Advocating Adequacy

California’s school finance system struggles to make the grade

The terminology used to describe the goal doesn’t do it justice, especially considering the potential of the campaign to fundamentally transform educational opportunities for California schoolchildren.

But those at the forefront of school “adequacy” campaigns in California and elsewhere say they don’t yet have a better word for their crusading efforts to fix and fund a K-12 public school system that can deliver a quality education to every child who comes through the schoolhouse door.

“It’s an awful word, and susceptible to many definitions,” says Sacramento Bee columnist Peter Schrag, author of “Final Test: The Battle for Adequacy in American Schools.” “But it is one that, for lack of a better alternative, we are now stuck with.”

Whatever you call it, Schrag continues, the so-called adequacy campaign is a “potentially revolutionary” movement that could create better schools for the nation’s neediest children, and it’s gaining traction in California and across the country.

Adequacy advocates argue that it makes sense to allocate money to schools based on what we want them to do and how much it costs to do it, rather than relying on uneven tax receipts, local economic conditions or archaic funding formulas to come up with an education budget that can vary dramatically from one year to the next. They also distinguish their reform efforts from earlier fights for “equity,” arguing that history has shown it’s not enough to ensure that all districts receive identical per-pupil funding because it costs more to educate some children than others.

Supporters of California’s adequacy movement, some of whom have been working for decades to get the issue to the top of the political agenda, say that right now is the best and possibly last opportunity to diagnose what’s wrong with the way we operate and finance schools, and to find the political will to turn things around.

To be sure, California reformers have had high hopes dashed in the past. Lawmakers and policy wonks spent years laboriously crafting a comprehensive K-16 public education master plan that was released in 2002 and then largely ignored. The state’s much-vaunted Quality Education Commission, which was supposed to tackle the big questions about public school finance, never met—neither Gov. Gray Davis nor his successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger was willing to appoint commissioners, possibly for fear the panel would come up with pricey recommendations for serious reform.

Nonetheless, veterans of California’s public education reform wars say the state may finally have reached an elusive tipping point that can lead to consensus on the need to make significant changes.

“This is the best opportunity we’ve ever had to do something that could make a crucial difference to generations of California schoolchildren,” says Scott P. Plotkin, CSBA’s executive director, a former local school board member who also served as chief consultant and staff director for the Senate Committee on Education for five years. “If we don’t take advantage of this chance, we may not get another. There’s really a positive momentum for change.”

‘Getting Down to Facts’
Earlier this year, some of the biggest names in educational research from 32 prestigious institutions released a comprehensive study of public school finance, governance and accountability that’s perhaps the most ambitious research on the subjects ever attempted. The 23-study package, “Getting Down to Facts,” was paid for by a number of philanthropies, including the William and Flora Hewlett and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations.

Among other things, researchers concluded that the state’s public schools do not have the resources to do their jobs—especially considering the rigorous academic standards the state has set for its students. They declared that California’s school finance system is top-heavy with state and federal mandates that drastically limit local flexibility, making it difficult or impossible for districts to tailor services and budgets to meet the specific needs of their students. Because the state lacks any coherent data system that follows the progress of each student, educators don’t know what’s working and what isn’t. Researchers warned that it would be futile to simply allocate more money to support the existing system, which, they concluded, is fundamentally broken. But they also reported that California’s investment in public schools has declined steadily, both compared with past spending patterns and with what other states spend on their schools.

California’s school finance system is a “historical artifact” of past spending policies that bears no relation to the cost of providing the services the state requires schools to provide, says Michael Kirst, founder and co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education and professor emeritus at Stanford University.

“It espouses accountability but is dominated by regulation,” says Kirst, who helped coordinate the massive studies comprising “Getting Down to Facts.” The system, says Kirst, sets up “harsh consequences” for failing to meet state achievement goals but denies districts the flexibility they need to do their jobs. “So our accountability system, rather than serving as an incentive, becomes another regulation,” he laments. “Our system is neither adequate nor equitable.”
Since passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, local educational agencies have been unable to impose local taxes to raise revenue for schools. Most of their money comes from the state and is earmarked for specific programs created by politicians. In fact, says PACE co-director Susanna Loeb, California has more categorical programs than any other state.

California schools are “really overregulated,” Loeb says. “The extent of the regulations and the burden they pose is quite extreme.”

It’s true: The state has some of the most rigorous academic standards in the country, and the caseloads that its school librarians, counselors and administrators are expected to shoulder among the highest in the nation.

For California, where past disputes over education policy and resources have traditionally been bitterly polarized, it was significant that the research in which Loeb and Kirst both participated was commissioned by a bipartisan coalition of policy-makers: the Republican governor’s Advisory Committee for Education Excellence, the state’s nonpartisan Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, and Democratic legislative leaders Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata.
 
