As students flood store aisles eager to stock up on notebooks and gear for the coming academic year, California’s public schools find themselves grappling with their own critical to-do lists. Schools rely heavily on state funding to cover teacher salaries, material costs, and other classroom essentials. However, state funding ebbs and flows with fluctuating tax revenues and California’s overall fiscal climate. Recent economic shifts have cast a shadow over California’s education budget and its essential shopping list.
On May 10th, Governor Gavin Newsom announced a new budget plan aimed at tackling this year’s $27.6 billion deficit. Concurrently, his administration hopes to preemptively combat next year’s estimated $28.4 billion shortfall. The 2023-2024 budget didn’t accurately reflect California’s fiscal outlook and overestimated available funds for public programs. Ultimately, this led to heightened spending and a larger than expected shortfall. The budgetary inaccuracy can be attributed to a variety of factors, including revenue decline and delayed tax collection. Other more unpredictable factors, including extreme weather patterns, were also partly responsible for the delay.
A series of storms swept several California counties during the winter of 2023. Levee breaks in Tulare and Monterey County damaged farmland while the Capitola Wharf flooded in Santa Cruz. “The only access road was closed for over 5 months due to a mudslide which affected the commute of hundreds of people in our neighborhood alone. This left folks without generators and provisions in a precarious position,” shared Brendan Cabe, a former resident of rural Santa Cruz county.
Due to the severity of the storms across California, President Joseph R. Biden declared a Presidential Emergency Declaration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided disaster relief to those affected by the storms, floods, and landslides. In response to these natural disasters, the IRS proposed a November tax deadline in lieu of the traditional April cutoff.
Generally, the state budget pulls from current revenue to forecast the next fiscal cycle. The grace period proposed by the IRS delayed the availability of tax data. Without much data to pull from, policymakers crafted the state budget using estimates and forecasts. Consequently, California legislators didn’t account for taxes falling approximately 25% shorter than estimated. As a result, the state unknowingly made plans to spend more than what was actually in its pockets.
In accordance with the initial projections of California’s 2023-2024 fiscal cycle, school districts received $76 billion for the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Once accurate tax information arrived in the fall, legislators realized through later calculations that schools had been overpaid $8.8 billion. To solve this problem, the Newsom Administration unveiled their overpayment solution, which they termed a “budgetary maneuver.” Under this proposal, Newsom planned to allow schools to keep the money they were overpaid by recategorizing it as outside funds and borrowing from reserves. In other words, local allocations would remain the same while the overpayment would be paid off through smaller future budgets. This way, schools will face cuts down the line instead of immediately.
“We understand that it is a tough budget year and that certain cuts need to be made to ensure our State has a balanced budget,” said Enrique Govea, a Legislative Assistant in the Office of Assemblyman Josh Hoover. “With current budget situations as the ones we currently experience, it’s all about prioritizing and education shall remain at the top of that list.”
However, money has already left the coffers for new facilities, amenities, and staff costs. School boards and interest groups are confronting the shortfall’s implications as they navigate the upcoming school year. Additionally, the budget maneuver encountered considerable resistance from the educational community as it directly challenges California’s main funding formula for public schools: Proposition 98.
According to Dr. Kristi Britton, the Assistant Superintendent of Business Services for the Ceres Unified School District, roughly “40% of the California state budget is reserved for schools under Proposition 98. It basically sets a minimum for K-12 funding by using a system based on attendance rates, state revenue, and per capita income.”
Interest groups such as the California Teachers Association (CTA) and California School Boards Association (CSBA) have criticized Newom’s maneuver. “Messing with current statutes once only leaves room for further interference,” Britton said. In a statement released by the CSBA on May 16th, Chief Information Officer Troy Flint noted that “the state essentially loans $8.8 billion in funds for schools to itself—money already given to schools—while reclassifying those funds as non-school spending for the purpose of Prop 98 calculations.” Ignoring the overpayment would shrink this year’s school budget on paper. Since future budgets rely on previous ones, school allocations wouldn’t accurately reflect how much funding schools actually need.
