Legislation that calls for providing all state teachers and aides with math and reading training passed its first legislative hurdle despite the uncertainty of funding and the skepticism of advocates for English learners who dislike the bill’s nod to instruction in the “science of reading,” including phonics.
Senate Bill 1115 has no secure source of money heading into a tight fiscal year, with Gov. Gavin Newsom all but ruling out money for new programs. His January budget includes $20 million for a designated county office to train coaches who would then train their own teachers in what they learned.
Neither the bill’s author, Sen. Monique Limon, D-Santa Barbara, nor its sponsor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, offered a cost estimate at a hearing of the Senate Education Committee last Wednesday, though it would cost at least hundreds of millions of dollars to train 300,000 teachers. They said they were willing to phase in and focus funding, such as concentrating on early literacy and numeracy skills, and to look for federal and dedicated sources of money.
Thurmond said training teachers to enable all students to read effectively “is an issue of moral clarity.” Neither he nor Limon offered a cost estimate that could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
“In an age when we have access to substantial brain science about how students learn, it should be unacceptable to train only some educators in the best strategies to teach essential skills,” he said.
School districts have received billions of dollars between federal and state Covid relief funding, including money to address learning loss — money that could be used for teacher training — but none of that has been earmarked for that purpose.
State budgets have set aside $50 million to hire and train reading teachers in the most impoverished 5% of schools. But Thurmond said training of trainers, however, does not substitute for providing sufficient funding to ensure training for all teachers and support staff in “high-quality” programs in math and literacy.
The bill calls for the Department of Education to identify and recommend those high-quality programs by Jan. 1, 2026. For transitional kindergarten through sixth grade, those should align with “the science of reading” by focusing on results-driven methods of teaching, which may include, but is not limited to, offerings such as Lexia LETRS and CORE Learning.”
Singling out those specific trainings in the bill were red flags for two nonprofits that advocate for English learners: Californians Together and California Association of Bilingual Educators (CABE). The science of reading refers to research from multiple fields of science that confirm or discount theories on how children learn to read. LETRS and CORE Learning are intensive programs that explain a systematic approach to teaching phonics and other elements of reading consistent with the science of reading.
Californians Together and CABE, however, complain that those programs overemphasize phonics and “structured literacy” at the expense of English learners’ need for more attention to oral language and vocabulary development.
Calling Californians Together’s position on the bill a “tweener,” legislative advocate Cristina Salazar testified at a hearing last week, “We agree that we need more professional learning for educators, but we do have concerns with the bill. Specifically, it mentioned the science of reading, and it also names commercial programs.”
CABE legislative advocate Jennifer Bakers said her organization shares the same concerns and “hopes to have a collaborative conversation about a path to move forward.”
Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Boch, R-Yucaipa, asked Thurmond whether the intent is to train existing teachers in the new standards that new teachers will be trained on.
“Yes, that is correct,” Thurmond said.
Opposition from Californians Together and CABE this month factored into the quashing of a bill that would have required school districts and charter schools to train all TK to fifth-grade teachers and literacy coaches in instruction based on the science of reading and to buy textbooks from a list endorsed by the State Board of Education. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, ordered Assembly Bill 2222 shelved without a hearing to give time for negotiations with opponents, including the California Teachers Association.
At the hearing, Thurmond acknowledged similarities between the two bills, although AB 2222 would have been a mandate, while AB 1115 would recommend the selection of trainings.
Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would have required that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education.
Thurmond said the language of AB 1115 is well balanced in that it refers to both the science of reading and the state’s English Language Arts/English Language Development framework, which includes multiple strategies necessary for all students, including English learners, to learn how to read.
New math framework
July will mark a year since the State Board of Education adopted a revised California Mathematics Framework, which took four years and three revisions to pass. The drafters and supporters agree that the framework, with emphasis on tangible applications of math, as well as a deeper conceptual understanding of it, will require a shift in teaching and extensive training. But no significant money has been allocated yet, and the process of reviewing textbooks and materials has yet to begin.
In an interview, Limon said it is important to raise the issue of teacher training now, even if legislation is tied to a future appropriation.
Part of the public debate in committing public dollars should be, What would the program look like, and how will it serve diverse students? she said. “There is value to that discussion,” she said. Before her election to the Legislature, Limon served for six years on the Santa Barbara Unified school board.
In 2022-23, only 46.7% of California students met grade standards on the state’s English language arts test; the percentages were 36.6% for Hispanic, 29.9% for Black, and 35.3% for economically disadvantaged students. The scores were worse in math: 34.5% of students overall, with 22.7% of Latino, 16.9% of Black, and 22.9% of economically disadvantaged students meeting standards.
Gov. Gavin Newsom unveils his revised 2024-25 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento on May 10.
Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
The Newsom administration has settled a disagreement with K-12 education groups over multiyear funding that will provide nearly all of the money the groups had demanded, although deferring and delaying several billion dollars for at least a few years.
Pending legislative approval, the compromise that the California Department of Education negotiated with the California Teachers Association (CTA) would remove an obstacle to resolving the 2024-25 state budget by the June 15 deadline.
The deal would preserve Gov. Gavin Newsom’s promise to exempt TK-12 schools and community colleges from appreciable funding cuts that other areas of the state budget would face, including the California State University and the University of California.
The proposal also would meet the legal requirements of Proposition 98, the 4-decade-old formula that calculates the minimum portion of the general fund that must be spent on education. It was Newsom’s plan in his original January budget to spare schools and community colleges immediate cuts while scaling back Proposition 98 growth in future years that led CTA and the California School Boards Association to threaten to take Newsom to court with a lawsuit it had reasonable odds of winning.
“This is a good deal for public schools. In its simplest terms, this agreement will protect the state’s core TK-12 investments, like the Local Control Funding Formula and new whole child programs,” said Derick Lennox, senior director of governmental relations and legal affairs for the California County Superintendents Association, who was briefed on the negotiations Tuesday. “If approved by the Legislature, the governor will be able to honor his commitment to protect school funding amidst a challenging budget.”
Challenging is an understatement. Because the state will fall short of full funding for the current year, 2023-24, the Legislature would suspend Proposition 98 for the first time since the height of the Great Recession in 2010-11 by $5.5 billion. The money owed, an IOU called the “maintenance factor” under Proposition 98 terminology, would be repaid over multiple years, as determined by the growth in state revenue. The repayments would start with $1.3 billion in 2024-25.
The deal would reintroduce funding deferrals — another accounting maneuver from the Great Recession, though at a smaller magnitude. As opposed to a funding suspension, a deferral is a late payment, in which the Legislature shifts funding by days or months from one fiscal year to the next, and districts are on the hook for money they’ve already spent.
The settlement calls for three years of deferrals, ranging from $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion, from 2023-24 through 2025-26. The last deferral, for $2.4 billion, would make up about 2% of funding to community colleges and school districts. Together, the three deferrals should have no appreciable impact on school and community college budgets but will require $2.4 billion in future school funding to pay off. They will involve an accounting shift from June, the last month of one fiscal year, to July, the first month of the next.
