After ending my fourth term as president of the California State Board of Education in 2019, I have begun to reflect, in my sixth decade of education policy, about what I did right and what I should have done differently...
PACE co-founder Michael W. Kirst, former president of the California Board of Education (1977–1981 and 2011–2019), highlights in a new PACE commentary findings from his Learning Policy Institute report Standards-Based Education Reforms: Looking Back to Looking Forward, which analyzes the evolution of standards-based reforms in the United States. Kirst issues a call to action: California needs a strategic and tactical roadmap to improve instructional capacity in classrooms statewide. The commentary offers four recommendations: return the CDE to its former role of providing technical assistance on how to implement subject matter standards; strengthen COEs for effective capacity building; reorient the district role to focus on instructional capacity; and design the roadmap for targeted district support. Without a unified strategy, California risks more uneven progress. A comprehensive, coordinated approach is essential to equipping educators with the tools they need to deliver equitable, standards-aligned instruction to all students.
Falling enrollments and gloomy economics point to the inevitable: Many school districts in California will close schools over the next decade. So far, they have been mainly elementary and middle schools, but high schools, spared until now, won’t escape, a...
A decade after California revolutionized the way it funds schools, nearly everyone agrees the initiative has done what it was meant to do: improved math and reading scores and brought more resources to students who struggle the most. And nearly...
In 2013–14, California enacted an ambitious—and essential—reform to improve educational equity by directing state resources to districts and schools that educate large numbers of economically disadvantaged students. The reform is called the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF); it allocates funding to school districts based on student characteristics such as socioeconomic status and provides greater flexibility to use the allocated funds than the previous school funding formula allowed. In addition to the LCFF, which is based on average daily attendance (ADA), districts receive funds based on the proportion of students they serve who are English learners, income eligible for free or reduced-price meals, and foster youth. The equity multiplier, a new policy passed in 2023, is designed to provide even more funding for disadvantaged students.
For the past decade, California has spent billions of dollars to improve the education of at-risk children, but there’s scant evidence that it had the intended effect. When Jerry Brown returned to the governorship in 2011, a quarter-century after his...
Michael Kirst, the architect of the Local Control Funding Formula and then its chief implementer as president of the California State Board of Education for the first five years after its passage in 2013, freely acknowledges the law needs some...
In 2013, the Legislature adopted the Local Control Funding Formula, landmark legislation championed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown that overhauled how California finances TK-12 schools. It significantly redistributed money to districts based on student needs, and, in exchange for transferring more...
It’s been eight years since then-Gov. Jerry Brown restructured California’s school funding formulas to direct billions of dollars to the state’s neediest students. But, in 2019, state Auditor Elaine Howle confirmed what critics had been saying for years: State and...
California’s landmark funding reform law needs to be fixed to help meet its promise of raising the achievement of underperforming student groups, conclude two recently published research studies. The co-authors of a third report, after examining recent research and interviewing...
In the broadest sense, LCFF embraced the conventional wisdom that altering the flow of money would profoundly affect educational outcomes. However, from its inception, LCFF has been awash in controversy—not over its concept, but rather its implementation. The latest attempt...
The Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, ushered in a new era of school funding in California when it was adopted in 2013. It’s regarded by many as the most significant resource equity reform the state has ever enacted. But...
Right now, school district and charter school leaders, working with parents and the community, are starting to draft their Local Control and Accountability Plans. State law requires new plans every three years and annual updates to show how they plan...
In 2013, policymakers replaced California’s convoluted education funding system with the Local Control Funding Formula, which streamlined dollars into a simplified formula. The revamped formula provides a base amount of funding for each student, plus supplemental dollars for students classified...
USC Rossier Professor of Education Policy discusses strategies for engaging local stakeholders, her experience as a researcher and how COVID-19 will impact funding for education.
It’s no secret that most school finance systems are outdated. But where can state policymakers find a blueprint for positive reform? Perhaps the best model to emulate is California’s Local Control Funding Formula. It’s still early but several studies have...
With a recession imminent and tens of millions of Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the past few weeks, state budgets are taking a beating—and schools could be in serious fiscal jeopardy. In states like Florida, where recently passed budgets...
As educators scramble to serve millions of children while schools are shut down there’s another crisis looming: the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic is going to blow substantial holes in education budgets. It’s difficult to think about dollars and...
Recent survey results show that while more California county office of education leaders are understanding and accepting of the new roles of COEs in the Statewide System of Support, the state must further build out and enhance the system to...
A recent trend in public education spending is positive for educators: revenues are on the rise as states such as Texas, Arizona and West Virginia inject new money into school districts. While many schools will receive additional resources as a...
Research shows California schools are now relying more on counselors in order to improve outcomes for students in areas such as attendance and graduation. A report released last year as part of Getting Down to Facts II—a project involving Stanford University...
Years of advocacy have resulted in better understanding of the needs of California’s foster students, translating into more funds that target gaps. School districts now report yearly on how funds earmarked for youth in care are spent, a relatively new...
A major thrust of landmark education reforms introduced during Gov. Jerry Brown’s tenure has been to emphasize local control of schools and to view the state’s primary role as providing support to districts to improve.
Sweeping reforms to the way California funds its public schools appear to be lifting student achievement, but this state may need to do and spend much more, particularly on early childhood education, if Californians hope to keep up with the...