The foundations that paid for the research insisted on retaining control over the studies rather than handing them over to the requesters for release—possibly to insulate researchers’ findings and recommendations as much as they could from political pressures.

Public engagement is key
The Hewlett foundation, which helped finance “Getting Down to Facts,” is also supporting a comprehensive public engagement project being led by CSBA and the California PTA, League of Women Voters and Children Now to find out what the public wants from its schools and what strategies they would support for increasing public investment in the system.

Kirst and Loeb say the studies are designed to provide a “starting point” for substantive and wide-ranging conversations about what to do next—both in Sacramento and in communities throughout the state.

The governor has promised that 2008 will be the year he focuses on education, and it’s officially up to his advisory commission to analyze the 1,700-plus pages of research and come up with recommendations. The governor also appeared at the first of the two-day marathon press conference called to release the huge research project last March, when he praised the effort to objectively diagnose problems with the system. (He did, however, shy away from any talk of increasing state investment in public schools, and he has repeatedly said he believes that the state will be able to identify “billions” of dollars in spending inefficiencies to improve classroom services.)

 Kirst remains hopeful that the studies will make a convincing case for the need to increase public school spending and to make other serious policy changes. “I think the timing is good,” he says. “The governor’s pronouncement that next year will be the year of education is very heartening.” Kirst says he thinks the governor’s comments about increased efficiency and his reluctance to discuss (or admit) the possibility that schools need more money is “probably an opening bargaining position.”

Recent polls show that the public also believes that schools could make better use of their resources. Increased efficiency will have to be a very large part of any school reform, Kirst says. Reformers also need to show Californians “how unfair the current system really is.”

Finding a champion
Lynne Faulks, a lobbyist for the California Teachers Association, says reformers need a “champion,” and she is convinced that the governor has the political clout and personal charisma to make things happen.

“In other states where reform has happened, the governor has championed them,” Faulks observes. “The data show that the public is ready to spend more on schools. We have an opportunity here. The challenge is to find the momentum to keep us all at the table. I think much of this will happen outside of Sacramento—students, teachers, parents, superintendents are all outside Sacramento. We must engage these people.”
Michael Rebell, executive director and counsel for the Center for Fiscal Equity, based in New York, says public school advocates applaud the state’s “Getting Down to Facts” research project, and he’s hopeful that both the data and pressure from the public will convince the state to up its investment in public education.

“What happens in California matters to all of us,” says Rebell. “This is an important moment that needs to be seized. I can’t help but be skeptical: Where is the political will going to come from? Will the Legislature act without a threat of legal action?”

Rebell knows firsthand that going to court to pry loose more money for public schools is a complex, expensive and time-consuming endeavor. Nearly 15 years ago, he filed suit against the state of New York, arguing that students in poor communities did not receive the same educational opportunities as students in affluent districts. This spring, plaintiffs in the case finally celebrated victory when New York’s Legislature allocated an additional $1.7 billion for education and initiated what Rebell called “unprecedented education reforms” to remedy constitutional violations identified in the lawsuit.

If that win produces any meaningful results in actual student learning, however, it will be the exception that proves the rule: Litigation is generally an expensive, inefficient and unreliable strategy for bringing about the fundamental goal of improvements in education. School advocates in 44 states have gone to court to challenge inequitable education finance systems, but they can point to few rewards for their efforts.

In California, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in 2000 over school facilities, the number and quality of textbooks and related issues. Some reformers hoped that Williams v. State of California would be the catalyst for comprehensive change and a systematic approach to analyzing defects in the system. It didn’t turn out that way. Then-Gov. Gray Davis spent millions of dollars to fight the suit—subjecting student plaintiffs to grueling deposition sessions and countersuing districts for their alleged failures to maintain facilities and provide enough textbooks. The state and Williams plaintiffs agreed to settle the case in 2004. Low-performing schools got a one-time grant for instructional materials, and the state established an emergency facilities repair fund and a new program for assessing the condition of school buildings, but there’s scant evidence that the learning going on inside has increased significantly.

CSBA and other advocates for more school funding say they don’t want to go to court to try and force the state to spend more on schools. Far better, they argue, to build consensus among lawmakers, the governor, parents and business that quality schools and well-educated citizens are the keys to a prosperous future for everyone.

“We don’t want the courts to establish our school finance system,” says Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and a former county office of education board member. “Everyone wants our kids to succeed and our schools to be as good as they can. I hope it doesn’t take a lawsuit to move us. But someone needs to take ownership of this issue and make it really hard for the politicians not to do something.”

Carol Brydolf is a staff writer for California Schools.