Equal Funding in California

Technology has become a large part of the school system in America. The implementation of technology has exponentially gotten greater in the past few years. There is not really an ideal way to limit the use of technology in the American educational system. In California, it is pretty obvious that some schools are given more funding than others by the state of California. In fact, there are more schools that spend less than the average about of money spent on a student per year by school districts than there are that spend more than the average. (Freedberg, 2011)

(Freedberg, 2011) (Picture showing that more schools spend less that the average money spent per student per year compared to schools that spend more than the average)

This leads to some school districts having more technology available to their students than the minimum amount that is required to benefit their students. This can lead to the misuse of technology in the classroom. On the contrary, this also means that some schools don't have enough funding to pay for the minimum amount of technology required to make a positive impact on their students’ performance. In California, K-12 schools spend an average of $8,452 to educate each student. This includes funding from local, state, and federal sources, and one-time stimulus funds. But come schools spend a large amount more than this average and others spend a large amount less. For example, the Pacific Union School District spent about $60,000 per student. (Freedberg and Doig, 2011) One would imagine that equalizing the funding that each California school districts received would be the most effective solution to make California students perform much better overall. Also, one might think that by doing so, the school districts who have more technology that they are in need of won’t have unnecessary technology anymore and the school the districts that don't have the minimum amount of technology needed to perform better will have the funds necessary to attain it. In an attempt to equalize the amount of money given to each school district, there was a policy passed in California in 2013 called the Local Control Funding Formula. This formula replaced the spending system that had been in place for the past 40 years in K-12 schools. The new funding formula provided a, “uniform base grant for each school district and charter school per unit of average daily attendance (ADA), based on the grade span of the pupils, i.e. kindergarten through grade 3 (K–3), grades 4–6, grades 7–8 and grades 9–12.” (Local Control Funding Formula (CA Dept. of Education) 2016) But, this funding formula did was not successful because it did not necessarily distribute funding evenly, it called for money to be distributed to the school districts of California. This means that the schools that received more funding than they necessarily needed for their students to perform at their highest ability were still being given more than they needed. Another issue of the Local Control Funding Formula is that even schools did receive more funding there was no set of regulations on how the schools were allowed to spend the extra money. So, many schools spent the money in way in which did not necessarily make their students perform better. A professor from UC Berkeley and author stated in his book that, “Money may be necessary for school improvement, but it doesn’t guarantee that improvement takes place.” (Grubb, 2011) This quote is basically saying that if money is spent in the wrong way, then there won’t be any improvement in student performance. One way that LCFF could result in the misuse of extra funding is if schools districts spent the money on technology that was unnecessary or poorly used. An example of this is technology being used to make teachers and administrators jobs easier instead of improving the quality of education.

     One major flaw of the funding policy is that it called for more funding to each school district instead of just giving less to the schools that did not need more funding and more to the schools that needed more funding due to several factors. The policy required an extra $58 billion dollars to be distributed amongst California schools. These factors could include more English learning students than other schools, a high amount of students per classroom, etc. For example a report that published by the Public Policy Institute of California in 2016 stated that, “More than half are economically disadvantaged and almost a quarter are not native English speakers, compared with less than one in 10 nationwide,” when talking about the K-12 student population of California. (ppic.org 2016) Another article published by EdSource also confirmed that, “One in five students – 1.2 million – are classified as English learners, and almost half – close to 3 million students – are from sufficiently low-income backgrounds to qualify for free- or reduced-priced meals.” (Freedberg 2013) So, it is very prevalent that there is a need for extra funding for these students that go to these schools, but there is a huge problem. The state of California did not necessarily have access to the money that it needed to provide all the funding that the funding policy called for due to the recession and several other factors.. The graphs below shows that only 52 percent of the funding that the Local Control Funding Formula called for was distributed to California school districts. 

 Local Control Funding Formula (CA Dept of Education) (These bar graphs show that even in 2016 all of the money required to fund LCFF is still no distributed)

The schools that needed the extra funding were not necessarily given it because, “...achievement gaps between socioeconomic and demographic groups did not close. Results from the first round of Smarter Balanced testing indicate that these gaps persist. In fact, gaps for English Learner and economically disadvantaged students widened.” (ppic.org 2016) The figure shown below also confirms the fact that the achievement gap between low income and high income students is still very large. These graphs were released in a report published by the Legislative Analyst Office of California in February 2016 that addressed the budget for the 2016-17 school year.

