California and Per-Pupil Spending

Last week, NPR launched a series of stories focused on disparities across the country in state funding of education. Titled "School Money", the stories specifically focus on how funding disparities impact the most deserving students in our communities. Although this blog has examined educational funding within the California budget and the reliance of state funding, the issues described in these recent stories stress the importance of continued engagement with this topic.

First--a refresher course on California's system of educational funding. As a reminder, until 1978, local school districts relied primarily on local and state property tax revenues for a majority of funding. In the late 1970s, however, soaring property values (and the resulting rise in rates) caused panic amongst California citizens--a panic that ushered in a desire for property tax reform. This desire manifested itself in Proposition 13--a citizen based reform initiative that eventually passed in 1978. While the merits of the Proposition were novel in their effort to reign in the exponentially growing property tax rates, the impacts on education proved significant. Mainly, this measure caused local districts to become increasingly reliant dependent on state sources of funding. Again, see the earlier post regarding the state budget and this helpful timeline of Proposition 13 for a better understanding of this process.

Thirty-eight years removed from Proposition 13 and educational funding now constitutes almost 1/3 of California's total state budget. While this 30% may seem like a substantially large source of funding, a 2013 report from the Washington Examiner found that California actually fell behind 11 other states in the overall portion of the state budget dedicated to education.

Moreover, when it comes to per-pupil spending, California--and most of it's districts--fall below the national average. According to NPR, California as a whole spends an average of $8,399 per student--well below the national average of $11,841. When broken down by individual districts, those numbers continue to fall beyond the spectrum. While most school districts in the northern portion of the state fall within or above the national average, the majority of districts in the Central Valley and Southern portions of the state fall below. For example, San Diego Unified (which is the second largest district in the state according to the California Department of Education) spends $9,880--again, below the national average. In fact, with the exception of Rancho Santa Fe Elementary School District and Julian Union High School District (which spend $14, 874 and $15,168 per student, respectively), all school districts in San Diego County fall below the national average.

The main question to ponder from these findings: how to these funding disparities impact our students?

I recommend reading the full story below and taking a look at the interactive map to compare your own districts with the national average.

Why America's Schools Have A Money Problem

Grim Graduation Prediction for SDUSD

Last April, the California Department of Education announced that California high schools had achieved a record high graduation rate. Their reporting indicated that the graduation rate among students who started high school in the 2010-2011 school year reached 80.8 percent--a 0.4 percent increase from the year before. Additionally, no sub-group dropped in graduation rates and many groups--including English Language Learners--saw significant improvement. While this--and similar trends across the country--were welcome news, many took a more skeptical view of the rising rates--pointing to differences in what constitutes a high school "graduate" from state to states. NPR ran a series focused on these concerns in 2015.

While the rising rates of high school completes is overall good news, a recent report (embedded below) released by the University of California San Diego suggests that the trend may soon taper off within San Diego Unified high schools. The report points to the district's recent policy of requiring all students to take UC A-G college preparatory coursework--a policy started for the class of 2016 cohort. While the study found that this policy has increased the population of students passing these courses and thus eligible for UC/CSU applications and admissions, the study also reported concerning results that suggest a declining graduation rate this school year. According to the UCSD report:

• Approximately 27% will face difficulty in finishing their remaining A-G requirements this semester--meaning that they will be ineligible to graduate by June 2016.

• English Language Learners and students with IEPs comprise over half of that 27% of students.

• These findings also suggest that those students with grade point averages of less than 2.0--an additional graduation requirement--will increase. When factored in, this means that the group of students at risk of not graduating rises slightly to 28%

• If these predictions are correct, the projected 2016 graduation rate will be 72%--a rate significantly lower than than the 87.5% June 2014 graduation rate (89.7% eventually graduated after summer school).

KPBS--San Diego's NPR affiliate--recently discussed these findings with a co-author of the report, Julian Betts, and SDUSD Board Member Richard Barrera.

Study: San Diego Graduation Rates Expected To Drop

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While the final outcomes remain to be seen, these reports nonetheless underscore the continued need for targeted interventions directed towards our most deserving student sub-groups.

Questions to Consider:

• What, if any, problems do you see in the SDUSD policy requiring all students to take UC A-G approved, college prep, curriculum?

• What can the district and local schools do to ensure that those struggling 27% of students receive adequate support?