‘Getting Down to Facts’: A user guide

“Getting Down to Facts: A Research Project Examining California’s School Governance and Finance Systems” addressed three broad questions, according to the researchers:

1. What do California school finance and governance systems look like today?
2. How can we use the resources that we have more effectively to improve student outcomes?
3. To what extent are additional resources needed so that California’s students can meet the goals that we have for them?

Those questions took some 1,700 pages to answer in 23 separate studies. The first, “Equality and Adequacy in the State’s Provision of Education: Mapping the Conceptual Landscape,” lays out the “conceptual background,” according to the official outline.

From there, the researchers go on to offer six separate reports on school finance, three on governance and structural issues, four on personnel issues and two on data and information systems.
A third general grouping, “cost studies,” consists of seven studies on fiscal issues. Among the topics covered are:

• lessons from “beating the odds” schools
• special education
• English language learners
• teacher cost differences

The complete, original reports are available for download free of charge at http://irepp.stanford.edu/projects/cafinance-studies.htm.