Two dozen views on LCFF: Is California's funding law working and what could improve it?

To what extent is the LCFF meeting expectations?

The LCFF has been a good model for promoting equity by providing additional funding for disadvantaged students, particularly those who are from low-income families, English learners and foster youths. It is recognized that students that live in poverty do not have the same resources that more affluent students may have. The LCFF addresses this resource discrepancy and helps to provide a more equal playing field. Additional dollars help support opportunity gaps that exist in our communities, at the same time, providing targeted academic support.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

I would make changes to the length and amount of information included in the LCAP. The current format is cumbersome and always changing. The document has departed from its original intent as a strategic planning document to help cultivate transparency in improvement efforts and has become a bulky, bureaucratic document and process. We must urge the Legislature to include language in the Budget Trailer Bill requiring CDE (the state Department of Education), in consultation with SBE (the State Board of Education), to recommend changes to the Education Code that will allow the average length of LCAPs to be drastically reduced.

Additionally, in the area of the LCFF, over the course of the last two years, it has been helpful for the Legislature to make adjustments to the funding formula concerning attendance. Until school districts return to pre-pandemic levels of average daily attendance, we would like to see the LCFF continue to adjust for lower student average daily attendance percentages.

Sara Noguchi, Ed.D., became the 17th superintendent of Modesto City Schools in June 2018. Passionate about equity and social justice, she leads the Modesto City Schools’ team of nearly 5,000 employees with the motto “Every Student Matters, Every Moment Counts.”

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF recognizes a simple truth hidden in plain sight: Public schools are about people. Systems tend to drift from this truth over time, as programs aggregate, rules and regulations accumulate and structures calcify. LCFF was a necessary reset. Instead of top-down directives and categoricals, LCFF centers on constructive collaboration within the school community itself — plans co-created by families with school professionals, powered by resources distributed based on equity and fairness.

This vision is more important now than ever. Across the country, we see combat, not collaboration. States enacting top-down directives hyper-charged by culture wars — micromanaging what books librarians may shelve, what words teachers may utter and what bathrooms students may use. “Parental rights” stripped down to the right of a handful of parents to sue their schools — not true empowerment where all parents have a seat at the decision-making table, as LCFF envisions.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

But to truly honor LCFF’s vision, it’s just as important that we grapple with its shortcomings as we celebrate its successes. Progress on closing opportunity and consequent achievement gaps, especially for Black and brown students, has been unacceptably slow — that’s why the governor is proposing to stake all $80-plus billion in LCFF funding, in addition to $300 million in new funding, so all schools are accountable for closing persistent gaps. And the vision of true parent empowerment remains unrealized, prompting the governor to advance a six-fold increase in funding for community engagement last year.

Let’s dedicate the next 10 years to delivering on LCFF’s values and vision.

Ben Chida is chief deputy cabinet secretary and senior adviser to Gov. Newsom for cradle to career education.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF was a landmark policy that transformed California’s public education funding landscape. It institutionalized a structure founded upon equity and collective accountability by redistributing funding based on targeted student groups and requiring districts to engage students, families and communities in their budgeting and planning process. While this was a pivotal equity gain, the implementation has yet to fully realize its potential to advance racial equity for California students. The lack of school site-level transparency and accountability, plus inconsistency in authentic community engagement, have hindered districts and schools from fully innovating local policies and practices to better serve the student groups LCFF aims to impact. Furthermore, no system is in place to target resources to California’s lowest-performing student groups with the greatest need for support: Black and American Indian/Alaska Native students.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

LCFF can deepen equity through strategies from models like the student equity needs index (SENI) in Los Angeles Unified. The SENI was co-developed with the district and community to comprehensively understand where there is the greatest student need to ensure investments reach schools equitably. Moreover, the SENI fosters greater transparency and accountability through its school-level reporting requirements and is an equity-centered guide that informs broader district decisions (e.g. staffing priorities). Using this type of approach at the state level can strengthen transparency, accountability and collaborative decision-making with communities to support a system of continuous improvement to close the long-standing opportunity gaps, fulfill the promise of equity and ensure all students thrive.

