Brown hopes the formula will help some students improve by sending more money to those with low incomes or who don’t speak English. But he said, “the gap has been pretty persistent. So I don’t want to set up what hasn’t been done ever as the test of whether LCFF is a success or failure.”
The governor spoke exclusively to CALmatters in a recent telephone interview about government limits when it comes to improving classroom learning for California’s 6 million-plus students. From his vantage point, Brown, California’s longest-serving governor from 1975-1983 and since 2011, has come to the belief that federal and state government have overreached, stifling creativity and innovation in schools.
He often uses the term subsidiarity in explaining his rationale for ending most spending requirements in the state’s $71.6 billion education budget. He suggests that classroom problems are best solved by the people closest to the students. To that end, LCFF gives school districts much more discretion in spending state funds because Brown’s ultimate goal is for teachers and administrators to have the freedom to teach how they best see fit.