TOPIC

Educational governance & policy

Educational governance & leadership

California made a fundamental change its approach to education in 2013, bringing greater local discretion over local decision making in public education. These changes were intended to support both equity and system improvement in California’s schools.

Districts are primarily accountable for school improvement and receive assistance from the Statewide System of Support. As part of this System of Support, county offices of education are responsible for (1) annually approving their districts’ Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs), in which districts outline their intended activities and resource allocation strategies to meet the eight state priorities delineated in the LCFF legislation; and (2) providing direct assistance when districts fail to meet expectations in priority areas.

The 2013 Local Control Funding Formula also shifted the way California governs and funds its schools, giving greater authority over resources to locally elected school boards and districts, and emphasizing the importance of local stakeholder engagement. 

PACE research in this area is designed support the continued development of these systems, and strengthen educational governance at all levels. 

Recent Topic Publications
Evidence from California
Charter schools enroll a growing share of public school students, leading to concerns about the financial implications of charter schools for traditional public schools. Using detailed expenditure data for school districts in California, this paper…
Community engagement remains one of the most challenging expectations of California’s Local Control  Funding Formula, so much so that state leaders have funded an initiative to support regional networks focused on engagement.…
In this brief, we update previous research on the implementation of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) with the results from a 2019 poll of California voters. Results show that while public awareness of the LCFF has increased, more…
How Do Different High School Assessments Measure Up?
The Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC), implemented in California in 2014–15 as part of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, is designed to evaluate students’ levels of college and career readiness. Student scores on the…