School districts across California to adopt CSBA resolution to fund public schools at the national average by 2020 and the average of the top ten states by 2025
As part of its ongoing work to ensure that all Buena Park School District students benefit from the resources needed for a high-quality education, the Buena Park School District Governing Board is calling on the Legislature to raise school funding to the national average by 2020 and to the average of the top ten states by 2025.
During the Board’s March 12, 2018 meeting, the Buena Park School District Governing Board passed a Full and Fair Funding resolution sponsored by the California School Boards Association (CSBA). The resolution asks the Legislature to raise funding to a level that allows schools to prepare all students—regardless of background—for success in college, career, and civic life.
Currently California ranges 41st in per-pupil funding, 45th in the percentage of revenue devoted to public schools, and last or nearly last in almost every measure of school staffing, such as student-teacher ratio or the number of counselors, students, librarians, or nurses per student.
Substantial research points to a positive relationship between education funding and improved student outcomes, particularly for economically disadvantaged students. As the Full and Fair Funding resolution states, “in order to prepare our students for participation in a democratic society and an increasingly competitive, technology-driven global economy, California must fund at a level sufficient to support student success.”
California has the world’s sixth largest economy and the highest gross domestic product of any state, yet spends significantly less per-pupil than most other states. This wasn’t always the case, and the Full and Fair Funding resolution urges the Legislature to reprioritize education. In 1970, California funded schools at $400 per student above the national average—roughly $2,600 in today’s money. Today, California funds schools at nearly $2,000 per student below the national average and nearly $7,000 per student below the average of the top ten states.
Recent efforts to address the funding issue, like the Local Control Funding Formula, simply restored funding to the pre-recession levels of 2007, doing little to close the funding gap between California and other states.
