Adequacy: Courageous conversations needed

Our public schools are improving in spite of a shortage of resources, changing demographics and increasing demands. Yet many members of our communities believe that schools are failing in spite of being—supposedly—well financed. School board members need to dispel myths and advocate for meaningful reform and adequate funding to ensure that California’s public schools can be celebrated as the places where all students learn and achieve. In order for this to occur, CSBA members will need to have courageous conversations with their communities.

CSBA’s Delegate Assembly members laid the foundation for these conversations at their May meeting in Sacramento, when they discussed the recent “Getting Down to Facts” reports on school funding and governance and explored ways to engage the public back in their own communities. Now, CSBA and the Association of California School Administrators have embarked on a community training project for school board members and superintendents on adequate education funding.

This project will help prepare our organizations’ members to successfully advocate for adequate resources. To do that, they’ll need to be able to brief their communities on the existing school finance structure and how it complements—or clashes with—their communities’ educational goals, and on changes that need to occur at the local and state level in order to meet those goals.

Delegates from the Los Angeles and San Bernardino areas pilot-tested the training program last month. Their feedback will help fine-tune the program, leading to additional training opportunities in September and October for local board members, superintendents and chief financial officers in various parts of the state. This effort is financed through a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and we hope to continue the project through 2008. I urge you to participate.

Also, please be looking for key leaders in your community who are products of the public schools and can be counted on to lend their support to the public school system. We are especially looking for members of the business community who will be willing to take part in our campaign for adequate school funding. CSBA will be recruiting business leaders at the state level as well.

Meanwhile, related work continues on parallel tracks:

• Our Cities, Counties and Schools Partnership is studying the needs for the future California workforce and the ways we can work together to prepare all our students for a brighter future. We anticipate bringing teams from local governments together in January to focus on the problems facing our students and the solutions we can offer.
• CSBA will also support the community engagement message that National School Boards Association President Norm Wooten has made a theme of his term. Wooten is highlighting collaborative efforts by schools, nonprofits, governmental agencies and businesses, and he is urging education governance team members to adopt board policies on community engagement and foster a feeling of shared ownership of our public schools.
• “Courageous Conversations” is the theme of CSBA’s 2007 Annual Conference and Trade Show. Attendees will be encouraged to ask and answer many of the hard questions facing our students, schools and communities.

Your local voters have placed their confidence in you. We look forward to your leadership as we work together with others to create and fund the schools that our democracy requires, our businesses need, and our students deserve.