Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed his solution to a long-running, contentious dispute over the Local Control Funding Formula, the equity-based formula for distributing the bulk of money that school districts get from the state.
At issue is whether school districts can use leftover, year-end funding intended for “high-needs students” however they want. Newsom’s answer is, no, they can’t; the money must be committed to those students who generally are the farthest behind academically and face the challenges of poverty and districts must document that.
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Some of those who have been calling for reform for years say the governor’s approach is a big step forward but not fully right.
California Public Schools Suffer Record Enrollment Drop Tuesday, January 26, 2021 | Sacramento, CA
Students at Pinewood Elementary in Pollock Pines have been attending school in-person since Oct. 6. They come to school in shifts, belong to the same cohorts, and sit six feet apart in the classroom.
Courtesy of Pollock Pines Superintendent Steve Martinez
California’s K-12 public-school enrollment has precipitously declined during the pandemic, dropping by a record 155,000 students, according to new state projections.
That drop-off is about five times greater than California’s annual rate of enrollment decline in recent years. The state, which boasts the largest student enrollment in the country, has seen a steady decline of between 20,000 and 30,000 students in its public schools in the two years prior partly due to declining birth rate
Having failed so many times to effectively use technology in state government, columnist Dan Walters asks, should California try again with a school data system?
California needs a big data system for public education sfchronicle.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sfchronicle.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Everyone that I know wants to get California’s 6 million-plus public school children back in school as quickly and as safely as possible.
If we’re really going to get there though, state leaders, starting with Governor Newsom, are going to have to think out of the box as this once-in-a-century pandemic continues unabated.
The governor deserves praise for his recent budget and school reopening proposals, but schools aren’t going to reopen anytime soon across the state if the details and agreements on in-person instruction have to be reached through local collective bargaining agreements and memoranda of understanding in more than a 1,000 school districts.