Writing a massive sum off the books sounds like a generous deed on the surface. However, excluding the overpayment means schools will receive less money than anticipated for years to come. With a projected twelve billion dollar loss in school funds on the horizon, interest groups fear that Newsom’s budget maneuver may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Delegates of the CSBA were apprehensive about California’s budget situation early on. “At the CSBA Annual Education Conference (AEC) in December [of 2023], we saw the Legislative Analyst Office’s initial shortfall numbers and knew it would be a battle to preserve base funding and prevent costly deferrals. This was on the heels of districts already adjusting overall spending down, as COVID funds were spent out this year,” said Rebecca Cramer, a CSBA delegate.
After the budget proposal came to light, several interest groups were quick to advocate against the maneuver. “CSBA quickly informed school board trustees so we could advocate with our legislators and explain how the deferrals would hurt us locally,” said Cramer. As a member of the Pleasant Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) Board of Trustees, Cramer was heavily involved in this process. Dubbing “the budget battle this spring” as “unacceptable,” Cramer echoed worries that legislation will have “unintended consequences or damaging fiscal impacts” on vulnerable districts.
Across the state, teachers voiced concerns about local impacts at their schools. Bouncing back from the pandemic was a struggle. Many feared that shaved-off funding would throw a wrench in efforts to prepare students for the future. On top of that, California teachers dreaded program cuts and student resource decline as a whole. Every district’s financial situation differs, so the potential consequences of the maneuver were too varied to predict across the board.
Rance Skavdahl, a high school history teacher, was laid off during the 2008 recession. Back then, Skavdahl witnessed the push and pull of balancing financial feasibility and student access.
“Students lost a lot of important resources, including after-school busing for sports and other avenues for recreation. It didn’t help that staff and administration were dealing with a harsh environment fostered by acrimony against the economic climate. It was rough,” said Skavdahl. The severity of the current budget shortfall doesn’t amount to the calamity of 2008, but parallels have fostered doubts about potential downsizing. In light of California’s current economic state, Skavdahl had qualms about the preservation of educators’ resources.
Skavdahl was fretful about “downsizing efforts impacting our access and use of technology in the classroom. Students use technology on a daily basis to learn, study, and whatnot.” Additionally, professional development days and conferences have been vulnerable to the chopping block in the past. “As a teacher, you want to stay up to date with new developments in education, so it’ll only make adaptation harder. I’ve learned how to be a better educator because of them,” he said.
In June, this heavy backlash came to a point, and the California legislature was forced to address the situation. It announced a revised budget directly addressing Prop 98. One change included axing the proposed budget maneuver and holding on to an $8.4 billion reserve. This alteration—a byproduct of consistent advocacy—could help stabilize long-term budgets.
The integrity of Prop 98 was mostly maintained in the proposed June revision. However, ambiguous language still allows for the governor to write off funds under exceptional circumstances, such as another tax deadline delay or corporate taxes and federal income making up over half of the state’s revenue. In spite of established limitations, the open-ended response to potential maneuvers left the CTA and CSBA wary. A potential secondary attempt to alter Proposition 98’s formula could be a further threat to the efforts of educational interest groups.
“The frustrating reality remains that public schools are still not receiving the percentage of funding promised,” said Michelle Waffle, the Santa Barbara County Delegate for the CSBA. “It often feels like we have to fight and plead for every dollar we get.”
It is too early to tell how educational resources will fare as the budget deficit persists. With six million students, California public schools have, both figuratively and literally, substantial mouths to feed. Nonetheless, peering into political influences and the history of school financing could yield a greater understanding of the climate of the classroom.
Zooming out of the budgetary debacle, several forces contribute to the complicated relationship between education and government in California. Policy analysts, lobbyists, and others play an active role in an ever-changing socioeconomic ecosystem.
“Our education landscape is greatly shaped and influenced by the bills and
policies that are passed and enacted out of Sacramento,” said Govea, the California State Assembly Legislative Assistant. “From school lunches to operational hours, the structure of our educational public policy has been created by the decisions that are made at the state level.” As a member of the Assembly Education Committee, Govea analyzes bills and discusses which educational policies to greenlight.
