CSBA wins grant to lead campaign for adequate education funding 

CSBA is preparing to reach out to business, community and political leaders throughout the state in the next step of its strategic campaign for a fundamental change in the way California funds public education.

CSBA officially launched the new campaign at the association’s Annual Education Conference in San Diego. Special Counsel Abe Hajela told assembled school board members and superintendents at a Dec. 1 workshop that he was surprised and gratified at remarks delivered earlier that day by state Education Secretary Alan Bersin.

Speaking to CSBA’s Delegate Assembly, Bersin said it’s crucial that education advocates find a way to bridge the “terrible, terrible gap” between warring political factions in Sacramento so that the education community can begin having serious conversations with California taxpayers about reforming the state’s system for financing its schools.

“That’s exactly the conversation we need to have,” Hajela said.

Equipped with a major grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the adequacy funding project will develop a broad-based understanding of the resources needed to provide high-quality educational services to all California schoolchildren. The outreach effort will also identify strategies to effectively allocate those resources throughout the state.

The information will guide CSBA and its partners as they lay the groundwork for development of an organization to promote adequate funding for education. Recommendations for the next phase of the project are expected by next October.

In the meantime, more than 100 educators, community activists, child advocates, researchers, policy-makers and business people will be invited to detail their thoughts on school funding. The effort, extending into next spring, will also gauge the opinion leaders’ interest in working with CSBA, in partnership with the League of Women Voters of California, Children Now and members of the Education Coalition, to advocate for a comprehensive new approach to California’s investment in K-12 public schools.

The need for a new approach to education funding is evident as California works to prepare its diverse student population for the challenges of the new century. The state’s academic standards are among the most rigorous in the nation, yet more than a quarter of its 6.3 million students are English language learners who may use other languages outside of school.