often delivered lectures instead of facilitating deliberations. Plans, often hundreds of pages long, meant little to parents, if they even knew they existed.

With a few exceptions, districts can’t spell out how they spent the funds. The state is setting up an online “dashboard” to help districts convey that information.

Legislators are concerned they have too little control over more than 40 percent of the state’s general fund spending. School reformers want to know whether the disadvantaged students who generated the supplemental funding are benefiting. Equity advocates have applauded the formula for changes that have reduced absenteeism and suspension rates. Researchers are advocating for an independent statefunded evaluation, to ask the tough questions about our $41 billion investment, and assist districts in gauging what is working.

Gov. Jerry Brown has indicated he wants local districts to figure out how to make this work. Californians must look to the next governor to rework this noble experiment. Our job as voters? To query the gubernatorial candidates about how they would ensure every California child has equal opportunity for a good education.