OAKLAND, CA (June 13, 2013) Arun Ramanathan, Executive Director of the Education TrustWest, issued the following statement in response to the budget compromise:
“ETW congratulates Governor Jerry Brown, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, and Speaker of the Assembly John A. Pérez for their historic agreement to transform our state’s education finance system. Governor Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) will close longstanding funding gaps between rich and poor districts and direct additional funding to low-income students, English Learners, and foster youth. We applaud the Governor and legislative leaders for retaining the concentration grant for students in our highest poverty districts and for moving forward with immediate implementation of the new funding formula. We are similarly encouraged by the massive new state investment in implementing the Common Core State Standards. We urge the legislature to approve LCFF and the funding for Common Core implementation.
But we also recognize that the promise of LCFF will not be achieved unless these additional dollars directly benefit the disadvantaged students they are intended to support. Longstanding achievement and opportunity gaps will not be closed by giving complete spending flexibility to school district central offices, but by providing additional supports and services to low-income students and English Learners in their classrooms and schools. State law must ensure full financial transparency for district and school-level spending, true parental involvement in spending decisions at the school level, and accountability for student outcomes. Without these prerequisites, parents and the public will never have full confidence that these dollars are being used as intended. It is disheartening that special interests representing district administrators, superintendents, and school boards have expressed their opposition to financial transparency and accountability. We believe that this opposition is counterproductive and will diminish public faith in the Governor’s historic achievement. We urge the legislature to approve LCFF and advocate for the inclusion in state law of the financial transparency, accountability, and parental involvement necessary to ensure that LCFF benefits our state’s most disadvantaged students.”
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About The Education Trust—West
The Education Trust—West works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, pre-k through college. We expose opportunity and achievement gaps that separate students of color and low-income students from other youth, and we identify and advocate for the strategies that will forever close those gaps.