Vickie Ramos Harris serves as the director of educational equity for Catalyst California, where she leads policy advocacy across the birth-to-12th-grade system to advance racial equity and economic justice.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF brought many improvements to K-12 school finance. Increased flexibility and more local involvement via the LCAP process are two noteworthy shifts. To me, the most important has been the weighted funding formula and the emphasis on funding student need.

Simply put, California’s school finance system is more equitable. LCFF enabled a decade of state revenue growth to translate into even greater increases for the state’s highest-need districts: While spending has gone up across the board, it has gone up by thousands of dollars more per student in the highest-need districts. A growing body of research is finding this led to positive impacts, including improved academic outcomes.

So, is LCFF meeting my hopes and expectations? In some ways, yes, but the answer is complicated: While there have been improvements, it’s clear more work is needed. Racial and income gaps remain large and persistent, many schools struggle with costs and staffing, and the pandemic brought new challenges.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

One change I would suggest: Increase transparency around supplemental and concentration funds for high-need students. We don’t know the extent to which they reach the students and schools that generate them. Our research suggests incomplete targeting and large differences across districts, but the data we can examine are limited.

Amid projected revenue shortfalls, maximizing the equity and efficiency of funding becomes more important. If our goal is to promote more equitable outcomes — and not just district-level funding — then understanding how these dollars flow to high-need students is crucial to maximizing LCFF’s impact.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

A decade out, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) was and remains a major achievement having equalized general-purpose funding and streamlined many categorical funding sources after decades of failed attempts. LCFF is meeting expectations, but not aspirations, and is at serious risk of returning to a Balkanized, state-controlled system.

Several key sources (special education, facilities, etc.) were left out. New programs undermine local control (e.g., Expanded Learning Opportunities). Others have become even less equitable (e.g., Home-to-School Transportation). All funding sources should be folded into the LCFF and equalized. Concentration funding should be retargeted based on student academic achievement data with spending targeted to the school level rather than spread districtwide. Charter schools should be funded based on their own student demographics and not subject to the current artificial cap on their concentration funding.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

The Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) process is not working. The mandatory “state priorities” are too numerous for strategic planning purposes, and most are not central to improving instruction. The mandatory plan template is too long, convoluted, and indecipherable— the planning equivalent of a Winchester Mystery House. The dashboard excludes the most important factors, including failing to gauge growth in students’ academic achievement. Most troubling, the collective bargaining process with school labor unions, where most real budget decisions are made, occurs behind closed doors, in secret, and makes a farce of the LCAP process. The bargaining process should be merged with a streamlined LCAP, and both should be conducted with complete transparency and public involvement throughout.

Eric Premack is the executive director of the Charter Schools Development Center, which provides leadership development, advocacy and technical assistance on charter school issues.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF has set a national model for equitable school finance laws. California’s investment intended for English learners, students in low-income families and students in foster care grew from around $1.5 billion prior to LCFF’s passage to over $13 billion today (through supplemental and concentration grants). However, gaps haven’t closed as hoped during the LCFF era despite this historic law, and funding has not sufficiently reached the targeted students; in fact, one study found that about a third of districts spend more LCFF funding at low-poverty schools than at high-poverty schools.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

There are three primary reasons why LCFF funding has not sufficiently reached the targeted students: (1) loose state accountability regulations, (2) a lack of transparency and (3) district decisions to place less experienced teachers in high-need schools, as well as using supplemental and concentration grants across the district instead of for a higher level of services to targeted students. Moreover, the LCAP was meant to be a brief strategic document that highlights how the district will close gaps for underserved students.  It’s instead become compliance-focused, similar to the categorical reporting that LCFF sought to replace. Reforms are needed, including Gov. Newsom’s proposed LCAP reforms which would:

• Require LCAPs to address achievement gaps and adopt actions targeting the lowest-performing students.
• Require districts to track and report where the LCFF dollars are spent and whether the funding is providing a higher level of service for the targeted students.
• Streamline the planning process so communities, parents and students can actually understand how the district is spending the funding.