“The agreement reached with the governor to protect public school funding is a critical step forward for California’s schools and communities,” said CTA President David Goldberg. “It ensures that students, educators, and families aren’t impacted by cuts to the classroom and includes protection against additional layoffs of educators.”
The revenue conundrum reflects a slow rebound from an unexpected drop in state revenue following the Covid pandemic. Because of winter storms in early 2023, the federal government and California pushed back the filing date for taxes by six months. Without accurate revenue estimates when they set the 2023-24 budget in June, Newsom and the Legislature appropriated $8.8 billion more than the Proposition 98 minimum.
Since TK-12 and community colleges had already budgeted and spent the money, Newsom promised to hold them harmless. But in his first budget draft in January and his May revision, Newsom proposed to treat the $8.8 billion as an off-the-books, one-time overpayment; CTA and school groups viewed it as an ongoing obligation, that, as spelled out by voters in approving Proposition 98, would become the base for the following year’s minimum level of the guarantee.
“They arrived at a solution that gives the Governor and Legislature near-term budget flexibility while abiding by the state’s constitutional provisions related to minimum funding for schools,” education consultant Kevin Gordon said. “A negotiated suspension of Prop 98 has been the obvious solution since the outset of the debate.”
Here’s how the negotiated deal resolves the dispute over the three-year period covered by the budget:
2022-23
Original Proposal: Newsom proposed an unorthodox move: holding the general fund, not Proposition 98, responsible for paying for the $8.8 billion shortfall over five years, starting in 2025-26, at $1.8 billion per year.
Compromise: Shift an unallocated $2.6 billion in one-time funding from 2022-23 into 2023-24. That would lower the ongoing Proposition 98 increase from $8.8 billion to $6.2 billion. The effect would be to cut general fund repayments by $500 million to $1.3 billion per year for five years. And it would lower the calculation for the following year’s Proposition 98 minimum.
2023-24
The state would drain $8.4 billion from the Proposition 98 reserve fund, built up during a half-decade of good revenue years, to pay off a continuing Proposition 98 shortfall, including the $2.6 billion deferral from 2022-23.
Compromise: The $6.2 billion rise in the Proposition 98 base in 2022-23 would raise the Proposition 98 minimum by $4.2 billion. Lacking the money to pay for it, the Legislature, by an anticipated two-thirds majority, would suspend the Proposition 98 base by $5.5 billion; this would include $1.3 billion, the first installment of the maintenance factor, due to be repaid in 2024-25. As a result of the $5.5 billion suspension, the Proposition 98 base would be lowered to $101.3 billion.
2024-25
The level of Proposition 98 is determined by several factors, called “tests,” that are tied to changing economic conditions, such as a rise in state spending or personal income, and the increase in the base from the year before. The 2024-25 Proposition 98 level, under Test 1, would be set at about 39% of the general fund: an estimated $110.6 billion. This would include a $1.3 billion maintenance factor repayment.
The Department of Finance says that “overall, the Agreement provides stability for schools both in the short and long-term.”
That’s true as long as the governor’s revenue projections for the next two years hold. But if they come up short, expect additional deferrals or cuts without a state rainy day fund to cushion the impact; many districts were already required to reduce their local rainy day funds this year. And heading into 2025-26, the state will still owe districts and community colleges a $4.5 billion maintenance factor, an IOU with no immediate deadline for repaying it.
“We’re encouraged that the administration has found a way to address the constitutional concerns, and this might be the best funding package that schools could hope for in this budget environment,” said Rob Manwaring, a senior adviser for the nonprofit Children Now. “At the same time, it is difficult to support suspending the constitutional funding guarantee when California schools are still in the bottom five states in terms of student-teacher ratios and other staffing supports.”
State Sen. Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, vice chairman of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, back to camera, urges lawmakers to reject a measure to reduce the state budget deficit at the Capitol in Sacramento on April 11, 2024.
Many details of the spending plan will be hashed out in the coming days and weeks, but Thursday’s action will allow lawmakers to continue getting paid because it meets the constitutional requirement that they pass a budget before June 15.
The bare-bones plan passed Thursday would increase the size of the can lawmakers had previously contemplated kicking down the road in order to deal with lagging revenue. It would increase the amount of Proposition 98 funding — the amount of the overall general fund that must go to K-12 education and community colleges — that would be suspended in the current year, but with the expectation that much of it will be repaid and revenue will increase in the coming year.
Plenty of details remain unresolved. The Senate and the Assembly rejected $895 million that Gov. Gavin Newsom had proposed in one-time funding to purchase zero-emission school buses, and instead reinstated a cut that Newsom had proposed for the Golden State Teachers Grant Program, which pays $20,000 to teacher candidates who agree to teach in priority schools for four years. A supplemental bill that has not been released will detail how the rest of the money would be used. The Legislature accepted Newsom’s proposed cut of $550 million in facilities for transitional kindergarten and full-day kindergarten on the assumption that money will be included in a facilities bond that the governor and legislative leaders are negotiating to place on the November election ballot.
The framework with the California Teachers Association last month settled the question of how the state would account for an $8.8 billion shortfall in revenue below what the Legislature appropriated for 2022-23. The deal calls for suspending funding still owed for the current year ending June 30 — something that had been done only twice in the past 40 years — by $5.5 billion and delaying paying $2.6 billion appropriated for 2023-24 until 2024-25.
Suspending a portion of the Proposition 98 obligation requires creating a type of IOU that must be repaid in coming years. Newsom avoided outright cutting of TK-12 and community college funding by suspending some state funding and pushing off paying districts from the end of one fiscal year to the start of the next one — a tactic known as deferrals.
The placeholder budget passed on Thursday increases the funding that will be suspended by $2.8 billion. The Legislature assumes that higher income tax revenue next year, based on updated projections that Newsom didn’t have for his revised May budget, will help to pay down the suspended funding. The Legislature also would generate a new source of revenue by accelerating a three-year postponement of deductions that corporations can claim from net operating losses and various business tax credits. That would bring in temporarily $5 billion, of which about $2 billion would go to schools and community colleges under Proposition 98.
Newsom had proposed the three-year interruption to begin in 2025-26. Since businesses haven’t had time to plan an accelerated schedule, Newsom hasn’t said if he’d go along. Resuming the operating deductions and credits would then reduce revenues in future years.
Republicans in the Legislature criticized addressing the state’s budget deficit by raising taxes on the business community and shifting funds around. The budget is “little more than a shell game meant to hide the bleak truth of our financial situation,” said Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones, R-San Diego, who blamed overspending for the swing from a massive budget surplus to a deficit in two years.
The advocacy group Children Now, generally an ally of the Democratic leaders on children’s issues, criticized increasing the amount of Proposition 98 suspension and the use of funding deferrals. Suspension, the group said, “should be a last resort, not a tool to manipulate education spending,” adding that suspension, with its creation of an IOU, subjects education to funding volatility and uncertainty about when the money will be repaid.