To get the bigger picture of potential policy impacts, bill staffers compile answers to questions posed by the Assembly Education Committee. Staffers create what is referred to as a Backgrounder document, which acts as a synopsis of the bills’ motives and potential impacts. “It essentially [lays] out questions for the staffer to answer in regards to the origin of the bill’s idea, any foreseeable support or opposition, who the sponsor is if any, and will request additional supporting evidence that the solution [proposed] will solve the issue at hand,” explained Govea. Consultants then create an analysis of the bill, which helps the Committee inform their final verdict on a given policy decision.
Meetings with interest groups and consultants help inform the committee’s vote, especially in situations pertaining to equity. “Each Backgrounder document and analysis must have a question in regards to any potential inequity. More specifically, Backgrounder documents will typically ask how the proposed policy would affect individuals from minority or marginalized groups, if any impact,” continued Govea.
Policymakers and interested parties collaborate heavily during the briefing process to further their respective policy goals. Considering California’s diversity, stakeholder engagement is crucial to improving educational outcomes. Parents on school boards and teacher advocacy efforts are just a few examples of grassroot movements. With her own children attending schools in her district, Cramer ran to increase her involvement in the community and her children’s education. “I wanted to liaise with and learn from other school board delegates in our region and be involved in education policy advocacy with the legislature. As a CSBA delegate, I see how other school districts are implementing state policies and innovating strategies for increased student success. California schools vary enormously from district to district—from urban to rural, small to large. It is difficult to make policies at the state level that meet needs at the local level,” said Cramer.
Govea recognized the existence of local disparities, but noted that “state level education policy is a balance of what legislators believe ought to be in place for all students while acknowledging diversity.” It’s hard to target individual issues with umbrella policies, so solutions sprout from cooperation between various stakeholders. Be it interest group lobbying in Sacramento or smaller petitions to school boards, collaboration is key.
“Relationships and connections often wield significant influence. These connections can be pivotal in advocating effectively for our schools and students,” said Waffle. “External forces change so much that it’s crucial for a school board to stay relevant and include a variety of perspectives.” Motivated by family experiences, Waffle advocates for increased mental health support in her home district of Orcutt. Through her platform, she drives local-level initiatives to improve resources for students.
Educational policy will never be one-size fits all. Each bill dramatically impacts students’ lives by enhancing or damaging their educational experience. These complexities augment the importance of policy analysis to track successes and predict potential faults.
“You would want to be thoughtful about research and evaluation. You’re investing millions, sometimes billions of dollars into programs. How are you evaluating implementation support and how would you know that it was going well?” said Jeannie Myung ‘02, the Director of Policy Research at Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) headquartered at Stanford. She voiced that California’s data infrastructure for these purposes is “falling short in applications of scale or long term effects” for policies hot off the press.
The California Department of Education (CDE) has earned a reputation for outdated and, at times, inaccurate data. “It’s really difficult in California for researchers to access data that’s not publicly available. And the data that is available isn’t timely,” said Myung. For example, Assembly Bill 2429, passed on June 13th of this year, mandates health education courses including fentanyl awareness. But the bill “relied on data from five years ago,” according to EdSource. With delays in public accessibility, it’s hard to create legislation that meets the ever-changing needs of students.
Meanwhile, states with robust data systems can address disparities more readily. For example, Tennessee’s Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) assesses student success and teacher performance on a yearly basis. Policymakers and analysts identify areas of need across the state through public data points. In the 2013-2014 school year, reading intervention resources increased after TVAAS indicated low growth among grades 3-8.
But comparing California to Tennessee is not entirely fair. With greater size and population comes greater difficulty compiling accurate data. Regardless, data plays a pivotal role in public school education and there is undoubtedly room for improvement on data accessibility in California.
“We don’t often build in these opportunities for research to see what works and what doesn’t. Without a strong backbone of infrastructure, we can’t assess successful programs and implement them elsewhere as promptly,” Myung said.
