Seminars set on Prop. 98 lawsuit settlement money

Seminars are planned at three locations around the state this month to advise school districts that are considering applying for some of the $2.9 billion available from the Quality Education Investment Act, the legislation implementing settlement of the lawsuit over Proposition 98 funding.

Assistant Executive Director for Governmental Relations Rick Pratt will represent CSBA at the seminars, which will also include presentations from School Services of California Inc. They will be in Sacramento Monday, Jan. 22, Garden Grove Tuesday, Jan. 23, and Santa Clara Wednesday, Jan. 24.

The workshops have been scheduled on short notice because the application process for the seven-year funding program is on a fast track. The state Department of Education is expected to open the application period Jan. 15 with a deadline of March 30, Pratt told participants in a workshop on the topic at CSBA’s Annual Education Conference in San Francisco last month.

“It’s not a risk-free program,” Pratt warned. “You need to go into it with your eyes open.”

QEIA, passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Senate Bill 1133, codifies the settlement agreement Schwarzenegger reached with the California Teachers Association and other parties who sued the governor over suspension of Proposition 98 education funding guarantees in 2004-05 and 2005-06. CSBA joined the lawsuit but was not involved in crafting the settlement agreement, which restricts use of the $2.9 billion available to decile 1-2 schools and devotes 93 percent of the funds to class-size reduction and hiring counselors. There are also limited provisions for approved alternative programs.

QEIA also imposes a new accountability system on participating schools, including stringent targets for Academic Performance Index scores. It requires county superintendents of education to oversee use of the settlement funds and compliance with the requirements for the first three years and the state superintendent of public instruction to continue that oversight for the following four years.

“It’s become really obvious that school districts are struggling with whether to accept the money at all,” Holly Jacobson, assistant executive director for Policy Analysis and Continuing Education, told CSBA’s Board of Directors before the annual conference. Still, she observed, “It’ll be a difficult amount of money to turn down.”

Schools in the program will receive $500 for each K-3 student, $900 for each student in grades 4-8 and $1,000 for each student in grades 9-12. In return, they will have to meet and maintain API requirements, specified student-teacher ratios (and high school student-counselor ratios) and meet high teacher qualification standards as well as attendance and high school graduation requirements, among other conditions. One component, for example, is an academic review process that has elements of the High Priority School Grants and Intermediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools programs.

While CSBA supported settlement of CTA v. Schwarzenegger, “This separate allocation scheme is a sign of the Legislature sort of running amok,” Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin told CSBA’s Board of Directors.