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In an audit last fall of three districts’ spending, State Auditor Elaine Howle called on the State Board of Education and the Legislature to hold districts more accountable for how they spend money they receive from the Local Control Funding Formula.
In the state budget that he presented this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom included two proposals that respond to the audit, setting the stage for negotiations with legislators who have introduced bills that mirror two of Howle’s key recommendations.
The audit of San Diego Unified, Clovis Unified and Oakland Unified found that it was often impossible to track the spending for English learners, foster and homeless youth and low-income children. Districts receive extra money under the funding formula for these children, based on their proportions of enrollment, and in return are required to provide them with improved and increased services and programs. Along with a lack of transparency, the audit said that some expenditures appeared to be misspent on all students without clearly benefiting the targeted student groups.
The audit also called for an end of a practice that student advocacy groups have criticized for years and that State Board of Education and county offices of education, which review districts’ compliance with the funding formula, have permitted. Districts that haven’t spent money for the high-priority groups at the end of the year can roll the money into their general fund and use it however they want, including rising pension and health care costs and teacher raises.
Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, who had requested Howle’s audit, called this a perverse incentive to hold on to money intended for high-priority students. She and Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, have sponsored Assembly Bill 1835, which would prohibit the practice.
Howle’s recommendations would require changes to the funding formula law and to the requirements that the state board sets for districts when they write their annual Local Control and Accountability Plan, or LCAP, documenting spending and academic priorities.
In his K-12 budget summary, Newsom does not explicitly refer to the state audit or the bill, but in the section on “fiscal transparency” (see pages 6-7), he said his administration will explore ways to strengthen accountability for spending money for high-priority students, “particularly when actions described in an LCAP are not implemented as planned.” Department of Finance officials confirmed that was a reference to the carry-over practice.
At its meeting this month, the state board substantially revised instructions and the format of the LCAP that address many of the criticisms in the state audit and from others who had called for tighter accountability. The new rules should make the LCAP more readable, shorter and better organized. Each district’s LCAP will include Excel tables that bring together in one place the actions and expenditures for the student groups, enabling parents to total the expenditures and see what was left over from the previous year.
Newsom is proposing to spend $600,000 next year to create an “LCAP portal” where people would find every district’s LCAP and spending from every school as reported in the annual School Accountability Report Cards. The portal would enable legislators and the public to see how statewide funds from the Local Control Funding Formula are being used, the budget summary said.
Although the details haven’t been worked out, Newsom’s idea may not go as far as Howle recommended and Weber and Quirk are proposing in a second bill, AB 1834. They want to create codes that would track all of the expenditures for the targeted groups. Former Gov. Jerry Brown and the Department of Finance opposed this concept when Weber proposed it three years ago, and she dropped the bill. They argued that standardizing expenses could lead the Legislature to start mandating how districts spend their money, undermining local control.
But some form of standard categories are critical for an understanding of statewide efforts and best practices, said Rob Manwaring, a senior fiscal and policy adviser for Children Now, a national research and advocacy organization based in Oakland. It and Education Trust-West, a research and advocacy organization also based in Oakland, are co-sponsors of the two bills.
In their LCAPs, districts may identify what they’re doing to increase graduation rates by referring to programs like AVID or agencies tutoring foster youths that searches won’t catch or understand. “The challenge will be how to categorize spending in a way that makes sense statewide,” he said.
Weber and the Education Trust-West will serve on a work group on spending accountability that State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has created. What should be reported in the LCAP portal could be an issue it considers.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
A bill to mandate use of the method will not advance in the Legislature this year in the face of teachers union opposition.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before.
The move puts the fate of AB 2222 in question, but supporters insist that there is room to negotiate changes that can help tackle the state’s literacy crisis.
Comments (6)
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Alia coleman 4 years ago4 years ago
From a simple low-income single parent, thank you. Your article was clear and to the point, well-sourced, it gave me a much better understanding of what is going on so I can look into my district’s spending.
Todd Collins 4 years ago4 years ago
Rather than be accountable for spending, districts should be accountable for results. Right now we are still shoveling huge amounts of money in to systems without tools to measure and manage performance. We just measure and track the inputs, not the outputs. That's part of what the LCAP is for, but that's still an impenetrable mess. Hold districts (local superintendents and boards) accountable for improved results. If they don't deliver, … Read More
Rather than be accountable for spending, districts should be accountable for results. Right now we are still shoveling huge amounts of money in to systems without tools to measure and manage performance. We just measure and track the inputs, not the outputs. That’s part of what the LCAP is for, but that’s still an impenetrable mess.
Hold districts (local superintendents and boards) accountable for improved results. If they don’t deliver, after years of support and trying, give someone else a chance. Kids don’t need “spending” – they need an education.
SD Parent 4 years ago4 years ago
Maybe the governor and Legislature should talk to the State Board of Education (SBE). Last week the CDE did a summary presentation on the new LCAP template that was recently approved by the SBE. The presenters specifically stated that the new LCAP template did not require the reporting of how LCFF supplemental and concentration grant funding is used, that now "all funds are considered LCFF," and that LEAs need only show that they provide … Read More
Maybe the governor and Legislature should talk to the State Board of Education (SBE). Last week the CDE did a summary presentation on the new LCAP template that was recently approved by the SBE. The presenters specifically stated that the new LCAP template did not require the reporting of how LCFF supplemental and concentration grant funding is used, that now “all funds are considered LCFF,” and that LEAs need only show that they provide additional services to the low income, English learner, and foster youth students. So much for providing transparency and accountability for those students …
Mary Johnson,Parent-U-Turn 4 years ago4 years ago
If the Governor doesn't identify black students openly in any rewrite of LCfFF, black students will continue to lag behind in every education area. Our black students are being outscored on standardized testing by English learners yet there is no extra money or resource targeted to black students like English learners, foster care and homeless. Sacramento politicians have not made black students a priority. You can't have equity if one civil right is being … Read More
If the Governor doesn’t identify black students openly in any rewrite of LCfFF, black students will continue to lag behind in every education area. Our black students are being outscored on standardized testing by English learners yet there is no extra money or resource targeted to black students like English learners, foster care and homeless. Sacramento politicians have not made black students a priority. You can’t have equity if one civil right is being violated. The ESSA is a joke because black students fall in the crack every day; they are a forgotten sub-group.
Paul Muench 4 years ago4 years ago
I assume that teachers will end up receiving most of the additional funding, it’s just a matter of which ones. Have any districts paid teachers more to keep teaching in high needs schools? Have districts shrunk class sizes in high needs schools? Seems like we’ve had the time to see how some of these policies are playing out.
Replies
jskdn 4 years ago4 years ago
What kind of discretion do districts have to pay more to teachers in high need schools and/or teachers who show particular success with the targeted population, per their contracts with teachers unions? Can districts go outside the step and column salary provisions in such contracts?