Executive director’s note: Persistence and grit
CSBA continues to lead the charge for a new funding system
By:
Vernon M. Billy
Fall 2012
In my opening remarks nearly 18 months ago at CSBA’s May 2011 Delegate Assembly meeting I quoted Henry Kissinger, who said, “The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” I used that quote in a different context than I do today. The challenge for me as your executive director, for CSBA’s leadership and our staff is to get “our people”—in this case, state legislators in Sacramento—to “go where they have not been,” and to do more than just speak about K-12 funding reform and actually do something about it in a manner that is supported by the local officials elected to govern our schools.
Public school finance—the funding formulas, how categorical funds are treated from year to year, the building of budgets based on hearsay and shifting figures, the deferrals that are presented as temporary and stay intact indefinitely—defies common sense. I marvel at how school districts construct their annual budgets—when, all the while, they know that the Legislature holds the purse strings and that the Legislature’s miscalculations based on error or optimism could be devastating to local schools. This yo-yo cycle of cuts and deferrals gives governance teams a black eye in their local communities and adds fodder to those who think public education is broken, failing, and run by people who don’t know what they are doing. The public would never understand the shifting rules and formulas that make it nearly impossible to develop a school budget without local control. Governance teams render funding decisions based on current statewide information, which is subject to constant change! It’s time to stop this insanity.
Over the years, CSBA has advocated for fair, sustained funding for public schools, and we have had many incremental victories along the way. Policy reform is slow and incremental by design. Big changes do not occur overnight. That’s how our Founding Fathers created our participatory form of government. Policy is supposed to come into fruition after exhaustive study and debate.
Many of you believe as I do that “success is when preparation meets opportunity.” We have a potential window of opportunity now with the introduction of Gov. Jerry Brown’s weighted student funding formula proposal to advance the school funding conversation. Through diligent work, we have placed CSBA at the table with the governor and others who are shaping this new funding approach. We are working on your behalf to help craft a solution that will work for our schools and will ensure a quality education for all students.
This policy window is broader than the discussion about a weighted student funding formula. There is finally some recognition of the need for systemic change. While the passage of Propositions 30 or 38 will provide temporary relief to schools, we need to take the additional step of addressing the overall disconnect between what it costs to truly educate a student and what the state funds. To ensure the new funding levels are adequate and will enable schools to provide a quality educational program and appropriate student services to school-age children, the new funding approach must be evaluated in concert with projected population trends and demographic and socioeconomic information.
CSBA is committed to taking the “good fight” for adequate yearly funding to a new level. As you know from reading our weekly e-Blasts, California School News and this magazine, CSBA has moved toward an aggressive, coordinated grassroots engagement strategy and a sustained public information effort called Stand Up For Education. Stand Up For Education is designed to keep public education as a priority on the public’s and the state Legislature’s agenda. Many state school board associations are implementing similar efforts, as is the National School Boards Association. Our public schools are not alone in this fight for fair and sustained funding and community support. While our per-pupil funding is at one of the lowest levels in the nation, other state public education systems, nevertheless, also have to fight year after year to sustain funding levels. It’s time here in California and around the nation for a unified and sustained public information effort that dispels the myths about public schools, serves as a source for positive news, and provides factual information about the school funding crisis.
We have approximately 5,000 school board members “on the ground” who can be mobilized to share our concerns about school funding and communicate our good news to all who will listen. Continue to support the “good fight” and share information about the school funding crisis with your local constituents. Look for and seize opportunities to communicate student success stories and share data that demonstrate that your local schools are a good investment of public dollars and are fulfilling their mission.
As we move forward, we will celebrate our incremental policy and funding wins together, as we work to establish a better funding system and process for our schools. Our students deserve nothing less. They deserve nothing less than persistence and grit.