California
School Funding System Inequitable, Inadequate and Incomprehensible According
to a year-long series of articles, "Paying
for Schools," in The Sacramento
Bee newspaper, the State of California's system for funding its nearly 1,000
school districts -- which educates over 6 million students -- is a morass of over
100 complicated funding streams that confuse even funding experts and, ultimately,
deliver insufficient resources to many schools while providing irrational funding
perks to some.
Annual state K-12 funding in California
consists of "basic" allocations of $29 billion, "categorical"
funding of almost $12 billion -- distributed according
to about 100 formulas -- and "state mandate" funding
of $200 million, according to the series. This large
funding system, however, is not based on the actual
costs of providing an educational opportunity to students
and has not been linked to the state's
student learning standards.
Instead, The Bee found, the number of funding
streams has grown over many years and some are based on local circumstances or
decisions made in the1970s or 1980s that are no longer relevant for education
funding. More importantly, the system results in large disparities and leaves
many schools with inadequate funding. The Bee provides some specific examples
and their origins in certain inequitable
state funding provisions. Quality Education Commission Despite
continuing revenue shortfalls, the future holds potential good news for California
school funding because the State has established the California
Quality Education Commission to develop a Quality Education Model (QEM) for
pre-K through grade 12. The Commission, final members of which are now being appointed
by the new governor, is charged with determining the "educational components,
educational resources, and corresponding costs" necessary "so that the vast majority
of pupils can meet [state] academic performance standards." The Commission is
expected to include parents, educators, and the public in the design of the QEM,
and issue a report in about 12 months. The Commission is modeled after a Quality
Education Commission that designed Oregon's Quality
Education Model. Williams v. State Also on the horizon
of school funding in California is the Williams
v. State lawsuit, scheduled to go to trial in 2004. The Williams
plaintiffs are asking the State Superior Court to require the state to ensure
that certain educational basics, such as qualified teachers, safe facilities,
and textbooks, are provided in all schools. Prepared by Molly
A. Hunter, December 12, 2003
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