The Rural/Nonrural Divide? K–12 District Spending and Implications of Equity-Based School Funding

In the 2013–2014 school year, the state of California implemented a new equity-minded funding system, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). LCFF increased minimum per-pupil funding for educationally underserved students and provided greater autonomy in allocating resources. We use the implementation of LCFF to enrich our understanding of rural school finance and explore the implications of equity-based school finance reform across urbanicity (i.e., between rural, town, suburban, and urban districts) and between rural areas of different remoteness. Drawing on 15 years of financial data from California school districts, we find variation in the funding levels of rural districts but few differences in the ways resources are allocated and only modest evidence of constrained spending in rural areas. Our results suggest that spending progressivity (i.e., spending advantage of higher-poverty districts) has increased since LCFF, although progressivity is lowest in rural districts by the end of the data panel.

The Effect of School Funding on Opportunity Gaps for Students With Disabilities: Policy and Context in a Diverse Urban District

School finance reform has recently centered on providing schools with more equitable access to resources to reduce opportunity gaps for students. Although special education is often a prominent part of larger equity conversations, special education funding is commonly excluded from school funding reform initiatives. Given the costly nature of special education programs, it is imperative that scholars and policy makers understand the effects of funding changes on outcomes for these students. In this study, we examined the effect of California’s Local Control Funding Formula, in addition to school context and student compositional characteristics, to identify changes in special education students’ achievement rates. Using a combination of publicly available data sources and local district data, we assessed differences in academic outcomes (i.e., achievement scores) between elementary students with and without disabilities in both high- and low-poverty schools, given increases in spending for special education programs.

Civic Engagement in Education: Insights from California's Local Control Funding Formula

In this policy brief, we use the case of California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) to provide policy makers and educators guidance on how to involve the public in goal setting and resource distribution decisions. We provide clarity around who is and is not participating, why, and what broader lessons we can draw for implementing federal and state education policies mandating public engagement. Our findings indicate tremendous room for improvement. LCFF's target populations (e.g., low-income, English learners) are not more likely to be aware of or participate in decisions than nontargeted groups, which suggests weak accountability for the use of public funds by the policy's target populations. Although LCFF has defined a broad set of stakeholders, only a narrow segment of the public (i.e., individuals with stronger ties to and positive views of schools) is aware of and engaging with the policy. Finally, we find a substantial gap between actual participation in LCFF and interest in participation, which may relate to a lack of self-efficacy, time, trust, perceived appropriateness, and information. As states and districts respond to mandates for engagement, these results suggest the need for greater investments in: (1) communication, (2) targeting a range of stakeholders, and (3) capacity building.

Toward a Rich Data Future for School Finance Research

This special topic is intended to advance research in school finance using two newly produced compilations of multiple longitudinal data systems, the School Finance Indicators Database ( http://schoolfinancedata.org/ ) and the Urban Institute, Education Data Explorer ( https://educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer/ ). This special topic contains two articles taking advantage of comprehensive longitudinal data on school finance. The first, by Victoria Sosina and Ericka Weathers, uses panel data from the School Finance Indicators Data System from 1999 to 2013 to evaluate whether and to what extent changes to Black-White and Latinx-White demographic differences among districts leads to greater resource disparity over time. The second article, by Knight and Mendoza, combines data from the Census Fiscal Survey with data from the California Department of Education to explore whether differences in data on and measures of school funding equity matter (i.e., lead to similar or different conclusions) when evaluating the effects of California’s 2013 adoption of the Local Control Funding Formula.

Does the Measurement Matter? Assessing Alternate Approaches to Measuring State School Finance Equity for California’s Local Control Funding Formula

Scholars have not reached consensus on the best approach to measure state school finance equity. The regression-based approach estimates the relationship between district poverty rate and funding level, controlling for other district cost factors. A second commonly used approach involves estimating the weighted average funding level for low-income students or other subgroups. Meanwhile, policymakers have preferences for their own data systems and poverty indicators when reading reports and assessing progress. We constructed parallel, district-level panel data sets using data from the California Department of Education and the U.S. Census. We estimated changes over time in district-level school finance equity under California’s Local Control Funding Formula, using multiple school finance measurement approaches, with each of the two data sets. Our results show that different methods and analytic choices result in policy-relevant differences in findings. We discuss the implications for policy and future research.

Decentralization and Policy Experimentation in Education: the Consequences of Enhancing Local Autonomy in California

A hypothesized benefit of decentralization is that it will promote policy experimentation, yet there have been few studies examining this link. In this article, I identify three pathways through which decentralization could plausibly lead to greater experimentation and empirically assess their presence through an analysis of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), a policy that enhanced the fiscal autonomy of local school districts. I find mixed results; even though there was some evidence to suggest greater policy activity, most new actions taken by school districts were incremental changes. Further, there was little ideological differentiation in adopted policies despite variation in districts’ partisan composition. Small districts were slightly more likely to experiment than larger ones, supporting the hypothesis that smaller jurisdictions are more nimble and flexible and thus more likely to enact policy change. I conclude by exploring how the incentives and preferences of local officials mediate the causal connection between decentralization and policy experimentation.

Masking the Focus on English Learners: The Consequences of California’s Accountability System Dashboard Results on Year 4 Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs)

California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), signed into law in 2013, centers equity as a key to increased and improved services for three targeted student subgroups, including English Learners (ELs), low-income students, and foster youth. As a component of LCFF, districts develop Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) to specify their goals and strategies for using LCFF funds for equity and continuous improvement purposes. The California Model Five by Five Grid Placement Report (Spring 2017 Dashboard) included the Five by Five Placement Grid, a key function of which is to identify the needs of diverse ELs. The Dashboard and the LCAPs are two policy mechanisms with great promise in combining school finance and accountability reform to promote equity and coherent state-wide. In this report, Lavadenz and colleagues review the EL policy context and examine the connection between the two contemporary policy mechanisms in California, namely the Year 4 LCAP and the California Department of Education’s Accountability Model (Spring 2017 Dashboard). The authors use a sample of 26 California school districts with high numbers/percentages of ELs and conclude that California’s current accountability system diminishes the urgency to respond to educational needs of the English Learner subgroup and undermines the equity intent of the LCFF. Few promising practices and assets-based approaches were identified in the LCAPs, and there is minimal mention of metrics focused on EL outcomes. The authors provide recommendations at state, county office of education and district levels.