Vantage Point: by CSBA President Kathy Kinley

Your support needed for adequate state funding

Many of us remember the Mamas and Papas song, “California Dreamin’. ” Now is the time for California school board members to do some dreaming. Envision ideal schools for the students in your communities. Would you add more arts and music, career and technical education, science or foreign language? Would you increase instructional time? Would you have more collaborative partners or support staff to help children in poverty?

At a time when many of us are facing budget cuts, we need to begin to think big as we move forward in convincing the public that adequate school funding linked with reasonable reforms will allow local school boards to innovate and meet unique needs of students and communities.

California students deserve at least the same level of investment made in other states, as reported in “Getting Down to Facts,” a set of recently published reports coordinated by Stanford University. West Virginia spends $1,400 more per student per year than California. New York state was already spending 75 percent more per student, and it just passed a state budget that will significantly increase school funding.

The political leaders who requested those studies will now be formulating a policy agenda. It’s crucial that school board members impact these discussions. At CSBA’s Delegate Assembly in Sacramento this month, delegates will spend time discussing four aspects of the studies: governance and finance; teachers; data and accountability; and public engagement. They will identify CSBA policies which are in alignment with the studies and make recommendations.

A campaign is already under way to enlist public support for adequately funded and equitable education. The Education Coalition (which includes CSBA) ran radio and TV ads in April noting that it would take a 40 percent increase in funding to meet current state academic goals, according to the main cost study in the research coordinated by Stanford. Other materials are being prepared to help communicate how schools are currently funded.

Most important, CSBA is preparing its own contribution to the discussion of adequate and equitable school funding, in cooperation with the League of Women Voters of California, Children Now and the California State PTA. A $1.4 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is financing outreach interviews on the issue with a range of California opinion leaders. The preliminary findings are significant. They show a focus on accountability, a call for transparency, a desire to balance stability and flexibility, and support for investment in public education.

CSBA will be actively involved in identifying the changes in funding and policies needed to achieve our goals of closing the achievement gap and meeting the needs of all students. The campaign that is now gearing up promises to dominate the education agenda for 2008. Much of the work will need to be done at the local level in raising awareness of what can be done to improve local schools. Start dreaming—and preparing to communicate with the public on how we can make these dreams come true for our students.