Adventures in Ed Funding

Guest Heather Hough , executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) , joins us to highlight research and perspectives related to the fundamental importance of public education, school funding levels and policies, and proactive approaches that should be on the table as California plans its recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. Heather emphasizes that significant investment in C...

What if you considered all the ingredients that go into making a great educational experience for students? If you added these up, how much do you think California would need to invest per student to make sure we could provide a quality education to all?  That's exactly the study that our guest, Jesse Levin , principal researcher at American Institutes for Research spearheaded. It's a la...

Special guest Mary Jane Burke , Marin County Superintendent of Schools, describes how schools, community organizations and local government agencies are stepping up together in a powerful way to meet the needs of children and families.  Marin County was one of the first regions to establish an emergency pop-up childcare program to support essential workers at a time when school campuses and regula...

In less than four weeks, school districts across the state have embarked on a massive shift to provide distance learning for their students, now that all campuses are physically closed. What is distance learning, really -- and what is it not? And what are the many different steps, including planning, logistics and behind the scenes activities that need to occur for districts to make this pivot qui...

In this episode we explore early financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on California schools: What should we know, what should we be planning for, and what might the road ahead look like? There are both some optimistic and sobering stops along the way. Guest Matt Phillips , Director of Management Consulting Services at the statewide firm School Services of California joins us.  Matt disc...

California’s public school districts are rising to the challenge of providing students with much-needed meals during the COVID-19 crisis. In this episode, special guests Stephanie Bruce , Nutrition Services Director for Palm Springs USD and Andrew Soliz, Director of Child Nutrition Services for San Mateo-Foster City School District share how their districts are preparing and delivering meals to th...

In less than two weeks, nearly all school districts and schools in California have closed to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. These closures impact six million students and their families, plus hundreds of thousands of educators, school and district staff, and leaders. Moreover, school closures deeply affect our local communities.  We're interrupting our planned schedule of ed fundin...

Sadly, we have a crisis on our hands -- locally, across the state and nation, and globally -- as we work to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). The magnitude of, and speed at which, we find ourselves in this new circumstance is hard to fathom. The road ahead is largely uncharted.  In this episode, we check in with CASBO’s CEO and Executive Director, Molly McGee Hewitt, to help us thi...

How can it be that many California school districts are staring into the face of painful budget cuts, even as overall school funding has increased in recent years? Why isn’t more funding available in many districts for priorities such as hiring additional counselors, teachers and staff and adding programs for students? It’s an unusual situation one researcher called, “The Silent Recession” – and i...

Why is California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) so significant? In this episode, we continue our journey through major milestones in school funding history with our first stop to LCFF-land. Special Guest Saa’un Bell , Strategy Director at Californians for Justice , helps us explore why the state’s shift to an equity-based system beginning in 2013 was so historic. The LCFF was a sweep...

How did California slide into such a deep school funding hole, and how can we climb our way back up? These are among the questions we take on in this latest adventure with special guest Gary Hart.  As a former state legislator, longtime Senate Education Committee Chair, and Secretary of Education, Gary offers the critical perspective of someone who was “inside the Capitol building” during a truly...

The Proposition 13 (2020) School Facilities Bond will help ensure that students across the state have access to safe, healthy and modern learning environments. On March 3, California voters have an important opportunity to pass this statewide school bond measure. It provides critically needed resources for renovating and building schools in districts throughout the state. Proposition 13 (2020) inc...

Would California schools actually be better off if Proposition 98 had never come into being? Why is it still so important to understand? And where do we go from here to fulfill the initiative’s promise of bringing state spending per student to the top ten among states?  On this show, we’re big believers in the axiom that to get where you want to go, you need to understand where you’ve been. That’s...

Journey with us to California’s Inland Empire as we consider this foundational question: What do school districts spend their funding on? Special guest Rich De Nava , Assistant Superintendent of Business Services for the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools , helps us explore where schools devote their money. Hint: the vast majority is spent on people.  In his role, Rich works with busi...

In our inaugural episode, Guest Samantha Tran from Children Now , a statewide nonprofit organization, takes us through a study comparing a typical California high school to similar schools in two other states that invest more per student than California. What the study found, she says, was jarring. Public school students in California don’t have the same types of experiences and opportunities that...

Complex. Mystifying. These words are often used to describe education funding -- and yet, funding is the crucial ingredient to ensure our public school system meets the needs of all students, families and society. This series is for everyone who works in and around education -- plus anyone who wants to learn more about what drives the most important institutions in every local community: our publi...