(Taylor, 2016) (These graphs show that in 2016, when the graphs were released, there is still a large improvement gap between low income and high-income students)

Based on multiple sources, it is clear that the Local Control Funding Formula has not been successful in bridging the gap between the performance of students from high-income areas and low income areas. This is a clear indication of the result of one, or both, of two things, the schools that needed extra money due to several factors were not given it or the money given to these schools was not spent in such a way so it can benefit the performance of their students.

            The Local Control Funding Formula called for administrative changes and changes in how school districts operate. For example a policy brief released by an organization called the California Collaborative on District reform regarding the Local Control Funding Formula stated that, “changes introduced by LCFF alter the conditions under which educators, administrators, and community leaders approach their roles in the K–12 education system. Consequently, leaders at all levels may currently lack the capacity—both the knowledge and skills and the resources—that they need to fulfill the potential to improve educational quality that LCFF offers.” (Knudson, 2014) This leads to a lot of confusion in the way educators believe they need to teach and what they need to teach. This creates a poor educational environment for the students. These significant changes can lead to schools that had students performing well with not a lot of funding compared to other schools now not being as successful as they were. For example, “The Capistrano Unified School District spent much less than the San Bernardino City Unified School District. Yet its API score was 862, compared with San Bernardino’s 699.” (Freedberg and Doig, 2011) The low API score of the San Bernardino City Unified School District is a result of many curriculum and administrative changes that occurred due to the Local Control Funding Formula. So, schools that were doing well while spending a lot of money were also hurt due to the Local Control Funding Formula as well. This is a perfect example of Norton Grubbs quote that stated, “Money may be necessary for school improvement, but it doesn’t guarantee that improvement takes place.” (Grubb, 2011) The money given to schools by the Local Control Funding Formula was spent in ways in which did not benefit the performance of students.

            One might say that if schools spend the extra funding there were given due to the Local Control Funding Formula wisely and effectively such as on technology that helped improve students performance and made learning easier for students that are English learners. An article published by EDCentral.org based on a study conducted in 2014 said that, “There is a strong positive relationship between school spending and positive student outcomes for low income districts,” and that “low-income schools been funded at levels 20 percent higher than they were over the period studied, it would have improved the graduation rate of students in low-income schools by 23 percentage points–enough to erase the high-school completion gap between the poor and the non-poor.” (Libassi, 2014) But there has also been a lot of research done that concludes that the implementation of technology in the classroom environment in not necessarily beneficial to students performance. A report published by the National Education Policy Center on personalized instruction stated that, “While technologies are improving at a rapid rate, the improvements are not translating into rapid improvements for student outcomes.” (Enyedy, 2014) One controversial technological device that has raised many debates is the use of tablets in classrooms. The use of tablets in the classroom environment can have many positive effects such as students not having to carry big and textbooks. Another benefit is that schools can save money on buying textbooks because tablets and EBooks are cheaper. But students can also get easily distracted with tablets in the classroom and start doing non school related things on their tablets instead. One example of how the use of tablets, in this case iPads, did not work was in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The Los Angeles Unified School District is a school district that was given extra money as a result of LCFF. It decided to spent a large chunk of this extra money on technology. The school district spent about $1.3 billion dollars to provide every student with an iPad. On paper the collaboration with Pearson platform and Apple iPads looks flawless. But after all the money was spend many problems arose. For example and article published by wire.com in 2015 about the topic stated that, “crippling technical issues with the Pearson platform and incomplete curriculum that made it nearly impossible for teachers to teach.” (Lapowsky, 2015) Since the article was published in 2015 the funding for the iPads was clearly made available by the Local Control Funding Formula. This is also an example of a case in which when money given to a school district with low-income students is not used in an effective manner. More specifically, this is an example of when a school district used the money given to them by LCFF on technology that did not improve the performance its students. Not only did the technology not improve the student’s performance it led to teaching being almost impossible with the implementation of technology. This also results in the achievement gap between low-income and high-income students not being closed since the Los Angeles Unified School District has many schools located in low-income areas.