Finally, Black students, as a targeted group, were left out of LCFF.  That needs to be corrected.

Ted Lempert, a former state assemblymember and founding CEO of EdVoice, is the president of Children Now, a research and policy organization that is focused on transforming children’s advocacy and coordinates The Children’s Movement of California.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

The implementation of LCFF was a significant step toward more equitable funding for our state’s public school students. To disrupt an education system that has historically under-resourced the most vulnerable students — including students of color and those living in poverty — we must invest more resources in those students’ learning. LCFF is helping make that happen in our state. In addition to student programming, with the increase in funding from LCFF, Aspire has increased salaries to help attract and retain teachers, but given the rising cost of living, inflation and other economic factors, we constantly worry about how to do more to support our educators and staff.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

California is one of just six states that funds its schools not based on enrollment, but rather on average daily attendance (ADA), which unfairly penalizes students by withholding funds for factors outside of their control. At Aspire, we consistently prioritize attendance, regardless of the funding tied to it, but the reality is that students may be absent due to various reasons such as chronic illness or caring for family members. Penalizing students for absences only worsens the situation because it is precisely those who struggle to attend school consistently who need more support and resources for their education. LCFF can better serve our state’s most vulnerable students by linking funding to a school’s enrollment, rather than its ADA, creating more predictable funding over the course of the year that schools can direct to meet the needs of all students.

Mala Batra joined Aspire in 2011 and has managed various functions including strategy, growth, and operations — overseeing the launch of eight new Aspire schools, designing the organization’s strategic planning process, and leading Aspire’s expansion into Memphis. She served as Aspire’s chief of staff for three years and became CEO in 2019 after serving a year as interim CEO.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

The Local Control Funding Formula is an inspired concept that may have lost its way.

Given the great needs and underperforming proficiencies of low-income and disadvantaged populations, it became embarrassingly obvious that California’s school finance system should be weighted to support their schooling.

The Legislature rose to Gov. Brown’s challenge to overhaul school finance and to reduce the hodgepodge of financial strings and programmatic requirements.

Unfortunately, this commitment to support the highest-needs students has been undermined by the distributional details in the legislation. The increment of LCFF funds that are generated by schools with the most high-needs students do not necessarily return to those schools to benefit those same students.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

LCFF allotments are distributed to districts, not to the impacted schools and can be spent on districtwide priorities and programs — or even sent to schools without high-needs students.

A study several years ago by Edunomics Lab found that 12 of the 14 (large and medium) districts they studied passed along a smaller share of formula-generated dollars to the schools with the highest-needs students than those schools generated. Five of those districts spent less per student on their highest-needs schools on average than on the rest of their schools.

The distribution of the LCFF increment based on low-income and disadvantaged students should be targeted to individual schools that are most impacted by poverty and student hardship. A good start would be legislation ordering a robust pilot project with a significant student population, and a rigorous study of this approach.

Loren Kaye is president of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education, a think tank affiliated with CalChamber.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF is without a doubt a move in the right direction, yet also a clear example of the gap between California’s well-intentioned policy goals and what happens upon implementation. Take the LCAP requirement of LCFF —requiring family and community engagement. Without timely and transparent budget information, the LCAP has turned into a “check the box” exercise with questionable accountability or influence. Lack of transparency and timeliness of the district/school budget provided under LCAP hampers parents/communities from holding districts accountable. Without a clear understanding of the various funding sources and purposes, whether federal, state or local, how can parents make sure LCFF funds, in particular, but other parts of the district budget as well, are targeted effectively to meet the needs of their students?

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

LCFF sought to address the proliferation of categorical state grants while deferring to local actors who would be responsible and accountable for “continuous improvement.” Now, with recent state investments in early childhood education, mental health, community schools and extended learning — all worthwhile priorities — are we returning to categorical funding? To avoid having to legislate LCFF 2.0 while still deferring to local control and, more critically, to address equity needs, the state needs to help districts and other government agencies develop and implement shared measures for equity and effectiveness. Robust “whole child” equity indicators in education, health and children’s well-being, coupled with transparent budget information, would set the stage for continuous improvement while accounting for real differences in political priorities, civic participation and wealth disparities.