“While we understand the necessity of suspending Proposition 98 under the current circumstances, a suspension isn’t ideal, and its size should be minimized as California still ranks fifth worst in the nation in terms of student-to-teacher ratios and, similarly, has among the lowest staffing levels for other educators, including support staff, nurses, and administrators,” the letter said.
Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire, D-Geyserville, predicted a deal between lawmakers and Newsom as early as next week and that the final budget would be similar to what the Legislature approved.
An off-limits, aged and rusting play structure, Santa Rita Union School District
Credit: Santa Rita Union School District
In the coming days, Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to confirm his commitment to place a state school construction bond on the November ballot.
What he hasn’t committed to yet — but must decide in the next 10 days — is whether to reform a method of sharing state matching money that has long favored property-rich districts over their property-poor neighbors.
Along with a June 27 deadline to write ballot language, Newsom and legislative leaders face the threat of a lawsuit challenging the legality of the present system that ignores vast inequalities in districts’ ability to upgrade and repair schools. The public interest law firm Public Advocates filed its warning, a 21-page demand letter, with state officials in February. Public Advocates is calling for a new method that shares more state bond proceeds with districts that need more help. Their proposal focuses only on repairing and renovating facilities, not new construction.
The possibility of litigation drawing attention to funding inequalities would endanger the chances that a bond would pass — just when the state will run out of distributing the last matching money from the last bond, eight years ago. That would leave the state with no funding to help districts meet the rising cost of school construction.
Newsom’s aides and legislative leaders have expressed interest in proposals for a fairer system of allocating state funding, “but it is far from clear where the equity conversation will land,” said John Affeldt, managing attorney for Public Advocates.
“As long as state bond funding continues to exacerbate rather than redress local wealth disparities, the constitutional problem and our legal demands remain.”
Past California State School Board President Michael Kirst agreed. “We need to complete the job of making California school finance more equitable. This is a long-overlooked and needed area for political action.”
Late last month, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee and authored a bill establishing a construction bond, predicted that the measure would be between $10 billion and $12 billion for TK-12 and community colleges. Whether it would include construction money for four-year universities hasn’t been announced.
The Coalition for Adequate School Housing or CASH, the influential lobby representing school districts and school construction contractors, opposes including the University of California and California State University. It argues schools and community colleges need the full $14 billion in Muratsuchi’s bill — and more — to meet higher costs of construction, demands for climate-resilient schools, requirements for transitional kindergarten classrooms, and evolving needs for student wellness and after-school activities.
Talks between Newsom and legislative leaders must also settle how much should be designated for new construction relative to repairing and renovating existing buildings, and how much should be set aside for removing lead in water.
But the most contentious issue will be the distribution formula: determining how much money districts must raise in property taxes to qualify for a matching amount from a state bond. For the past 25 years, every district has ponied up the same percentage match on a first-come, first-served basis: a 50-50 split for new construction and 40% district and 60% match from the state for upgrading facilities.
The result has been predictable: Those districts with higher property values have gotten a disproportionately large piece of the pie.
‘The very definition of a regressive tax’
The Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley examined the state funding distribution of the 813 school districts that received state modernization funding from 1998, when the current distribution method was created, through 2023. The analysis showed that the quintile of districts with the lowest assessed property value — those with a median of $798,000 per student — received $2,970 in modernization funding per student, while the districts in the highest quintile, where the median assessed property value was $2.3 million per student, received $7,910 per student — more than two-and-a-half times as much. As a result, districts with a lower assessed property value per student must impose higher property taxes on its residents than would a higher-wealth district to upgrade a school building.
“Imposing a greater tax burden on a community of lesser wealth is the very definition of a regressive tax,” said Jeff Vincent, co-director of the Center for Cities + Schools.
Compounding the problem of low property values in many districts is the state restriction that limits a district’s bonding limit to 1.25% of a district’s total assessed property value for elementary and high school districts and 2.5% of the total value for unified districts.
Combine those two factors, and you have the dilemma facing hundreds of districts including, the 3,200-student Santa Rita Union Elementary District and neighboring Salinas City Elementary School District, both in Monterey County.
“Our biggest difficulty is bonding capacity. We’ve basically bonded at our allowable capacity, and we did that to try to build up what we need for the state matching in particular,” said Santa Rita Superintendent Melissa Alderman.
The track in need of repair is at New Republic Elementary, Santa Rita Union School DistrictCredit: Santa Rita Union School District
Deteriorating school roof at Lincoln Elementary, Salinas City Elementary School DistrictCredit: Salinas City Elementary School District
Damaged outside window sill of a portable, Laurel Wood Elementary, Salinas City Elementary School DistrictCredit: Salinas City Elementary School District
A deteriorating entrance to an aging portable at Lincoln Elementary, Salinas City Elementary School DistrictCredit: Salinas City Elementary School District
With the latest bonds, Santa Rita nearly topped out at $27 million — far short of the more than $100 million the district needs to renovate, repair, and replace its four elementary and two middle schools at state standards.
The difference would provide what many districts take for granted: There would be appropriately sized gyms for middle school; the deteriorating track would be paved so that their schools could host meets; 40-year-old portable classrooms sitting on dirt would be replaced with more spacious modular classrooms on concrete foundations. There would also be transitional kindergarten classrooms the district can’t build and room for student and family service partnerships that the district has had to decline.
“All of our roofs would not be leaking; all of our gutters would be unrusted; tree roots wouldn’t be breaking up the sidewalks,” Alderman said. “Alarm systems not going off in the middle of the night because it rained too hard and something shorted.”
Santa Rita can generate only $7,740 per student in bond capacity; across the Salinas Valley, Carmel Unified can raise $190,000 per student. With English learners comprising nearly half of students and a high rate of poverty, Alderman worries about adding to families’ property tax burden — even if she could ask for another bond.
Santa Rita qualified for the state’s financial hardship assistance funding for the full cost of projects that exceeded funding capacity, but Alderman says the formula for determining the amount of hardship aid was insufficient.
“We’ve gotten just enough funding to always be making repairs and patching and hoping a big emergency doesn’t happen,” she said.
Salinas City Elementary School District, with 8,200 students whose families are similar to those in Santa Rita, is somewhat better off. It passed two bonds for $175 million two years ago, which has placed “an incredible burden” on the community but will cover about a third of its modernization needs, said Superintendent Rebeca Andrade. She worries whether, after chipping away at replacing roofs, ramps and windows, there will be enough left for a community priority: upgrading kitchens in every school so that children can eat fresh food like the vegetables grown and picked in nearby fields.
Public Advocates’ proposal
Salinas and Santa Rita would be among the districts that would get significantly more state funding under Public Advocates’ proposal.
Instead of a 60% match for all districts, money would be distributed based on assessed value per student. Under its latest proposal, the districts with the most property wealth — Beverly Hills, Carmel Valley, San Francisco Unified, and Sunnyvale School District Elementary in Silicon Valley — would be among those receiving a 5% state match for contributing 95% of the project’s cost.
