New campaign focuses funding dialogue on adequacy 

The California School Boards Association has won a major grant to assist in a broad-based effort to build public awareness and support for a fundamental change in the way California funds public education. Seeing the urgent need to move away from a system that simply provides schools a portion of the year’s available revenues rather than determining what funding is required to attain the expected student outcomes, education and child advocates, business leaders, good-government groups and others have joined a campaign to advocate for change.

CSBA will work with Children Now, the California League of Women Voters and members of the Education Coalition to coordinate a public dialogue about the concept of adequate funding. The need for such a campaign became evident last year when settlement of the American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against the state – Williams v. State of California – failed to produce any meaningful reform that would pull state funding for public education out of the downward spiral that began in the late 1970s.

Public school advocates have filed suit over education funding levels in a majority of states, but so far even those that have won legal victories have not actually increased the amount of money schools have at their disposal to improve educational offerings. Further, the most successful campaigns have focused on helping local communities and the public to understand the importance, complexities and potential solutions for chronically underfinanced public schools.

The public should know, adequacy advocates say, that California ranks 44th in the nation in per-pupil funding despite being the sixth largest economy in the world. At the same time, California has among the highest expectations in the nation for its students and public schools, and its more than 6 million schoolchildren come from the most diverse backgrounds and circumstances.

“An investment in students and K-12 public education is an investment in children, the economy, society and democracy. Unfortunately, California’s investment over the past 20 years has been woefully inadequate,” said CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin. “We’re optimistic that we will be able to move past the divisive politics that have bogged this conversation down in the past and have a rational conversation about our public education goals, activities and resources.”

CSBA’s adequacy campaign will be launched during special sessions of the association’s Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in San Diego in December.

“This campaign is not just about more money,” said Plotkin. “Rather, it is about achieving one of CSBA’s fundamental goals, as stated in our vision statement: to create a fair and equitable system where ‘the futures of all children are driven by their aspirations, and not bounded by their circumstances.’”