Maria Echaveste is the president and CEO of the Opportunity Institute and has built a distinguished career working as a consultant, lecturer, senior White House official, longtime community leader and corporate attorney.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

While LCFF centered equity in the funding of school districts, the state is failing to hold districts accountable for English learner outcomes.

The accountability system masks the needs of English learners. This is seen in reporting ELs by combining EL and Reclassified Fluent English Proficient (RFEP) data within the academic indicator. It is also seen in the low expectations set by the English Learner Progress Indicator (ELPI), when less than 35% of ELs do not make expected yearly growth resulting in nearly half of ELs not making yearly progress. For example, Los Angeles County, home to 22 percent of ELs in California, did not have one district identified for support based on the ELPI.

Evidence of masking the needs of English learners was further documented in our report, Searching for Equity for English Learners: A Review of the 2021-23 LCAPs. One of the most conspicuous findings was the absence of differentiated growth targets to close achievement gaps for ELs. Moreover, eighty one percent (21 out of 26 LCAPs) had ratings of “weak” or “no evidence” when it came to including desired outcomes for English learners to close gaps.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

Fortunately, the most recent Governor’s Budget Trailer bill is addressing some of the unintended consequences by mandating districts to set goals for closing gaps.

While we support aspects of local control, for 10 years we have been raising these issues. The state must take a more active role and support changes to ensure that the equity focus and original intent of LCFF uplifts and not masks the needs of English learners.

Martha Hernández is the Executive Director for Californians Together, a coalition of education, civil rights, parent/caregiver, community, and advocacy organizations that champions for full and meaningful educational access and excellence for California’s more than 1.1million English learners.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF was a huge improvement over California’s prior funding and accountability system. However, its success always hinged on local capacity: the ability of school and district leaders to make investments that advanced equity and improved student outcomes; the ability of community leaders and parents to advocate for specific changes; and the ability of of county administrators to be able to provide the kinds of support needed. However, PACE research since 2013 has shown that there is tremendous variation in this local capacity.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

With the onset of the pandemic and the many new challenges it has left in its wake, this local capacity has been further threatened. As we look toward the future, I recommend the following for state leaders:

• Protect the principle of local flexibility. District leaders report that the many new state initiatives and grant competitions have felt like a return to categoricals and have resulted in burdensome reporting and a lack of focus.
• Intentionally address barriers to school and district improvement. Serious local challenges (e.g., workforce shortages, declining enrollment, labor-management relations, politicization in public education) have threatened local leaders’ ability to implement basic services, much less enact the kind of dramatic transformations needed.
• Ensure coherence and alignment. In order to improve educational outcomes at scale, there must be effective and aligned systems at the school, district, county and states levels that center student learning, build educator and administrator capacity, and utilize feedback loops with students, families, educators, and community members for improving policies and structures at all levels of the education system.

Heather J. Hough is the executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education, which is committed to improving education policy and practice and advancing equity through evidence.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF accomplished a once-in-a-generation refresh of our public school system. It pivoted from a white-washed “Nation At Risk” approach where “all students can learn” to one explicitly focused on equity — on closing gaps and achieving justice for children, as former Gov. Brown put it, “in unequal situations.” Beyond its progressive funding, LCFF led the nation away from narrow, test-based accountability to a more holistic, multiple-measures approach and set new expectations for fiscal transparency, heightened community engagement and shared local decision-making.

Yet, LCFF imperfectly meets its ambitious promises. LCAPs, despite their cumbersome PDF-iness, vastly outperform the 600-pages of balance sheets and expense reports that otherwise explain district spending priorities. Nonetheless, as the Legislative Analyst’s Office and we have called for, it’s time LCAPs to enter the 21st century with an interactive web-based platform that provides both high-level summaries of goals, actions and spending, and click-through details down to the school level.

