In 2013, after working with the Legislature for months on a comprehensive overhaul of California’s public school finances, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The governor called the law “historic” and hailed its dual goals: providing much more resources to directly help English-language learner students and foster children students, and providing more flexibility to local decision-makers on spending priorities.
Under the law, each school district was supposed to adopt a Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) to ensure English-learners and foster children were getting the extra help that Brown and lawmakers promised. These plans outline district priorities and relate them to funding decisions.
Three years later, California education reform groups increasingly question how the LCFF is working out. They cite little evidence of more resources going to struggling students and many instances of extra dollars going into general school district budgets, with the blessing of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson.
This frustration led to the unusual decision last week of three reform groups — Public Advocates, Education Trust-West and Californians Together — to simultaneously issue studies that question how local LCAPs are being implemented.
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