            The Local Control Funding Formula seemed like a very good funding policy to equalize the funding given to different types of California school districts. But after the policy was implemented it became obvious that it there were many flaws in the funding policy. First of all, instead of distributing money evenly between school districts the policy called for more money to be given to each school district. This meant that instead of giving less money to school districts that received more money than they needed and giving more to the school districts that needed it, the policy called for more money. The policy called for an extra $59 billion dollars to be distributed amongst school by the State of California. (Local Control Funding Formula Overview, 2016) California did not have the resources available to give all the school districts they money that the policy called for. This is a result of the recession and the fact that the government of California is in debt. This all lead to only about only 52 percent of the money that the funding policy called for being distributed to California school districts. Another reason why the Local Control Funding Formula did not work was the fact that it made significant changes in which school districts were ran. A lot of the teacher and administrators lacked the skills and knowledge that the funding policy required them to have. This lead to poor teaching in the classrooms. The funding policy also didn’t clearly state what the schools could spend the money they received from the policy on. This meant that some school districts did not spend the money in a way that would benefit the performance of their students. One way that the schools could spend money in an ineffective way is by spending it on ineffective technology. Many schools spend money on technology so it could make the lives of teachers and administrators easier, not so it could benefit the performance of their students. The incident that happened with the attempted implementation of iPads by the Los Angeles Unified School district is a perfect example of how extra funding provided by LCFF was misused. The spending on technology to make teachers and administrators lives easier could a result of the teachers need more time to focus on things other than teaching. These other things could be tasks and planning that they need to do due to the fact that they have more responsibilities due to the change in roles that LCFF introduced to them. One way to make LCFF more successful and eliminate unsuccessful spending would to eliminate the extra roles that teachers and administrators have so they don’t feel pressured and spend money on technology that makes their lives easier. This could lead to money being spent on technology that is beneficial to the performance of students. This would also bridge the achievement gap between students from low-income and high-income areas. Another way to make LCFF successful would to have some sort of external evaluation done on schools and a system to judge how much money each school needs. They distributing funds based on this evaluation. Although, LCFF seemed like a flawless plan on paper there are clearly many flaws in the policy and it was not successful in many ways.

     Enyedy, Noel. "Personalized Instruction." (2014): n. pag. National Education Policy Center, Nov. 2014. Web. 15 May 2016. <http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/pb-personalized-instruction.pdf>.

     Freedberg, Louis. "Reform of California’s School Finance System Likely." EdSource. Ed, 04 June 2013. Web. 15 May 2016. <http://edsource.org/2013/governor-brown-eyes-yet-another-education-victory/32907>.

     Freedberg, Louis, and Stephen Doig. "Spending Far from Equal among State's School Districts, Analysis Finds." California Watch. Center for Investigative Funding, 02 June 2011. Web. 14 May 2016.

     Grubb, W. Norton. The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 20011. Web.

     Knudson, Joel. "Implementing LCFF: Building Capacity to Realize the Promises of California’s New Funding System." (n.d.): n. pag. California Collaborative on District Reform, Nov. 2014. Web. 15 May 2016. <http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED553417.pdf>.

     "K-12 Education-California's Future." Ppic.org. Public Policy Institute of California, Jan. 2016. Web. 14 May 2016. <http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_116LHR.pdf>.

     Lapowsky, Issie. "What Schools Must Learn From LA’s IPad Debacle." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 08 May 2015. Web. 15 May 2016. <http://www.wired.com/2015/05/los-angeles-edtech/>.

     Libassi, CJ. "The Untold Story of School Finance Reforms in the United States - EdCentral." EdCentral. N.p., 05 June 2014. Web. 15 May 2016. <http://www.edcentral.org/untold-story-school finance-reforms-united-states/>.

     "Local Control Funding Formula Overview." - Local Control Funding Formula (CA Dept of Education). California Department of Education, 04 Apr. 2016. Web. 15 May 2016 <http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/lc/lcffoverview.asp>.

     Taylor, Mac. "The 2016-17 Budget: Proposition 98 Education Analysis." Legislative Analyst Office, Feb. 2016. Web. 15 May 2016. <http://www.lao.ca.gov/Reports/2016/3355/prop-98 analysis-021816.pdf>.

     "Tablets vs. Textbooks - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., 09 Apr. 2014. Web. 15 May 2016. <http://tablets-textbooks.procon.org/#background>.