Meaningful local engagement across the state remains more hope than reality. Hopefully, the state’s new $100 million investment in the Community Engagement Initiative will further develop and disseminate innovative practices on quality engagement and shared decision-making.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

Still, the single biggest barrier to the equity promise of LCFF remains the overall inadequacy of school funding. Until the base grant is increased to provide all students a high-quality education, supplemental and concentration grants for high-need students will still be hijacked for across-the-board essentials. And until the supplemental grant is increased from 20% of base (an 11th-hour political compromise) to something like New Jersey’s 47-50%, or even the originally proposed 37.5%, resources for high-need students will prove insufficient to the task of closing the gap.

After 10 years, LCFF remains both an important beacon of reform and a work still very much in progress.

John Affeldt is managing attorney and director of education equity at Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

When California implemented its Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAP), it didn’t connect the dots between two important state-level efforts: the state’s admirable desire to empower districts with flexibility, and the important work it is doing to strengthen its early childhood system. That shortcoming means that the LCAP does not address a major issue impacting long-term outcomes: kindergarten readiness.

In more than two-thirds of California school districts for which data was available pre-COVID, students were making at least a year’s worth of progress every year:

What that meant is that if children were entering third grade on grade level, those districts were able to keep them on track. In other words, in most districts the TK-12 system in California was doing exactly what it was supposed to do — and was outperforming national norms. And the instructional effectiveness wasn’t just limited to wealthy school districts.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

But California third graders were in too many cases not actually on track, particularly economically disadvantaged children. And in many school districts, early childhood is a siloed or orphaned issue. LCAP could have helped districts to focus on early childhood by prompting them to plan for kindergarten or TK readiness; instead, state leaders left the issue out.

LCAP has done exactly what I expected: It has reinforced the idea that district focus should be on children ages 4 and up. Changing LCAP to help districts address the early years would help support the fundamental change in early childhood services California has been building toward.

Elliot Regenstein is a partner at Foresight Law + Policy, where his work focuses on state early childhood systems — and their interaction with K-12. He is the author of the 2021 report  “Building a Coherent P-12 Education System in California,” and the 2022 book “Education Restated: Getting Policy Right on Accountability, Teacher Pay and School Choice.”
.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

In the early years, LCFF was rightfully judged against the inequitable and complex system it replaced. It achieved simplicity by eliminating dozens of categorical grants and out-of-date funding formulas. It achieved funding equity by sending additional money to vulnerable students and districts with high concentrations of poverty. But when it comes to its defining promise of equitably improving student outcomes, it has been a failure. Even before the pandemic, it wasn’t improving results for high-need students. Much of that failure can be attributed to the lack of accountability for spending LCFF funding on services for targeted students and instead creating the LCAP, a largely useless compliance document. In recent years, with little to show for hundreds of billions in investments than pages of paper promises, policymakers have started to recreate the old categorical system with grants like community schools and voter-mandated formulas like the arts education requirement.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

Instead of taking this approach and creating a finance system that incorporates the worst of both worlds, state leaders should rethink LCFF to create an incentive-based model like House Bill 3 in Texas. Like LCFF, Texas added weights to provide more funding for vulnerable students. Unlike California, Texas leaders used census tracts rather than district boundaries to fairly target funding to schools based on actual poverty rates. Texas also used its finance system to incentivize districts to graduate students who are college-, career- and military-ready and to achieve state goals such as expanding dual immersion programs and paying their teachers more. Their model strikes an elegant balance between state-level priority setting, funding equity and simplicity, local control over programmatic choices and incentivizing school improvement that benefits high-need student populations.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF represented the promise of directing more resources and opportunities to Black/brown students, hidden within the student learning framework in high-need, high-poverty schools. I was one of hundreds of families who traveled several times to Sacramento to advocate for LCFF to be implemented with equity, to improve outcomes for historically underperforming student groups. I went to Sacramento to be seen and heard. My hope is to see school districts engage authentically and more often with Black and brown families whose children seem to receive different learning opportunities. My expectations include seeing more school leadership, staff and counselors who look like me, are culturally competent and can address nontraditional students’ needs. Finally, I hope for intentional inclusivity … nothing about us without us.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

I have seen improvement in the learning gap for many Black students in low-income communities, who represent a large portion of the foster care population. We need to shift some of the focus from “low-income” groups to “local school student category” performance. We need to take a closer look at racial sub-categories of student performance. More Black students are “underperforming” in what is deemed a “performing” school. This was the catalyst for the recent Black student rally in Sacramento. A sufficient, sustainable funding source is needed for promoting the engagement of parents in improving their children’s access to learning resources and in participating in LCAP decision-making and other budget planning processes.

