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Budget plan makes foster youth a priority, but takes away dedicated funding
This story has been updated. Students in foster care will be moving to the front of the class if the new school accountability rules the governor proposed in his budget revision become law. For the first time, districts, county offices of education and state agencies will have to keep track of and account for the academic progress of their foster students under Gov. Jerry Brown’s May revision. Although advocates applaud the new rules, they also are concerned … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Foster care, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget
Brown commits $1 billion for Common Core, sticks with funding formula
Gov. Jerry Brown proposed Tuesday to direct all of the extra $2.8 billion in revenue that the state expects to receive this year to K-12 schools and community colleges, mostly for one-time uses, including $1 billion to implement the Common Core standards. There had been projections of even more money this year, but in a news conference releasing his May budget revise, Gov. Jerry Brown tempered expectations; the drag of federal tax changes, sequestration of federal spending … Read entire article »
Filed under: Categorical Funding, Common Core standards, Equity issues, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Poverty, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, Revenue and taxes, Student spending, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Governor tries to fix adult ed plan, but controversy remains
Backing away from his controversial plan to hand control of adult education over to community colleges, Gov. Jerry Brown is instead proposing that regional consortia, made up of community colleges and school districts, determine adult ed’s future. However, his new plan is also stirring controversy. In his budget revision unveiled Tuesday, Brown provides substantially more dedicated funding for adult education beginning in 2015-16, raising the amount allocated to $500 million instead of the $300 million in … Read entire article »
Filed under: Finance, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Community colleges get boost under governor’s revised budget
Community colleges will receive millions more to begin to restore cut classes, rebuild flagging enrollment and strengthen student support services under Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget released Tuesday. Brown would add an additional $30 million to the system’s 2013-14 apportionment, raising it to $226.9 million from the Proposition 98 school funding guarantee. Unlike the January budget proposal, however, when Gov. Brown left it to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors to decide how to spend … Read entire article »
Filed under: California Colleges, Community Colleges, Featured, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget
Bill aims to help expelled and truant students get back on track
The purpose of a complicated bill aimed at preventing students from languishing in alternative schools became much clearer after the testimony of a former student who got stuck in one. Jessie Camargo, now 18, was transferred to a community school two weeks before his eighth grade graduation. That summer he completed all the requirements set by his district, which included drug and alcohol counseling classes, 140 hours of community service, and an anger management class, but … Read entire article »
Filed under: Absence, Truancy, Discipline, Dropout prevention, Equity issues, Featured, Governance, High School Completion, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Legislature, Bills, Reporting & Analysis
Bonds would fund business investment in schools under Steinberg proposal
The leader of the California State Senate says the way to encourage more and stronger bonds between industry and education is through, well, bonds. With California facing a shortage of qualified workers for 21st century jobs, Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg wants to entice businesses to become more involved in job training by asking them to invest in a new type of school bond that would fund programs that infuse career education into traditional academic courses. Businesses … Read entire article »
Filed under: Career Technical Education, College and Career Preparation, Community Colleges, Featured, Internships, Service Learning, Legislature, Bills, Multiple pathways, Multiple Pathways, Partnership Academies, Reporting & Analysis, Twenty-first Century Learning, Workforce preparation
Democrats split on timing, specifics of Brown’s funding formula
Joan Buchanan, the Democratic chair of the Assembly Education Committee, grilled administration officials at length Wednesday on Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to reform school funding. She wanted, without success, to get them to concede there are flaws and inconsistencies in the plan. Buchanan’s intense questioning prompted a frustrated Assemblymember Das Williams, a fellow Democrat from Santa Barbara, to call for a shift in the discussion from “poking holes” in the plan to “doing what we can … Read entire article »
Filed under: Equity issues, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
ACLU sues state over English-language instruction
Civil rights groups sued the state Department of Education and the Board of Education on Wednesday, saying they are failing in their obligation to require school districts to provide 20,318 English learners with the language instruction they are entitled to by law. The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Southern California and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, cites figures provided by 251 districts showing that one out of every 50 English learner students is not receiving any … Read entire article »
Filed under: Data, English learners, Featured, Languages, Reporting & Analysis, State Board of Education, Students
Bill restricting ‘willful defiance’ for suspending students moves ahead
With new data showing that more than half of all suspensions and a quarter of expulsions in California schools are for “willful defiance” of school authorities, the Assembly Education Committee voted 6-0 on Wednesday to move forward a bill that would restrict the use of the vague category by school administrators. Assemblymember Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, who introduced Assembly Bill 420, said that current law enumerates 23 other reasons why a student can be suspended or expelled, yet … Read entire article »
Filed under: Discipline, Equity issues, Featured, Governance, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Legislature, Bills, Race, Ethnicity, Reporting & Analysis, Students
Voters favor extra funds for poor students but not English learners
A majority of Californians support Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to provide additional funding to districts with more low-income and English learner students, according to a newly released poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. Of 1,705 adults interviewed, the PPIC’s ninth annual survey of Californians and education, released late Wednesday, found that among all adults, 71 percent support the governor’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). However, approval drops to 60 percent among likely voters. Responses also vary by political affiliation, race/ethnicity and income, with 80 percent of Democrats favoring the plan – nearly twice the rate of Republicans; more Latinos support it, as do families earning under $40,000 per year, who would be more likely to benefit from the change. However, when asked about each group separately, only 40 percent of likely … Read entire article »
Filed under: English learners, Featured, Jerry Brown, Poverty, Quick Hits, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
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