The Legislature will vote today on a bill establishing Gov. Dark-brown's historic school funding system that punts to the State Lath of Didactics some primal decisions on how dollars for disadvantaged students must be spent and accounted for.

The language for implementing the Local Control Funding Formula is SB 91.

The language for implementing the Local Control Funding Formula is SB 91.

Senate Bill 91, the 178-page "trailer" bill containing statutory changes for Gov. Dark-brown's Local Control Funding Formula, was released Th, one day earlier lawmakers must vote on the $96 billion state budget that includes funding for the new system. Its provisions won't satisfy advocates for disadvantaged children who had called for restrictions tightly tying funding to targeted students along with detailed information on how every school spends its coin. But the neb also may not delight districts that wanted broad district control over allocations under the LCFF. The bill indicates the solution – that extra dollars must exist spent "in proportion" to the loftier-needs students who generate them – is somewhere in between.

"We tried to thread the needle," said Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff to Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles.

To be more than accurate, lawmakers volition exist handing the thread and the needle to the State Board (better throw in a thimble for the pain), which, nether SB 91, will have until Jan. 31, 2014, to write the regulations spelling out what "in proportion" means. What, for case, would exist a permissible districtwide program for English learners? Or what's the minimum proportion of poor children to add an art teacher who will be instruction all students in a school?

Role for parent involvement

Then, no afterward than March 31, 2022 – two months afterwards the Jan deadline – the State Lath must complete the templates for the new "local control and accountability plan" that all districts, county offices of education and charter schools must practise, showing how they would use the extra money for high-needs students to raise student achievement. Country Lath President Michael Kirst said that the templates would mankind out the extent of information the district must provide, the assessment of needs and assay they must conduct and the process they must follow. The county superintendent will exist charged with reviewing the programme to verify that the expenses are sufficient to pay for the commune'southward commitments and that programs will benefit students. If the canton superintendent disapproves the plan, the district's board must publicly reply to the county'south suggestions.

The bill is clear that the extra money should be used to improve or expand programs and services for those students; the State Board will clarify what those might exist. Abet groups will exist looking for explicit requirements for parent involvement in the creation of the plan and spending details by school, not merely districtwide. "Local engagement and transparency are key," said John Affeldt, managing attorney at Public Advocates Inc., a nonprofit law firm and advancement organization. SB 91 requires that a superintendent consult a district's new parent advisory committee for the plan, but does not spell out the function of existing school-site councils of parents.

Nether the LCFF, districts will receive twenty percent more funding for every English learner, low-income child and foster youth. Those districts in which high-needs students comprise at least 55 percentage of the student body will get even more money for a portion of those students.

The three-year local accountability plan, which would exist updated yearly, would spell out actions the district would take to aggrandize parent involvement, bear out Common Core standards and ensure there are fully credentialed teachers in schools. The beak details more than than a dozen academic and school climate measures, including rates of graduation, pupil suspension and absenteeism, English learner reclassification rates, Avant-garde Placement course examination scores and percentages of students qualifying for admission to the University of California and California State University. Kirst said that most of these are already reported on School Accountability Report Cards or SARCs.

'Holistic' measures of student success

Including these measures creates a broader view of student progress and in turn is reflected in how districts will exist held accountable, Simpson said. In the May revision of the country budget, Brown had proposed to employ API scores equally the single measure for deciding when to arbitrate in districts with chronically bad results. Instead, in SB 91, legislative leaders accept called for a "holistic, multidimensional assessment" of districts' and individual schools' performance (department 52064.5). Once more, it will exist the State Lath'due south task to create the rubric determining when and in what form district sanctions should be imposed. The intent is to focus not on imposing penalties simply on providing technical assistance and expertise to help districts improve. "We are unconvinced that market-based approaches, sanctions and threats are the way to change systems," said Simpson, who helped negotiate the language of SB 91.

Instead of sending in the sheriff – an intervention consultant with marching orders – the county superintendent or the land superintendent of public education would assign the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, a new entity that Land Superintendent Tom Torlakson would create.

In a statement on Thursday, Torlakson indicated that the Collaborative would reflect a transformation of the state Section of Teaching, as control over spending and decision-making shifts to local districts. "While our role as a monitor is important to our mission, we too see enormous potential in becoming a more than helpful partner, working side by side with school districts as they strive to improve results for students."

SB 91 makes it clear that formal intervention, including the assignment of a trustee to create and administer a local control and accountability plan, would be a concluding resort, afterwards years of persistent failure to raise student achievement. New regulations would lay out the timetable for intervention.

Sherry Griffith, interim assistant executive director for the Association of California School Administrators, said she was pleased with the approach that legislative leaders have taken in creating the Collaborative, "providing more than upfront assistance rather than groovy the whip." The big question is who Torlakson volition turn to for the work. Griffith also said it's appropriate to involve the State Board in establishing LCFF regulations. "This is complicated enough not to want people in back rooms cooking up an arroyo," she said. "The Board has checks and balances; all of the details will exist publicly vetted."

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