Mary Lee is a Black warrior parent and an education advocate for families with special needs.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

The LCFF offered enormous relief to districts that were reeling from the effects of draconian cuts during the Great Recession. They needed the infusion of financial resources to stabilize and rebuild their programs and the authority to use them in ways that made sense for their students and communities. In this way, the LCFF offered promise. But we are witnessing an erosion of the principles that founded the LCFF with the return of restricted state funds that are tying the hands of local leaders. And, in some ways, it’s a harder path for local leaders to navigate than the old categorical model — restricted funds are now flowing through what has historically been our unrestricted allocations. LCFF dollars are coming with tangled strings, making it difficult for local leaders to meet the state’s various expectations while using discretion to respond to the dynamic needs of students. Recent LCFF changes threaten to hollow out the promise of this landmark policy.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

If we could redesign the LCFF, we would modify the concentration grant and target future increases to the base and supplemental grants. This approach recognizes every student and their varying needs without disenfranchising those who learn in pockets of poverty in otherwise more affluent districts. And I’d try to find a way to make the LCAP less of a compliance document and more of the catalyst of continuous improvement it was intended to be.

John Gray is president and CEO of School Services of California, a school management and consulting firm. Patti Herrera is vice president of School Services.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

The LCFF has done many great things for students by giving local education agencies more flexibility over education funding. I strongly believe that local school boards and administrators know what is best for their schools, and the LCFF gives them the ability to fund programs that best fit the needs of the students in their community.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

I do think there needs to be more accountability on where supplemental and concentration grant dollars are being spent. These funds are generated by students with the greatest needs, so the state has an obligation to make sure they are being used to directly help those students achieve academic success. I would also like to see changes to the LCFF that would calculate concentration grant dollars at the school site level rather than the school district level. There are many neighborhoods throughout California that could benefit from these additional resources, but they do not receive them if the district as a whole does not meet the required threshold (unduplicated pupils above 55%).

Josh Hoover represents Assembly District 7, which includes the cities of Citrus Heights, Folsom and Rancho Cordova. A former board member of Folsom Cordova Unified, he is a member of the Assembly Education Committee. 

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

In 2013, I compared the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) to rearranging the seats on the Titanic. We all agreed that the existing funding system was convoluted, inequitable and difficult to explain. To its credit, LCFF was a simpler, more coherent formula. However, the formula did not increase the statewide total funding for schools or the statewide average per student.

Far too many people thought LCFF would resolve the education funding and equity problems and increase student performance.  It did neither.

Here are my issues and thoughts:

1. In 2013, no one could answer the question of how much it costs to educate a student. No one wanted to know because the answer would put an additional burden on the Legislature and governor to increase funding.
2. No one could explain how the percentages allocating funds under LCFF were calculated. When I asked the Department of Finance the question, I was told they needed those percentages to make the formula work.
3. The local accountability requirements were inadequate then and still are lacking today.

Despite the increases in Proposition 98 education funding in the past 10 years, a beneficial economy is not a substitute for deliberately defining and funding adequacy for all districts.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

Going forward, I support keeping LCFF and doing the hard work needed to answer the above questions. For any formula to work, it must have data to quantify the problem(s) it is trying to solve. We need the data, and we must be transparent to the public.

Note: One caveat for those evaluating the first 10 years of LCFF: The unprecedented disruption to our schools and our children’s education caused by Covid cannot be ignored.

