Governor Newsom’s Proposed K-12 Education Budget for 2020-21
The K-12 education budget is $84 billion for close to 6 million students. The funds go to over 1,000 local school districts, 1,200 charter schools and 58 county offices of education. The funding would grow by $3.8 billion for the state’s public schools and community colleges. There is a $1.2 billion increase in the LCFF (local control funding formula), $900 million for better teacher recruitment and training, $900 million augmentation for special needs kids, $300 million to improve the lowest performing schools, $300 million for new innovative “community schools” and $70 million to improve school nutrition.
Proposition 98 school funding has increased from $47 billion in 2011-12 to $84 billion in proposed year 20-21 funding. K-12 funding per pupil will be $12,600 in proposed 20-21 and total school funding will be $17,964 per pupil. The state also paid down unfunded retirement liabilities of schools by $3.15 billion over two years from 2019-20 through 2020-21. It is important to note, as the LAO has, that K-12 education receives additional support beyond Prop 98 designated General Fund and local property tax revenues; they also receive federal funds, lottery funds and other local funds. The Prop 98 designated funds comprise about 80% of schools’ budgets.
The state’s LCFF funds have grown from $46 billion in 14-15 to $64 billion proposed in 20-21. The state proposes reporting and transparency readily accessible statewide to the public of the actions and expenditures of local school boards to improve student academic performance, particularly for the target populations. The 2019 Dashboard shows that the state’s achievement gaps are narrowing for Latino, African American and low income students. For example African-American students made the largest gains in high school graduation rates.
Poor student achievement is linked to poorly prepared and poor performing teachers, who are particularly concentrated in schools with high African American enrollment. The budget proposes $900 million for better recruitment and development in special education, math and science, in inner city and rural communities. $350 million in competitive grants for better training in STEM, special education, mental health and ESL. $193 million for workforce shortages in the above priorities. $175 million for preparing and retaining teachers in the high need subject areas and high need communities, $100 million to provide $20,000 stipends to teachers who complete 4 years in high need subjects in high need schools.
Special Education receives $1.3 billion in federal funding and an additional $4 billion in state funds, including a $645 million augmentation in last year’s budget. Continuation of the augmentation is contingent on reforms to the funding formula and an improved accountability system to assure much better educational outcomes for Special Ed students. In addition, $250 million is available based on the numbers of special ed children ages 3-5 actually being served by the school district.
Addressing the achievement gap. The proposed budget says the state will help LEAs reduce the achievement gap; there is no new funding and no details as to how this will be achieved.
Community schools will receive one time $300 million. What are community schools? Integrated and coordinated student wrap around services, collaborative leadership, increased family and community engagement and extended learning time and expanded learning; this sounds a lot to me like the KIPP charter school model being applied to district schools.
Opportunity grants totaling $300 million will be available for the state’s lowest performing schools (333 school districts, including 4 with negative progress over multiple years) to expand educational leadership training, provide expert assistance to improve school performance, improve the review process, and evaluate their continuous improvement efforts.
School nutrition – well nourished children come to school more often and do better in the classroom; state law requires one nutritionally balanced meal for each income eligible child. The federal government provides $2.6 billion and the state $173 million to pay for school meals for children with family incomes of less than 185% of the federal poverty level. The proposed budget will increase the state contribution by $70 million.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 1/17/20