Sunday, September 7, 2014

The new school year puts California’s rural public education system at a crossroads

A large proportion of California’s rural poor live in the Central Valley, a population characterized by high levels of Hispanic migrant farmworkers and English learners. In rural California towns, labor-intensive agriculture contributes to poverty and welfare demands in rural communities by attracting large numbers of unskilled foreign workers and offering most of them poverty-level wages. Many of these residents live in households with below-poverty incomes, while this demographic is projected to grow. 

Being one of the fastest-growing regions in the state, much of the Central Valley’s population consists of school-age children, who bring a set of unique challenges to California’s rural education system – including a high population of English learner students and economically disadvantaged students receiving disparate educational outcomes.  Moreover, rural poverty and high-poverty schools in the Central Valley have lower graduation rates than the rest of the state.  When education statistics relating to discipline, class assignment, dropout rate, graduation, and enrollment in college are tracked by race, ethnicity, and language, a disproportionate number of Latinos and limited English speaking children are not succeeding in California's rural schools.

In an attempt to address these disparate educational outcomes, in 2013 California completely restructured the way it funds public education by passing the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).  The LCFF replaced a complicated funding formula with an opportunity for individual districts to address the unique needs and demographics of the students they serve. As of 2014, California public schools are given a base amount per student, plus supplemental funding address the needs of at-risk subgroups, including of English learner and economically disadvantaged youth. The new funding formula nearly eliminates all categorical programs, so that schools can now spend their funding as they best see fit by replacing state oversight with local control. 

The LCFF provides a unique and critical opportunity for schools in California’s Central Valley to address the educational achievement gap faced by many of its rural and high-poverty schools with increased funding aimed at English learner and economically disadvantaged students. But the lack of state oversight and wide discretion given to local educational agencies in how they spend their funding also prompts concern over whether districts will truly use the funding as intended by LCFF. 

The LCFF puts districts in the Central Valley at a crossroads. On the one had, the new funding formula provides schools with an incredible opportunity to provide supplementary and much needed educational services to a student population with historically poor educational outcomes. Yet on the other hand, without full commitment and clear direction by districts to use the funding to benefit English learners and economically disadvantaged students, LCFF may have done away with an oversight system, that while not completely effective, did provide districts with some spending structure. Thus the 2014-2015 school year, the first year LCFF is being fully implemented, is critical in proving the potential of the new funding formula by giving districts the opportunity to make headway in closing educational achievement gap.

5 comments:

Kate said...
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Kate said...

Really excellent post, Juliana. I think that the program to provide a minimum level of funding per student is great. This is wonderful for the central valley- an area that can greatly use attention to ESL programs. I wonder how this is effectuated in areas that are fairly diverse. Great post! Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

Interesting. From your description, Juliana, it sounds like California swung wildly from oversight that keeps districts from spending their money in useful ways to lack of oversight but flexible spending. Am I reading this right? Do you know why it changed so drastically? (Did AB 97 create the LCFF? Is there something in the legislative history that explores the switch?)

Tiffanie said...

Attending school and completing schoolwork can be a challenge in itself, but this becomes even more difficult when English is not a child’s first language. Unfortunately, this is a common situation in certain areas in California’s Central Valley. Although the children may want to learn, teachers may not have the skills to properly guide ESL learners. Because of this frustrating situation, as you stated, a large number of Latino students dropout and have low graduation rates. And this is truly a shame.

LCFF sounds like a terrific program and a great potential solution, if used correctly. I hope individual districts use it in the best interest of the students, and look forward to seeing the results of the LCFF. Thanks for the post!

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