School funding should support all students
Amidst the depressing news about the pandemic and political turmoil in our country, there is a glimmer of hope in California. State revenues are higher than expected and funding for education is not nearly as limited as some early projections. In fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that in his budget proposal, “Proposition 98 funding for the upcoming fiscal year is $85.8 billion, the highest level of state funding for schools ever.”
This is good news, especially for families and students who want to attend Personalized Learning Public Charter Schools, which for many years have worked to provide students with tailored education best suited to their needs. Across our three schools, IEM serves more than 8,000 students in 18 counties including Santa Cruz County;, many of these students are disadvantaged. At our South Sutter school, 39% of students are socio-economically disadvantaged, 30% of Sky Mountain students are Hispanic, and 9% of Ocean Grove students receive special education services.
While this educational model has and continues to produce positive student outcomes, reduced state funding has put personalized education for thousands of disadvantaged public school students out of reach. Personalized Learning Public Charter Schools, as well as all non-classroom-based charter schools, were unfairly excluded from receiving growth enrollment funding from the state for the current school year.
Prior to this baseless exclusion, we had admitted an additional 2,443 students for the 2020-21 school year. These students and their families had made plans to attend our school and we held by our commitment to serve them despite the fact that we are not receiving any funding to serve these additional students.
Make no mistake, that funding did not go back into the state coffers. It is going to the students’ previous schools which now receive an inflated amount of perpupil funding. This new and inequitable funding set up means schools with declining enrollment receive, on average, more funding per student they serve than growing schools. Shouldn’t schools that students want to go to because they adequately serve student needs, receive the state funding for serving those students? We currently have more than 2,000 students on our wait list who we cannot enroll without additional funding.
If families who have schooled at home have learned anything about their children academically during the last 10 months, it is that every single child has unique strengths and areas of need as well as their own best way to learn. Students and their families are increasingly seeking out personalized education as the benefits of a tailored approach become more well-known. Research on learning loss from the 2019-20 school year conducted by CREDO at Stanford University found that “the wide variation within states (and often within schools) means that conventional models of classroom-based instruction — a one-to-many, fixed pace approach — will not meet the needs of students. New approaches must be allowed to ensure high-quality instruction is available in different settings, recognizing that different skills may be needed for the different channels.” Personalized Learning Public Charter Schools are designed for this specifically.
For many students, the return to full-time in-person instruction is essential for their academic growth and mental health. For others, the ability to take a personalized approach to learning is the key to their success and a one-size-fits-all approach simply does not work. These students and families should be treated — and funded — the same as every other public school student in California.
We also need to look at areas of success and replicate them. More than half of our 2020 high school graduates were on the honor roll. These and other metrics of academic success demonstrate the need for students to be able to access personalized education. With more money in the state’s coffers policy makers have no justification for not fully funding all public school students. It is time for the adults in the conversation to truly put the needs of the children first.