According to Govea, educational policy is fundamental “because of the state’s size and complexity.” With several cooks in the kitchen, every decision has a sprinkle, pinch, and dab of stakeholder interest, analysis, and influence.
Like a pendulum, school financing has experienced expansion and contraction in turn over the past five decades. In the latter half of the 20th century, California’s school financing was based on property taxes, with higher property taxes correlated with higher contributions to schools. Given the wide disparities in income levels across Los Angeles neighborhoods, schools in different districts received dramatically different levels of funding. Unsurprisingly, schools in wealthier areas thrived under this methodology while lower-income districts struggled. Beyond that, communities with lower property values (and therefore budget-strapped schools) were predominantly inhabited by people of color and ethnic minorities. These factors contributed to inherently unequal and class-segregated academic environments.
In the late sixties, John Serrano, a social worker and parent, was advised to move to a wealthier part of town to improve his son’s educational experience. In protest of the educational inequalities created by California’s school funding method, Serrano filed a suit against the California State Treasurer in 1968. The suit is known as Serrano v Priest I. It reached its conclusion when, in 1971, the California Supreme Court ruled that a funding system that denies equal educational opportunity was unconstitutional.
As a result, the century-old school funding system received an overhaul. Property taxes were rerouted to an overall pool that funded school districts across the state, not only local schools. This provision made school funding more equitable, but it also provoked ire among Californians.
“Californians were unhappy about their rising property tax bills to fund other school districts. Why should my property taxes fund that district?” said Myung.
In response to Californians’ discontent, the 1978 California legislature passed Proposition 13, which capped property tax rates, effectively slashing tax revenue by 60%. This diminished tax revenue meant less money for public education.
With local funds wiped, summer school closures and budget-crunching became inevitable in many districts. Paul Bruno, an assistant professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said that the loss in taxes made “equitably and adequately [funding] public schools” a more arduous task. California started to fall behind other states in school spending as pupil expenditure dropped below the national average. Prop 98 was intended to address this issue.
In the eighties, a 52% vote of approval for Prop 98 established a funding minimum for education across the state. It amended the state constitution to include a baseline funding rate isolated from the volatility of politics. “The formula for this is pretty complicated, but the basic idea is to force the state to use a certain minimum amount of available resources to fund schools (including community colleges). This takes some authority and flexibility away from the legislature and governor, who otherwise might choose to spend money on other things,” remarked Bruno.
Under the leadership of Governor Jerry Brown, in 2013, financial accommodations improved through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The formula, according to Bruno, focused on spending “the most in school districts identified as serving the highest-need students.”
Cramer found that codifying “equity funding in state education spending and [requiring] districts to report on how they use extra funds to close opportunity and achievement gaps” was essential to target “identified needs.” Stepping away from the rigidity of categorical grants allowed decisive spending from within. Schools can address their needs at the site level instead of depending on state-wide, general assistance. For example, districts with high English learner populations can invest in dual-language resources. Others can focus on adult education or expanding programs to fit their individual goals.
Furthermore, non-categorical grants could increase up to “20% for each student that is either low-income or an English learner. And, if a school district has a lot of those students, LCFF actually begins increasing those grants by as much as another 50%. So there’s potentially a lot of additional investment in school districts,” said Bruno.
In the present day, California has experienced a rapid whirlwind of fiscal policy.“We’re seeing a political seesaw that can really go one way or the other. It can be in favor one day and not the next, it just depends on political interests in Sacramento and the voter mindset,” said Britton.
It took decades for the California public school system to achieve appropriate levels of funding from the state. Now, interest groups, school boards, and districts view the new budget maneuver as a threat to California’s history of equitable funding and the efforts that created the state’s modern education system.
California’s diverse educational landscape contributes to the challenges faced by schools in confronting student needs. Financial constraints and policy shifts continually shape the K-12 learning environment. Evidently, understanding the present condition of schools is crucial for pinpointing possible solutions and approaches to current issues in the classroom. Notably, a few overall trends have surfaced across the state.