After serving as a school board member of San Ramon Valley Unified for 18 years, Joan Buchanan was elected to the Assembly, where she helped guide the passage of the Local Control Funding Formula in 2013 as chair of the Assembly Education Committee.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

Enacted in 2013, the Local Control Funding Formula provides much-needed equity into California’s school funding formula. The approach, which is being copied in other states, recognizes that not all students learn the same and that some need additional support to fulfill the promise of a quality public education that all deserve. Like with the implementation of any new program, there have been some challenges, but preserving local control has helped local schools best meet the needs of their students. This can be seen in the Anaheim Union High School district where educators, parents and students are working together to transform public education through community schools.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

In looking at changes to LCFF, one concern would be authentic and consistent educator and family involvement in the design of Local Control Accountability Plans. There remain too many school districts where parents and educators are left out of the process in an authentic way, too many places where input meetings are still held during the day when parents and others cannot attend or in languages that do not allow all parents to engage. CTA also recognizes the continued challenge of overall funding for PreK-14 schools. When first enacted, the target funding level for LCFF was based on the additional cost of the new formula, not on the cost to fully fund our schools. So, despite the LCFF being “fully funded,” it does not mean our schools are adequately funded. The formula itself also sunsets in 2029 and, if not continued, will mean a loss of billions of dollars each year to our students and public schools.

E. Toby Boyd, a kindergarten teacher in Elk Grove Unified, is serving his second term as president of the 310,000-member California Teachers. Association

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

LCFF was designed to direct additional funds to school districts and county offices of education with largely high-need student populations and, as a result of significant investments in the last two budgets, it has moved closer toward that goal. It has been less successful in providing adequate funding for local educational agencies (LEAs) with substantial numbers of high-need students but not enough to qualify for the concentration grants that provide an additional 60% of the base grant for each qualifying student. Greater effort is needed to raise overall base funding levels and to make sure that all high-need students, regardless of location, are receiving the necessary support. It’s important to remember that LCFF was insufficiently funded at the outset and only approached full funding right as the pandemic hit. LCFF is still a relatively new model that has not reached its potential but has already surpassed its predecessor. The best days for LCFF lie ahead as long as we avoid the temptation to undermine local control with unfunded or poorly funded state mandates.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

I’d like to see legislators and policymakers return to the original intent of LCFF and stay true to the principle of subsidiarity that is the foundation of this funding model. When LCFF was created, the idea was to consolidate as many categorical programs as possible to replace these restrictive programs with a system where stakeholders worked together to set goals, establish programs, and then measure the success of those initiatives in helping schools reach their objectives. The recent growth in what amounts to categorical programs has compromised the integrity of LCFF and risks a return to the shortcomings of our previous school funding formula. We should instead prioritize base, unrestricted funding and increased support for LEAs on LCAP development and community engagement in order to uphold the transparency and accountability components of LCFF.

Susan Markarian is the president of the California School Boards Association and a board member in Fresno County’s Pacific Union Elementary School District.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

As an education policy researcher who cares deeply about dismantling educational inequities, I believe that California’s Local Control Funding Formula has met my hopes of delivering and channeling tangible resources to support California’s underserved youth — in particular, foster youth. Groups like foster youth typically receive broad conceptual commitments of support enshrined in words only, but with minimal tangible support. The LCFF, however, not only explicitly makes a commitment to student groups like foster youth, but it backs those commitments with actual dollars and resources that can flow directly to support their unique educational needs.

In line with my expectations, the accountability system underlying LCFF has also generated a treasure trove of detailed educational data about the performance of underserved student groups. This has been a tremendous boon to educational researchers like me. With that data, we’ve developed a deeper understanding of educational performance challenges that were previously not visible. Because we can only solve what we can readily see, the data generated through the accountability system has been immensely important in how we examine and ultimately redress inequities in our educational system.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

I believe that the LCFF can be significantly changed by centralizing students with disabilities, a group that continues to be under-resourced, yet not integrated into the funding model. Although educational funding for students with disabilities is inherently complex and politically fraught, I have hope that in the next 10 years of LCFF, we will have an even stronger system of support that centralizes their funding needs.

