Currently browsing State Budget
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
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
Dramatic dip in ‘pink slips’ given to teachers
(This story has been updated.) Districts have issued dramatically fewer preliminary layoff notices to teachers this year, signaling an end to five years of high budgetary anxiety and providing one of the first concrete examples of the immediate benefits of Proposition 30. Statewide, districts sent 3,000-plus “pink slips” to teachers and certain other certificated staff, such as counselors and librarians, according to the California Teachers Association, which tracks the numbers. The Association expects the count to rise … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Funding and Taxation, Initiatives, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget, Teacher Unions, Teachers
Districts struggle with governor’s adult education proposal
Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal to give the state’s community colleges $300 million to run adult education is leaving K-12 districts in a quandary. Should they assume Brown’s idea will become law, plan to close their adult schools and hope that their local community college will be able to pick up those programs? Should they plan to keep their adult school open for one more year to help make a smooth transition? Or should they … Read entire article »
Filed under: Adult education, Community Colleges, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Brown’s former adviser: Aim for balance behind shift to local control
Sue Burr has seen and done a lot in 40-plus years of playing key roles in California education – advising legislators and governors, administering the finances of a large school district, running the state county superintendents’ organization and, for the past two years, serving as executive director of the State Board of Education. Burr retired at the end of last year, only to be nominated two weeks later by Gov. Jerry Brown to return to the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Categorical Funding, Charter Schools, College Remediation, Featured, Jerry Brown, Q&A, Reporting & Analysis, State Board of Education, State Budget, Student spending, Taxes, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
LAO has ‘serious concerns’ with governor’s Prop. 98 calculation
The State Legislative Analyst’s Office is calling into question the legality of Gov. Brown’s proposal to count new revenue from Proposition 39 toward funding for education. In a report released Thursday, the LAO warns that the governor’s plan for the initiative, the California Clean Energy Jobs Act, violates the intent of the law. Proposition 39, which won with 61 percent vote last November, is projected to raise up to half a billion dollars in revenue this fiscal … Read entire article »
Filed under: Adult education, Categorical Funding, Community Colleges, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Initiatives, Jerry Brown, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, Revenue and taxes, State Budget, Taxes
Obama’s expanded preschool plan likely to be costly
President Barack Obama has yet to issue any cost estimates for his proposal to expand access to preschool for 4-year-olds, but there is one certainty should Congress approve the program: It will be expensive. California currently serves about one in five of the state’s low-income 4-year-olds in state-funded preschools at a cost of $3,820 per student, according to the California Department of Education. That covers a half day of preschool for 180 days, the length of a regular … Read entire article »
Filed under: Early Childhood, Featured, Obama Preschool, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget
Districts must return to 180-day instructional year by 2015-16
Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature agree: The state should again require a minimum 180-day school year, starting in 2015-16. Brown confirmed his view in a section of the 154-page education “trailer bill,” the supplemental legislation accompanying the state budget, that the administration released last week. The Legislature reduced the minimum number of instructional days to 175 in 2008, amid severe cuts in school funding, in order to allow school districts to shut down operations and use … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Funding and Taxation, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget
Brown details how to hold districts accountable under funding reform
Responding to criticism that he is offering flexibility without accountability, Gov. Jerry Brown has offered up specifics on how he would hold school districts responsible for extra money he is proposing to give them for high-needs children under his proposed sweeping reforms of how California schools are funded. Under his plan: Districts and charter schools would be required to write or update an annual “local control and accountability plan” spelling out how the additional dollars would be used … Read entire article »
Filed under: Categorical Funding, English learners, Equity issues, Featured, Foster care, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Parents, Poverty, Reporting & Analysis, Site Councils, State Board of Education, State Budget, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Recent Comments