Chronic absenteeism—missing 10% or more of the school year—has risen among a peculiar age group: kindergarteners. “The highest rates of chronic absenteeism before the pandemic used to be among high schoolers, which in my mind makes sense, right? Like teenagers going to lunch and not coming back or whatever that might be,” said Myung. But NPR reports that more than one-third of California kindergarteners were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year. These students are less likely to reach grade-level reading proficiency by the third grade and have higher dropout risks.
Although the cause of rising chronic absenteeism remains unclear, Myung feels that there has been a “shift in priorities for parents after the pandemic… Many may view education as optional in nature because of quarantine. Online classes felt disconnected and inadequate for effective learning. Student groups that once had high attendance rates are steadily dropping, so the data is indicative of something greater,” she said. “Things like off-season trips to Disneyland may seem harmless, but they can become a barrier for adequate student attendance and academic achievement.”
Historically marginalized groups, including differently abled, Native American, and foster care students are also experiencing declining attendance rates post-pandemic. Barriers to educational attainment vary in nature and severity for these groups. While some lack adequate transportation to and from school, others’ absences are due to a lack of mental health support or financial struggles. Homelessness, bullying, and familial obligations merely scratch the surface of potential hurdles faced by these students. Absenteeism among marginalized groups was only exacerbated by the pandemic, as employment, housing, and resource insecurity disproportionately affected these groups.
California is also struggling with another demographic issue: the struggle to maintain current population figures. Families moving out of state have taken a toll on public school enrollment, leading to six straight years of decline. With a dwindling birth rate and the allure of independent schools, California has struggled to increase its public school student population since 2007.
Enrollment numbers vary throughout the state, with some counties facing greater decline than others. For reference, Los Angeles County enrollment is projected to decline by 278,600 students over the next 10 years. Meanwhile, Sacramento and San Bernardino sit at an estimated 2% increase as residents flock from other counties. As a result, some counties stand poised to reap the benefits of enrollment trends while others must prepare for downsizing measures to stay afloat.
“A lot will also depend on how much state policymakers are willing to protect schools from the effects of declining enrollment. But there are trade-offs for them as well, because sending more money to schools with declining enrollment means having less money to spend on other schools or on other goals,” said Bruno.
Retirement pensions and other large liabilities have become a cause of concern as declining enrollment directly correlates to falling revenue. With large payouts to deal with, school districts must prioritize certain areas while cutting corners on others. Furthermore, per-pupil costs have risen in response to shifting teacher-student ratios and class sizes. Considering current trends, students may lose access to specialized classes once cost-efficiency begins to decline.
“Hypothetically, why have three kindergarten sections when we can only fill two cost-effectively? It’s disheartening to ask teachers to switch grade levels or transfer sites, but there aren’t a lot of options,” noted Britton.
On top of less than ideal enrollment trends, the budget deficit has only added to the financial strain on school districts. These circumstances raise the essential question: ‘What comes next?’
Concern for the future of the state’s classrooms is shared by many Californians. Accessible to students of all socioeconomic backgrounds, public programs are a pivotal part of equity efforts. Schools come in all shapes and sizes, just like the populations they serve. Myung reflected on her time with Teach for America, a nonprofit that enlists recent grads to teach in low-income communities. “There are so many problems that I saw from the frontline as a teacher. Like trying to teach kindergarteners how to read, but the lights would go out and there was no funding from the district to fix them,” she recalled. Myung bought lamps at Target with her own money to light up her classroom, emphasizing a major point: adequate budgets represent the fulfillment of student needs.
The world of educational policy is complicated, and the budget deficit is a strong example of its depth. Different perspectives tell different tales, from the classroom to the board room. Interest groups and policymakers across California will continue working towards their respective goals for K-12’s future. “These are lives that can be made or shaped at this moment,” said Myung. “We worry about the future and what may come next. But what can we do in the present?” Predicting outcomes can only get us so far. Real impacts stem from the heart of it all: the students themselves.