Toward a Grand Vision: Early Implementation of California's Local Control Funding Formula

California has taken the first steps down an historic path that fundamentally alters how its public schools are financed, education decisions are made, and traditionally underserved students' needs are met. The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), passed with bipartisan legislative support and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on July 1, 2013, represents the most comprehensive transformation of California's school funding system in 40 years. The LCFF significantly loosens the reins of state control over education. It all but eliminates categorical funding streams, subsituting a base of funding for all distraicts and adding dollars for low-income students, English language learners, and foster youth. The new system empowers school districts to determine how to allocate their dollars to best meet the needs of their students. Finally, by requiring all districts to engage parents and other education stakeholders in decisions about how to spend newly flexible funds, the LCFF represents a remarkable experiment in local democracy

Sharing the Wealth:National Board Certified Teachers and the Students Who Need Them Most

It is a commonly understood problem in education that many highly qualified teachers tend to gravitate toward higher performing schools, including schools with lower minority enrollments and lower incidence of poverty. This article explores the distribution of a subset of teachers, namely, those who are National Board Certified. To what extent do these teachers' assignment choices mirror the pattern of their non-Board Certified colleagues and to what extent are they different? Part of a larger study of Board Certified Teachers in lower performing schools, the article examines the distribution of NBCTs in the six states with the largest number of them'California, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. The research finds that, with the exception of California, Board Certified Teachers are not equitably distributed across schools that serve different populations of students. In five of the six states examined, poor, minority, and lower performing students are far less likely to benefit from the teaching of an NBCT than are their more affluent, majority, higher performing peers. The article explores some possible explanations for the California distribution pattern as well as the kinds of incentives provided across the states for teachers to seek Board Certification and for those who earn it. The authors conclude with a rationale and a set of policy suggestions for realigning the distribution of NBCTs

Educational policy analysis archives

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/usf_EPAA/1227/thumbnail.jp

Educational policy analysis archives

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/usf_EPAA/1153/thumbnail.jp

Developing a Comprehensive Data System to Further Continuous Improvement in California

Reports on a session of the PACE conference held on February 1, 2019, that brought together experts to discuss a set of essential questions California must consider as it develops a new coordinated data system.Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal for 2019–2020 includes $10 million to develop a statewide longitudinal data system—including early education, K–12, and higher education institutions as well as health and human services agencies— to better track student outcomes and improve alignment of the education system to workforce needs. California’s lack of a coherent education database serves as a substantial barrier to fulfilling the state’s continuous improvement policy goal and ensuring all students have access to robust learning opportunities to enable them to be successful in school and beyond. This brief reports on a session of the PACE conference held on February 1, 2019, that brought together experts to discuss a set of essential questions California must consider as it develops a new coordinated data system.This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grant MRP-19-600774