The property-poorest—Bakersfield, Dinuba, Lindsay, San Bernardino City and Fresno Unified — would get a 95% match for contributing 5%. Salinas City Elementary would get an 81% match for contributing 19%, while Santa Rita would get 87% state funding for contributing a 13% local match, enabling the district to stretch its dollars and broaden its vision for creating a quality learning environment.
Affeldt said something like a 5%-95% scheme is needed to begin to offset local wealth disparities.
The Center for Cities + Schools has also calculated the impact of a 20%-80% match, which would be less progressive while flattening the gains and losses that districts would receive.
But there’s a caveat: The state match provides funding on a per-student basis, not on the size of a project, said Tom Pace, vice chair of CASH and the director of facilities of San Bernardino City Unified. “So we’re talking about a percentage of the grant amount, not a percentage of construction costs,” Pace said. “The majority of the costs associated with building schools are borne by local districts.”
Since the current system of matching funds started in 1998, school districts have raised nearly $3 for $1 contributed by the state — $125 billion to $43 billion, according to the Center for Cities + Schools.
A formula that sends a larger match to districts like San Bernardino would go a long way to solve inequitable funding, Pace said. But it will take an adequate level of state funding to address the full problem, he said. “San Marcos High School is one of the nicest high schools I’ve ever seen. I got confused with (CSU San Marcos) when I drove past,” he said. “There is no way that San Bernardino will ever have a high school that looks like that because of our low assessed value and growth.”
Big tax-base exceptions
There’s a correlation between residents’ income and assessed value per student. The quintile of districts with the highest assessed property per student generally consists of small, wealthy communities like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and, in Silicon Valley, Saratoga. The quintile of districts with the lowest property values per student are generally low-income communities.
But there are significant exceptions, including urban areas with big industrial and commercial tax bases. Oakland Unified, with 76% low-income families but $1.6 billion in bonding capacity, and Los Angeles Unified, with 81% low income families but $18.4 billion bonding capacity, would see their modernization match drop from 60% to 55%, under Public Advocates’ proposal. San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest district, would see its state share drop from 60% to 51%.
CASH, which has underwritten previous campaigns to promote state school facilities bonds and on its own authored the last bond that voters passed, in 2015, also opposes Public Advocates’ proposal. Reforms that would prioritize school facility funding based on lower assessed valuation “appear to create winners and losers and disrupt the stability of the current School Facility Program,” CASH said in a May 23 letter to Newsom and legislative leaders. “CASH advises against hastily adopting significant changes to the (current program) without fully vetting their impact.”
CASH’s position is that improving access to the existing school facilities program is the way to address concerns. Tiny districts with under $15 million in assessed value would automatically get full assistance; its proposal also would reserve 20% of funding for districts that could qualify for up to 100% state aid. “Those typically end up being lower wealth districts that have struggled to provide local matches,” said CASH Chair Alan Reising, the business services administrator for Long Beach Unified.
Public Advocates argues a sliding-scale system would eliminate most of the need for the financial hardship program.
CASH would also permit supplemental funding for priorities like transitional kindergarten classrooms and climate resiliency measures. Public Advocates agrees with this concept and would include community schools’ additional space needs. It also supports setting aside 5% of state funding for technical guidance, since many districts lack the expertise to compete for what has been a first-come, first-served program.
But CASH would maintain at least the current 60% state match for all districts, with some districts entitled up to 70%, based on an index of high-needs students and bonding capacity. It’s a slight variation of Muratsuchi’s AB 247, the current proposal for the November bond. An analysis by Cities + Schools found that the nudge toward equitable funding would have little effect, other than to add costs.
“These are token changes that are really not going to move the needle in any meaningful way,” said Vincent, the co-director of the center.
Analogy with famous Serrano lawsuit
Public Advocates has filed a number of regulatory challenges and lawsuits over the past 25 years on education adequacy and funding, so it’s not surprising that it is focusing on facilities funding. What is surprising is that a similar threat hasn’t risen sooner.
Fifty-three years ago, setting a precedent for the nation, the California Supreme Court struck down relying on local property taxes to fund schools as violating the constitutional right of students in low-wealth districts to have access to an equal education. That led to a state system of equalizing K-12 funding and then, in 2013, to the Local Control Funding Formula. It directs extra resources to districts based on their numbers of English learners, low-income students, and foster children.
Public Advocates argues the current system of funding school facilities is comparable to the property-tax-based system of operating schools that the court rejected in the Serrano v. Priest decision.
Many states insufficiently fund school facilities, but California’s present system remains one of the most regressive because it ignores vast differences in property wealth, Vincent said. Public Advocates based its model on Kansas’ sliding scale.
It’s an open question whether Newsom, legislative leaders, and ultimately voters would agree to a formula with new “winners” and “losers” to achieve a more equitable distribution of state funding.
As an administrator of a district that would gain the most from Public Advocates’ plan and as one of 11 members of CASH’s board of directors, Pace said, “I like the sliding scale; I would just advocate that there be a base amount that you start with.”
Otherwise, he foresees the breaking apart of a unified front for a state bond, and it is critical for today’s children to pass a bond this year, Pace said. “To pass a bond, you have to have a coalition, and coalitions generally don’t vote for things that are equitable, because you’re going to have people that say, ‘Well, if I contribute (to the campaign), what do I get out of it?’”
Kirst, who co-authored the Local Control Funding Formula, nonetheless encourages state leaders to press forward. “The issue has flown under the radar for so many years,” he said. “School construction has been controlled by groups that sponsor the initiative, but that does not excuse the lack of attention.”
Despite Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s promise two years ago to settle the conflict, Los Angeles Unified continues denying millions of dollars in federal aid that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles argues it is owed for ongoing services to low-income students in Catholic schools. The archdiocese maintains that the district is diverting the money to bolster its students’ funding.
Both the California and the U.S. departments of education have chastised the district for breaking federal regulations in dealings with the archdiocese. Now, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ordered the district to turn over documents and data that it withheld.
That information, which should illuminate the district’s decisions, could either restart stalemated talks or lead the archdiocese to turn to the courts to order a settlement after seven years of fighting.
“We do not believe further litigation is necessary, and we can achieve equity for non-public school students,” said Paul Escala, the archdiocese’s superintendent of schools. “However, we will pursue all means to see that all students receive their legally entitled services.”
Title I rules for private schools
Congress requires that low-income students in private and public schools receive equivalent Title I funding to pay for counseling, tutoring, teacher aides, and learning specialists. The dispute with LAUSD concerns how much money should be allocated for the archdiocese’s schools and how to ensure the funding gets to the students.
Under Congress’s rules, private and religious schools do not receive Title I funding directly. Instead, districts determine the eligibility of private and religious schools within their borders, administer the funding, and provide the services directly or through vendors after consulting with the schools. Los Angeles Unified, until recently, hired the Title I staff and put them on its payroll (see Frequently Asked Questions by the California Department of Education).
The system worked amicably for years. Districts can choose from several ways to determine Title I eligibility, and LA Unified picked the fairest and most efficient method for the 100-plus schools within the archdiocese with low-income students, Escala said. The district used census data to determine the number of Title I-eligible students in an attendance area, then awarded a proportionate share of the money to archdiocese schools. Long Beach Unified uses the same method.
More paperwork, more confusion, less money
Then in 2018-19 and the following year, coinciding with the new administration of Superintendent Austin Beutner, the district chose another option for calculating private schools’ eligibility — student registrations for the federal school lunch program. Not only did this method require a lot more time, paperwork and verification by the schools, but the district changed the reporting rules several times with little notice and failed “to engage in timely and meaningful consultation,” the California Department of Education concluded in a 58-page report issued in June 2021 in response to a formal complaint by the archdiocese.
Los Angeles Unified’s Office of Inspector General removed hundreds of students’ eligibility after examining parents’ school lunch forms in the two dozen schools it chose to audit and failed to include any students from other schools it didn’t audit.
The result was to cut Title I funding to the archdiocese by more than 92%, from about $9.5 million in services 2017-18 for 102 schools to $767,000 for fewer than two dozen schools, according to Escala. In 2023-24, funding crept up to about $2 million for 43 schools. The district cut its total share allocated to private schools from between 2% and 2.6% of about $291 million to 0.5%, according to the California Department of Education.
‘Totally unreasonable’ demands
The state Department of Education harshly criticized the district. The timetable for demanding documentation was “totally unreasonable,” and the district “engaged in a pattern of arbitrary unilateral decisions” and failed to justify its decisions to the archdiocese, the report said.
In ignoring the archdiocese’s Public Records Act requests for documentation to justify the cuts, the district took a “hide-the-ball approach (that) breached both the spirit and the letter” of the law, the report said.
The spirit of Title I, as stated in the law’s preamble, Escala said, is to maximize participation. The intent of other options like surveys and free-lunch verification is for schools to prove they have higher proportions of low-income families than neighboring schools, he said.
LAUSD is doing the opposite, Escala said.
“The district’s using these other methods as a way of filtering and screening and reducing participation,” he said. “You’re extracting children you know qualify simply because a “t” wasn’t crossed or an “i” wasn’t dotted. It is beyond reproach, because they (LAUSD officials) don’t apply the same standard to their own schools.”
LAUSD had an obligation to give (the Archdiocese) the requested information. LAUSD’s hide-the-ball approach breached both the spirit and the letter of the duty to consult. — The California Department of Educationin a June 2021 ruling
LA Unified declined to comment on the state’s report, and last week, a spokesperson wrote in an email that “Los Angeles Unified does not typically comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”
Districts have a financial incentive to minimize private schools’ funding eligibility. The federal government awards the total Title I funding to districts, which determine how much should be allocated for services to private and religious school students. Lawyers for the archdiocese point out that the less money that districts award, the more Title I funding they can spend on their own students.
The district appears to understand this, said Kevin Troy, an attorney for the archdiocese, citing a Jan. 29, 2019, email from the principal auditor of the district’s Office of the Inspector General to the archdiocese, in which the auditor stated that the archdiocese “receives over $10 million of Title I funds from the LAUSD every year — money that could otherwise be allocated to LAUSD schools.”
“There’s a moral and ethical question on the table,” Escala said. “You (LA Unified) have got children in need, and you’re not serving them right,” he added, referring to students in archdiocese schools.
The impact on one high school
Mark Johnson, principal of Bishop Mora Salesian High School, has seen the effect of the cuts on students. Before the cutback, Title I paid for a reading intervention teacher and part-time aide who worked with 40 to 50 students weekly — about 1 out of 8 students at the all-boy, 400-student school in the low-income Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Although on the district’s payroll, the teacher fit in like any other staff member, building personal relationships with the students and collaborating with their teachers.
“She (the teacher) had her own classroom and was just a regular teacher as far as any of our kids knew,” he said. She would work with the lowest-performing students on basic reading comprehension skills. “If they were working on a tough piece of literature, she would help them break it down so that they could write an analytical paragraph or essay.”
Pulling out students also reduced the class size for the remaining students, he said. Now, there is only enough money for a two-day-a-week coach from a contractor who sees at most a dozen students a week.
“We’re serving kids who are significantly behind grade level and families that deal with poverty and all the things that come along with that,” Johnson said. “So this kind of antagonistic relationship that has developed (with the district) ultimately hurts kids.”
The California Department of Education gave the district 60 days from its June 2021 ruling to consult with the archdiocese to fix deficiencies pointed out in the report and then recalibrate the proportional share of Title I funding for archdiocese schools. It ordered the district to begin providing the increased services for 2020-21, the next school year.
Instead, the district appealed the decision to the U.S. Department of Education, which issued its own findings in November 2023. In his decision, Adam Schott, deputy assistant secretary for policy and programs, found that the district could justify reducing the eligibility count based on its analysis of parents’ forms. But by doing that, they cut the funding for the dozens of schools that the district did not audit. He credited the district with consulting with the archdiocese to an extent, but said the district’s overall approach in demanding documentation was “inconsistent and confusing.”
Schott also ruled that the district violated federal regulations by claiming it didn’t have to share data with the archdiocese on how much it spent on Title I services for students and how much was unspent at the end of each year.
In December 2021, the archdiocese sued the district in Los Angeles Superior Court for ignoring multiple requests under the state Public Records Act to turn over Title I spending records and other relevant information. The court held off ruling until the complaint process played out.
On July 16, Judge Curtis Kin ordered the district to turn over all relevant documents, emails and records to the archdiocese by Aug. 20 and to pay $82,141 to the diocese in attorneys’ fees.
Anappeal to Superintendent Carvalho
Weeks after he started work as Los Angeles Unified superintendent in February 2022, Alberto Carvalho told EdSource he had familiarized himself with the case and added, “I’m going to resolve this issue sooner rather than later.” He declined to elaborate due to litigation.
“What I can tell you,” he added, “is that we need more objective, transparent tools by which we assess and fund this guaranteed federal entitlement that’s driven by poverty.”
Escala said he remains hopeful. “I believe that Superintendent Carvalho has the ability to direct his staff towards that outcome. I have a great degree of confidence that when brought to him, this can get adjudicated appropriately.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced an increase of $60 million to the Federal Charter Schools Program, bringing the annual total to $500 million to open new charter schools or expand existing ones.
This decision ignored research produced by the Network for Public Educatuon, showing that $1 billion had been wasted on grants to charter schools that never opened; that 26% of federally funded charter schools had closed within their first five years; and that 39% had closed by year 10.
The charter sector has been riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse.
See the following reports:
Charter failures
The Failure of the Federal Charter Schools Program:
Gov. Gavin Newsom presents his revised 2025-26 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento on May 14, 2025.
Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
TK-12 schools and community colleges can expect the same funding in 2025-26 that they received this year, plus a small cost-of-living adjustment, and there will be a big boost for early literacy, Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed Wednesday in the revision to his January state budget plan.
Schools and community colleges will be shielded from the pain facing other state services because of the revised forecast of a $12 billion drop in state revenues that Newsom blamed on the “Trump slump” — the president’s erratic tariff and other economic policies that are affecting California.
For the University of California and California State University, the news was better than anticipated. The systems would face a 3% cut for 2025-26, notably less than the nearly 8% reduction Newsom proposed in January. The smaller cut may provide some relief at a time when higher education in California and across the nation is worried about losses in federal research grants and other funding under Trump administration policies.
The 2.3% cost-of-living adjustment in 2025-26 for most TK-12 programs is determined by a federal formula that does not factor in the cost of housing, the biggest expense facing teachers and other employees.
In his May budget revision, Newsom keeps significant money for TK-12 programs that he proposed in January for fully rolling out transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds, along with additional funding to reduce class sizes, and for expanding summer school and after-school learning to more districts.
And Newsom would add $200 million to his earlier $543 million proposal for early literacy instruction, with money to buy instructional materials, hire literacy coaches and train teachers in “evidence-based literacy instruction,” which is code for teaching phonics and word decoding as well as other fundamental reading skills.
That funding would take a significant step toward creating and funding a comprehensive early literacy strategy and coincides with compromise legislation, pushed by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, on spelling out what the instruction and reading materials should look like.
“We’re thrilled. We’re excited,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, which pushed early literacy legislation. “In a really tight budget year, prioritizing reading for California kids and investing $200 million is real leadership.”
Newsom would also add to past efforts to recruit teachers by including $64.2 million in one-time funding for the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, under which teachers receive college tuition in exchange for agreeing to teach in underserved districts and in subjects facing critical shortages, and $100 million to pay stipends to student teachers. Unpaid student teaching has been cited as one of the primary reasons teacher candidates fail to complete their credentials.
The Legislature has a month to reshape Newsom’s budget before the June 15 constitutional deadline to pass a budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1.
What the budget doesn’t include, however, is any funding to backfill for the potential loss of billions of federal dollars in Medi-Cal funding for school physical and mental health services, cuts for Head Start programs, training grants for new teachers and research grants for the University of California and California State University, and the dismantling of the AmeriCorps program, which supplies teachers aides and tutors in hundreds of low-income schools.
“Our ability to backfill all these federal cuts — no, we’re not going to be in a position to do that, we just are not in that position,” Newsom said. “It’s the old adage, you can’t do everything but you can do anything. There may be areas where we can make adjustments.”
“I think we should be cautious about eliminating consideration of x, y, and z until we see the totality of the challenges as they present themselves.”
In one cost-cutting measure, Gov. Newsom is proposing to roll back California’s health insurance program for undocumented immigrant adults, by charging premiums and freezing new enrollment, a move that advocates said will affect their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens. One in 10 California children are estimated to have an undocumented parent.
“When a parent or family member is sick and unable to work or provide care, kids suffer as a result,” said Mayra Alvarez, president of the nonprofit organization The Children’s Partnership. “Ripping away these family members’ access to health care, while they are also under threat of cruel immigration enforcement and other anti-immigrant policies, in turn puts the well-being of our children at risk.”
Higher education
State funding for the state’s system of 116 community colleges would change little from last year, receiving 0.6% less, at $8.9 billion. However, some of its important funding — $531.6 million from Proposition 98 revenues — would be deferred for a year under the proposal.
UC would have its funding cut by $129.7 million, while CSU would lose $143.8 million. In January, Newsom’s administration had proposed deeper cuts of $396.6 million and $375.2 million, respectively.
The revised budget maintains a proposal to defer previously promised 5% budget increases until 2027-28 for both systems. Those deferrals, which were part of Newsom’s multiyear compact agreements with the systems, were also included in Newsom’s January budget proposal.
The compacts, originally agreed to in 2022, promised annual budget increases for UC and CSU in exchange for the systems working toward goals such as increasing graduation rates and enrolling more California residents.
“We were able to hold strong to that over a two-year period. And we’re struggling now with some challenges,” Newsom said during a news conference Wednesday, though he added that the compacts are “sacrosanct” and that the systems would get their deferred dollars in 2027-28.
By reducing the proposed cut to UC’s budget for 2025-26, the 10-campus system will be able to minimize cuts to student support services and preserve “critical investments like affordable student housing construction,” President Michael V. Drake said Wednesday in a statement.
CSU Chancellor Mildred García in January warned that a nearly 8% state budget reduction would result in larger class sizes and fewer course offerings for the system’s more than 460,000 students, hampering their prospects for graduating on time. With those cuts now dialed back to 3%, García praised the May revision as a “thoughtful and measured approach to addressing the state’s fiscal challenges.”
Proposition 98 maneuvers
In total, the May revision proposes $45.7 billion for the state’s higher education institutions and the California Student Aid Commission.
The minimum funding for 2025-26 for Proposition 98, the formula that determines the portion of the general fund that must go to TK-12 and community colleges, would be $114.6 billion, down from $118.9 billion in 2024-25 because of shrinking state revenues.
Newsom proposes to make up the difference by shifting numbers around, depleting what was left in the Proposition 98 rainy day fund. Among other maneuvers, he would:
Drain the remaining $540 million from a fund that was $8.4 billion only two years ago, when the state faced a fiscal crisis.
Defer $1.8 billion that would be due to schools in June 2026 by a month, to July 2026. Schools should notice little difference, although the maneuver does create a state obligation that must be repaid.
Withhold $1.3 billion due to schools and community colleges in 2024-25 in anticipation that the revenues for the rest of the year might come up short because of the further decline in state revenues.
This last maneuver grabbed the attention of the California School Boards Association, which filed a lawsuit over a similar effort last year and is threatening to do so again.
“Even in lean times, investing in public schools is California’s best economic strategy, so we cannot sidestep constitutional protections for public education nor underfund Prop 98 to offset shortfalls in other sections of the budget,” association President Bettye Lusk said in a statement.
The immediate reaction to the budget proposal was positive, with some caveats.
“The bottom line is that amid a budget crisis, the governor is protecting every major investment in education,” said Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors, a consultant for school districts. “We want to make sure Prop 98 funding is accounted for. As long as that’s the case, there’s not much to complain about.”
Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers, praised the commitment to universal transitional kindergarten (TK) while criticizing Newsom’s decision to suspend a cost-of-living adjustment for child care providers for low-income children and freeze funding for emergency child care services for foster and homeless children.
“We know that small class sizes and highly qualified teachers are two of the most important quality standards to ensure children benefit from pre-K. This budget invests wisely in TK,” he said. “The proposed cut to the COLA (cost of living increase) for child care providers must be restored. Now is the worst time to eliminate a small, but very much needed and deserved COLA for those who take care of our youngest and most vulnerable children.”
Video: Parents and a Head Start teacher express concern about potential budget cuts to the program.
Head Start supporters were relieved when President Donald Trump did not include funding cuts to the early education program in his proposed 2026 budget, released May 2. But that does not mean Head Start will emerge from budget negotiations unscathed.
Saving head start
This is Part I of a two-part package examining the challenges facing Head Start. Watch for Part II tomorrow.
The program, run locally by schools and nonprofit organizations, serves more than 750,000 children nationwide from low-income families, from birth to 5 years old. It also offers dental screenings and free school meals for children, and child care and job support for parents.
Head Start has been targeted by Trump since his first term, when he tried to cut its funding by 25%. Earlier this year, the administration indicated it wanted to eliminate all funding — $12.3 billion — for the 60-year-old program. Supporters fear cuts could still come.
“There is still significant concern around Head Start funding,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California. “While the president’s skinny budget does not eliminate the Head Start program, it also does not propose an actual funding level. We have a long way to go in the budget process, and Head Start funding could still be reduced.”
Cuts would impact child care, jobs
California Head Start programs expect to receive $1.5 billion in federal funding for the 2025 fiscal year. That funds services for 73,476 children at 2,219 sites, according to an EdSource analysis of Head Start data.
“Ultimately, if Head Start were to be defunded, we would have 80,000 kiddos without care and 26,000 employees without jobs,” Cottrill said. “Of course, those 80,000 parents who just lost their child care would potentially also lose their jobs, their ability to go to school, to do all the things that they’re doing to try and become more productive members of the society.”
Mia Barajas plays outside at the Sharon Neese Early Learning Center in Sacramento on April 23, 2025.Credit: Randall Benton / EdSource
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, full-day child care costs between $6,552 and $15,600 a year, which is prohibitive for many families.
The current lack of access to child care costs California about $17 billion in lost productivity and economic output each year, according to state legislators in a letter to California members of Congress last month urging them to protect Head Start.
“Cuts to Head Start would exacerbate that loss,” the letter stated.
Lifting families out of poverty
Job opportunities for parents could also be lost if counseling and job training provided by Head Start go away.
Many teachers in the Head Start program operated by the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA), for example, started their careers in the program’s apprenticeship program, while earning required early childhood education credits and a college degree.
Timeisha Seymore credits Head Start for helping her attain an associate degree and a full-time job as a registered behavioral technician at a local elementary school. Seymore took classes, provided by SETA, in the same building that houses the Sharon Neese Early Learning Center that her two children attend.
If the Head Start program closes, Seymore said she would lose her child care and might have to pay for child care, cut her work hours or quit her job to care for her children.
Funding is problematic
Uncertainty over continued funding of the program — including a temporary freeze of federal funding in February — resulted in some California staffers receiving notices warning them they could lose their jobs, Cottrill said.
The program employs 26,000 people in California and 250,823 people nationally.
Unreliable funding is particularly concerning for Head Start programs, which receive five-year grants that must be renewed annually. Programs work on a reimbursement model that requires them to submit receipts and invoices. Programs can only draw down three days of funding at a time, Cottrill said.
Ra’Mir Cooks plays with plastic bowls at the Sharon Neese Early Learning Center in Sacramento.Credit: Randall Benton / EdSource
“So that’s where these programs — if those draws are delayed — are having challenges,” Cottrill said. “And these draws have been delayed for some folks because there is a new requirement that they add additional justification to the draw-down request, but there hasn’t been any guidance.”
At least four Head Start programs have closed because of funding uncertainty, including programs in Washington, Wisconsin, New York and Florida, said Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association.
Shuttering regional offices
Head Start programs were affected again in April when the Trump administration closed five regional offices of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which administers the program, and laid off its staff. Program leaders had no one to answer questions about their grants or how to fill out new required forms.
California programs are still seeing the detrimental effects of regional office closures, especially when processing specialized supplemental grants, Cottrill said.
Two California Head Start programs with grants up for renewal on May 1 didn’t receive their grant letters until April 30, Cottrill said. One program director was on her way to fire her staff when the letter arrived.
The uncertainty is making Head Start employees nervous.
“I think we have a very dedicated staff, who put their heart and soul into working in this program,” said Karen Griffith, deputy director at SETA. “So, I don’t think people want to leave, but I hear the anxiety in their voices and in their questions.”
Head Start has its critics
Support for Head Start has been strong over the years, but recently, it has been criticized by some who say the program isn’t effective and that some programs do not appropriately supervise children. The conservative Heritage Foundation has called for its elimination as part of its Project 2025.
Going Deeper
May 2017 – President Trump proposes cutting Head Start funding by 25% for fiscal year 2018, but Congress increases it by $610 million instead.
January 2025 – The Trump administration freezes Head Start funding temporarily.
February – A federal website temporarily malfunctions, locking some centers out of funding.
April- The Trump administration indicates it wants to eliminate all federal funding for Head Start.
April – Mass layoffs in the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which administers Head Start, results in the closure of five regional offices.
May 2 – President Trump’s proposed budget does not include cuts to Head Start.
– Associated Press
The Head Start Impact Study, published in 2019, and often cited by critics, found that the academic gains of Head Start diminished by third grade. The findings have been disputed by other researchers, however.
The initial research didn’t consider the impact of Head Start on children being cared for in a suboptimal environment, said Ariel Khalil, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, nor did it take into account research that shows that positive effects can emerge beyond third grade.
The value of Head Start depends largely on the needs of the student and their family, Khalil said.
“If you come into the Head Start program, and you have a very rich home environment and your parent has already taught you many of the things you’re going to learn in Head Start, maybe Head Start doesn’t have the biggest added value,” she said. “ But, as you can imagine, there’s lots of variation in the home environments of children who participate in Head Start.”
Research shows that the positive Intergenerational impacts of the program include higher educational attainment, lower participation in crime and higher employment, she said.
“If you don’t account for these long-term impacts, you’re really undervaluing the value of this program.” Khalil said.
Supporters fight back
Allies lined up in support of the program last month, after a leaked early draft of the president’s proposed budget showed the elimination of Head Start.
National Head Start leaders rallied alumni, parents and program staff, asking them to email members of Congress to urge them to protect the program. About 300,000 heeded the call, Sheridan said.
On April 28, parents and Head Start providers teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union to file a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services. The suit asked the court to stop the defunding of Head Start and to set aside department actions that could contribute to the program’s demise, including the layoff of Health and Human Services staff and the closure of regional offices.
Last week, after the release of the final proposed budget, Sheridan said he is optimistic that Congress will prioritize Head Start, given its historical bipartisan support and its impact on children and their families.
Patricia Marshal-Lopez reads to 4-year-olds Judah Sohal, right, and Lavania Hardin at the Sharon Neese Early Learning Center.Credit: Randall Benton / EdSource
Regardless, Head Start leaders continue to lobby legislators and to encourage supporters to send emails urging their support. The National Head Start Association hopes to collect 100,000 signatures on a letter to Trump urging him to protect and invest in Head Start. The letter had more than 50,000 signatures last week, according to Sheridan.
California Assemblymember Patrick Ahrens, D-Sunnyvale, was among a bipartisan group of state legislators that sent a letter to California members of Congress last month, asking them to protect the program. Three-quarters of the state’s legislators signed the letter.
“I think we are very much on guard,” said Ahrens, who had his first taste of fresh fruit and visited a doctor for the first time as a Head Start kid in San Jose.
Last week, Ahrens suggested lawmakers work together to make state and federal budgets more efficient, instead of targeting programs aiding the poor.
“We’re not going to be able to balance the national debt on the backs of poor children, on the backs of working families,” he said.
Every year, by May 15, the governor has to revise his proposed budget, and this is when the budget season really kicks off.
So, just as individuals are concerned about personal finances, retirements, the impacts of inflation, and uncertainty about government services, the state is facing those same sorts of uncertainties. And in this case, uncertainty really rolls downhill. There’s national uncertainty, which is causing state revenue uncertainty and budget uncertainty, which then impacts the state’s education budget decisions, that will then impact what school districts are facing as they head into adopting their budgets by the end of June.
So, we know that the revenue outlook for the current year that ends June 30 looks pretty good, so will that protect us?
I’d sort of hoped that they would, but the short answer is no, and that’s because of some nuances in how Prop 98 works. A lot of those extra revenues that have come in are actually going to count against last year, the 2023–24 fiscal year. And in that year, the Legislature actually suspended the constitutional guarantee for a year. So even though there are extra revenues, none of those revenues will go to schools.
As we look to the future, to the 2025–26 school year, the forecasts are looking much more pessimistic. The Legislative Analyst’s Office just came out with a projection of revenues for next year being down around $8 billion. That would trickle down to schools getting about $3.5 billion less compared to what their current programs receive.
I would expect schools to get the program that’s in place for the current year, plus a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which is currently expected to be about 2.3%. That probably seems pretty low to most folks, especially given some of the costs districts might face—salary increases that have already happened due to inflation, the rising costs teachers are facing, plus pensions and other obligations. So, the costs districts are facing may be going up more than the 2.3% COLA they’re getting.
In 2014, the California State Board of Education adopted the evidence-based and standards-driven English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework (ELA/ELD Framework) — nonbinding guidance that encourages the implementation of a research-informed, comprehensive literacy approach for all students.
The framework was the first in the nation to integrate two sets of standards: English language arts (grade-level literacy for all students) and English language development (progress in learning English for students from different language backgrounds), with a focus on the needs of English learners.
Amid ongoing discussions about how to best teach literacy to English learners, it is critically important to both demonstrate the significance of the ELA/ELD Framework and to renew calls to fully fund and implement this crucial guidance.
We cannot overlook the fact that the framework has never received the necessary funding for district, school and classroom implementation. Lawmakers appropriated $85 million to provide professional learning and support family engagement in mathematics, science and computer science — recognizing the need for support to accompany mathematics and science framework implementation. Without similar funding for English instructional materials, professional development, coaching and support services, the framework will remain nothing more than a collection of good ideas.
A few districts in the state have taken it upon themselves to focus on professional development and instruction on the tenets of the framework. Norma Carvajal Camacho, assistant superintendent of educational services for the Azusa Unified School District, said it has been transformative for their students: “By integrating primary language instruction and ensuring effective designated and integrated ELD, we have created a more inclusive and dynamic learning environment, resulting in significant improvements in language proficiency and overall achievement for our English learners.”
Unfortunately, without funding to back its implementation, most districts have not been able to adopt the framework’s powerful strategies for improving literacy for all students. This lack of funding means many districts are not providing the necessary professional development for teachers, not investing in high-quality instructional materials, and not offering sufficient coaching and support services. As a result, the framework’s potential to improve literacy outcomes remains unrealized in most areas.
The framework should be the cornerstone of any statewide strategy aimed at improving literacy and reading. It centers literacy and seeks to develop fluency, decoding, comprehension and vocabulary. It also takes into account that knowledge about the world, including the aforementioned skills, comes from reading and writing about meaningful and engaging content.
Imagine a classroom where the students don’t just learn reading and writing in isolation, but connect these skills with other content areas. An integrated approach promotes learning environments where students can read, write and discuss scientific experiments, historical events, or even create stories based on what they’ve learned in math. This is an approach in which students are also immersed in reading entire books. The framework uplifts this integrated approach to literacy and language instruction, delineating literacy expectations from transitional kindergarten to 12th grade. It emphasizes the five research-based cross-cutting themes that encompass all facets of the “science of reading”:
Foundational skills: Acknowledges the significance of phonics (the ability to recognize written letters from spoken language), phonemic awareness (the ability to identify individual sounds), and fluency as essential building blocks of literacy.
Meaning making: Encourages critical thinking and comprehension by emphasizing reading, writing, listening, language, motivation and vocabulary development.
Language development: Focuses on nurturing oral and written language skills to express information, ideas, perspectives and questions effectively.
Effective expression: Promotes various modes of communication, such as writing, discussions and presentations to showcase students’ understanding and knowledge.
Content knowledge: Highlights the interconnectedness of content, language and literacy, emphasizing the importance of knowledge about the natural and social world in enhancing text comprehension.
No single element, on its own, makes for a sound approach to reading or literacy — they interdependently bolster one another. Integrating all of these elements, ensuring a coherent and aligned approach over time, and supporting instruction that is responsive to students’ needs will produce better results for English learners and all students.
In California, where students speak more than 140 different languages at home, the framework recognizes the value of cultural diversity, multilingualism and biliteracy as assets to be nurtured and celebrated. The framework also includes a call for all educators to ensure English learners are provided with both integrated and designated English language development instruction.
Without designated instruction for English learners that helps them understand how English works and provides extra practice in speaking and reading, most aspects of learning to read in English become especially challenging. It becomes a struggle to hear and isolate the sounds of English, a challenge to understand the syntax and structure of text, and it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend and make meaning of vocabulary in a language they haven’t learned.
Included in the framework is guidance for curriculum and instructional planning that is aligned with the standards for integrated English language development occurring throughout the school day in every subject area for every English learner. Our instruction should be responsive to the linguistic demands English learners are facing throughout the curriculum.
There are other efforts underway that are aligned to the ELA/ELD Framework. The Literacy Roadmap, for instance, will help educators apply the framework to classroom instruction and navigate the resources and professional development opportunities available to implement effective literacy instruction. The Literacy Standard and Teaching Performance Expectations for Preliminary Multiple Subject and Single Subject Credentials for teacher candidates are also aligned to the ELA/ELD Framework. These efforts are essential for addressing equity and improving outcomes for all students. Both initiatives will require significant efforts to support teachers, parents and administrators to ensure high-quality literacy instruction.
Our students and teachers need and deserve a significant investment to fully realize the potential of the ELA/ELD Framework. Doing so is necessary for improving literacy outcomes for California’s 1.1 million English learners and all of California’s students. We are ready to work with policymakers to prioritize funding and support its full implementation.
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Martha Hernandez is executive director of Californians Together, a statewide advocacy coalition seeking to better educate English learners by improving California’s schools and promoting equitable educational policy.
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