Kevin Gee is an associate professor at the UC Davis School of Education and a faculty research affiliate with the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

When the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) was introduced in 2013, the policy was transformative. The intent of the LCFF was clear: (1) confidence rested with local leaders and the school community to define priorities and distribute resources in the best interest of all students; (2) equity was at the heart to ensure more funding was provided to students with greater need; (3) accountability and impact were not measured with a single number. One distinguishing feature of the policy was the focus on improving student outcomes through capacity building and continuous improvement of educational systems. My hopes fully aligned to the intent of the LCFF at its inception and remain today. While the LCFF has been a meaningful step in developing collective ownership and an equity mindset, the need for improvement in implementation remains. The current student performance gaps and challenges are evidence of the work before us.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

One significant change I would make to the current LCFF process would be to return to the original vision of a single coherent plan, with flexible fiscal decisions under local control. As a county superintendent who supports multiple district superintendents, I have observed leaders burdened by increased plans and reports tied to narrowly defined initiatives (e.g., expanded learning, community schools, mental health, arts and music and dual enrollment). The LCFF was intended to provide the conditions for local educational agencies to identify priorities, areas of strength and gaps, with the flexibility of utilizing resources to target what matters most for students with one clear plan.

Ed Manansala is the county superintendent of schools for El Dorado County. In 2019, he was president of the California County Superintendents.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

When I was a high school student in East San Jose, I wished we had abundant schools to better meet mine and my peers’ needs as low-income, English learners. Since the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) was passed in 2013, California has come closer to addressing the long-standing inequities in public education funding.

We have seen significant investments in some of our highest needs communities and in shared decision-making, such as additional resources for the Community Engagement Initiative. Some districts are taking community engagement to heart and are trying different ways to engage family and students in budget decisions.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

One of the ongoing gaps in LCFF is that Black students and families are still not experiencing the support, resources, and investments in education that are supposed to close equity gaps. In the years to come, we need to see more targeted investments to directly support Black students and families. We also need concrete accountability measures to ensure that resources are reaching school communities with the most need. We can start by naming Black students in the budget and addressing historical statewide laws and policies that prevent us from getting closer to racial equity, such as repealing the ban on affirmative action (Prop 209). Lastly, while we have seen progress with community engagement, it has been inconsistent across districts. Schools and districts across the state need more support to ensure quality and consistent engagement of Black, brown, immigrant, LGBTQ, and disabled communities to increase their power and influence in school funding.

Rosa De León is the senior strategy director at Californians for Justice, she leads the organization’s organizing and state policy strategies.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your hopes and expectations?

California became a leader in more equitable school funding with the enactment of LCFF. Unlike many states where schools in wealthy communities are funded at much higher levels, LCFF leveled the playing field and now directs more money to our most needy students.

Initial research shows that this targeted funding improves student outcomes, which is exactly what we want to accomplish.

What is one significant change you would make to the LCFF/LCAP and why?

Community input: The timing of community input should be adjusted so that it guides the budget process. That means starting in the fall so that this is available when the school budget is developed in the spring.

Improve accountability: Unfortunately, too many Californians are not aware of this significant change. Each school district should clearly track and make public funding that goes directly to each school site to ensure funding gets to our most needy students. Here is a quick example of what this could look like:

Carol Kocivar is past president of the California State PTA and a frequent contributor to Ed100, a website that explains California’s education system.

To what extent is LCFF meeting your expectations?

LCFF has succeeded in dramatically increasing state funding for schools to focus on local needs and support educators. However, lingering achievement and opportunity gaps exist — especially with our diverse and disadvantaged communities.

We recognize the last three years have been excruciating for educators, parents and stabilized school funding, but we need to double down on the LCFF’s original promise to address disparities in both opportunities and outcomes.

What is one change you would make to LCFF and why?

In this same decade, we have increased education funding by 64% and, in these past couple of budget years, invested in the school climate policies students need to thrive. But, in the wake of Covid, kids still aren’t coming back to school. We need to focus on the heart of educational opportunities: the classroom and engaging students. California needs to assert a stronger role in a stable educator workforce and engaging options for students.

Kevin McCarty represents California’s 6th Assembly District, which includes the city of Sacramento and unincorporated Sacramento County, and serves as chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance.