This is what California public education looks like after the Great Recession:
Between 2007 and 2010, the number of teachers in the state's K-12 classrooms shrunk by 11 percent. Reading specialists, librarians, and other school employees helping students learn declined by 14 percent. Front offices took the hardest blow, with the number of administrators dropping by 16 percent. All these cuts hit schools even as the total enrollment held steady at around 6.2 million students.
Now that California is looking at its first budget without a deficit in five years, Gov. Jerry Brown's budget calls for restoring some money to the state's public schools. But, he does not want to distribute the money equally.
[For differences in revenues between Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, Piedmont and WCC unified school districts during the 2010-11 school year, see the tables at the bottom of this article.]
"Aristotle said, 'Treating unequals equally is not justice.' And people are in different situations. Growing up in Compton or Richmond is not like it is to grow up in Los Gatos or Beverly Hills or Piedmont," Brown said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
There are already big differences in the sums school districts get from the state.
Consider two communities Brown mentioned, Piedmont and Richmond. In the 2010-11 school year, Piedmont received $12,287 for every student. The West Contra Costa Unified School District, which includes Richmond, received $9,735 per student.
But only $3,300 of Piedmont’s revenue came from the state. That’s about a third less than the average unified school district gets from Sacramento. Contra Costa Unified School District received $5,600 per student from the state, which is more than the statewide average.
Here’s how Piedmont made up the difference and then some: The $9.1 million that Piedmont raised that school year in parcel taxes was 7,589 percent higher than the statewide average.
Brown’s spending plan has a $3 billion more than last year for K-12 and community colleges, will that be enough to bridge the economic gap that contributes to the achievement gap, and ultimately becomes a cycle-reinforcing income gap? Does more money improve student performance?
Alameda USD Revenue for 2010-11 Source $ Amount per student % Statewide average for unified school districts State Aid $3,306 96% Local Property Taxes $2,009 103% Federal Revenue $737 66% Other State Revenue $1,469 74% Other Local Revenue (includes parcel taxes) $1,868 351% Total $9,390 104%Albany USD Revenue for 2010-11
Source $ Amount per student % Statewide average for unified school districts State Aid $3,678 107% Local Property Taxes $1,607 83% Federal Revenue $2,058 185% Other State Revenue $4,657 233% Other Local Revenue (includes parcel taxes) $1,891 356% Total $13,891 154% Berkeley USD Revenue for 2010-11 Source $ Amount per student % Statewide average for unified school districts State Aid $2,565 75% Local Property Taxes $2,993 154% Federal Revenue $728 65% Other State Revenue $2,439 122% Other Local Revenue (includes parcel taxes) $4,344 817% Total $13,070 145% Oakland USD Revenue for 2010-2011 Source $ Amount per student % Statewide average for unified school district State Aid $3,564 104% Local Property Taxes $1,806 93% Federal Revenue $1,833 164% Other State Revenue $3,373 169% Other Local Revenue (includes parcel taxes) $1,119 210% Total $11,695 130% Piedmont USD Revenue for 2010-11 Source $ Amount per student % Statewide average for unified school districts State Aid $2,300 67% Local Property Taxes $3,029 156% Federal Revenue $504 45% Other State Revenue $1,024 51% Other Local Revenue (includes parcel taxes) $5,430 1,021% Total $12,287136%
West Contra Costa Revenue for 2010-11 Source $ Amount per student % Statewide average for unified school districts State Aid $3,340 97% Local Property Taxes $2,063 106% Federal Revenue $1,196 107% Other State Revenue $2,333 117% Other Local Revenue (includes parcel taxes) $804 151% Total $9,735 108%Source: California Department of Education, Ed-Data
One reason, at least in some districts, why the number of teachers declined during the economic downturn is that employee compensation continued to outpace inflation. Many Alameda County districts, such as Alameda and Albany, spend more per student than the state average. WCCUSD receives and spends way more than the state average (and this is before the new taxes are included), but the district spends an unusually large amount of money on construction projects. http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/App_Resx/EdDataClassic/fsTwoPanel.aspx?#!bottom=/_layouts/EdDataClassic/finance/MC-FinanceResults.asp
What's embarrassing is what little we get for such massive expenditures. Take a look for yourself, under K-12 education: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/BSS/BSS.html
My personal guess , I've been blissfully out of this business for some time, is that this reflects the additional payments for Special Education students . Albany administered the "SELPA". Much of this is shown as Albany revenue, but is then really passed through to other Districts as they perform services . Although new " out of District" students have been allowed in in a reduced percentage in comparison to prior years, Albany still has a very large number of students attending who do not reside in Albany. I'd suggest that the fairest possible allocation would consider the STUDENTS, and provide additional funding for each student receiving free or reduced price lunch, each student needing services as a English language learner, each student needing other kinds of special services, rather than characterizing an individual district as one way or another.
The schools don't need more money. They need to be run like successful schools. Which schools are these? High-performing inner city Catholic and charter schools, who by the way, educate their pupils for less money than the state and cities throw at public schools.
Median private sector raise for 2012 is 1.8%, nationwide (I doubt it's much more in California). Underfunded? Not really. Misallocated? Certainly, but not because of rich/poor districts; because we're diverting $3.5B of the recent "increase" in school spending to...pensions and retiree health care--it'll never see the classroom. As for the 'byzantine' system, yes. How about we solve it by taking that $11,455 and just allocating it per student. If the parents are happy with the local public school, it goes there. If they want to send their pupil to a private school, it pays the tuition up to that point. (actually it'd be more like $9,000 for K-8 and $15,000 for high school). And actually it'd end up being even more than that, since we'd get to lay off a good chunk of the 2.865 million state administrators, and could reallocate the bureaucrats' salaries to student funding.
From: Michael John Torrey RE: Jerry Brown's Fairness In Allocations To The Unified School Districts concerning your query of the Honorable Jerry Brown's fairness in fund allocations to the Unified School Districts. I think you have to first look at the total number of students a School District has, then you have to look at the number of Students each campus in the district has Then you have to multiply that number times the total amount of the Average Daily Attendance (A.D.A.) allowance. Once you've done the arithmetic then you ask your self if Jerry Brown's allocation to each School District is done in fairness.
As for "picking and choosing" --other states' voucher programs do not allow private schools to pick or choose. If the school takes vouchers, they take the kids with vouchers. By definition, these students, in, say, Wisconsin are low income etc (those are the only students who get vouchers).