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By Kimberly Beltran
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Gov. Jerry Brown’s finance department has released estimated payment amounts for districts based on the new education funding system adopted earlier this month by the Legislature as part of the 2013-14 state budget.
Under terms of what’s being called a “compromise” on Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula, districts will receive an average of about $537 more per student than was proposed in May by the governor.
In addition, some 40 districts whose budgets would not have increased to pre-recession 2007-08 levels under the earlier proposal will receive ‘economic recovery payments’ to avoid them losing money under the plan.
“We’re extremely pleased with the outcome,” administration spokesman H. D. Palmer said. “The essential architecture of the governor’s formula is maintained (base grant/supplemental grant/concentration grant), and the economic recovery target payments will ensure that almost every school district receives at least their pre-recession funding level, adjusted for inflation, once the formula is fully implemented.”
Brown had initially proposed a formula in which districts would receive an equal, per-student base grant amount, as well as supplementary funds for every disadvantaged child – English learners, low-income students and foster
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SBE rejected just 3 percent of district waivers in 2012
By Tom Chorneau
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
By Tom Chorneau
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Last year at this time there were mounting concerns that too many school districts would be excused from meeting a new mandate for transitional kindergarten because of ongoing fiscal hardships.
But a look back at the numbers and types of waivers granted by the California State Board of Education in 2012 shows those worries were unfounded – the board denied nine of 13 applications for relief and the remaining four were withdrawn. Almost all of that activity took place early last summer and seemed to set the tone for the year.
Where the board did use its authority to waive virtually any part of the state’s Education Code was to give districts latitude when it came to meeting class-size requirements. Just as it has since the onset of the recession, the board granted 88 waivers in 2012 from fiscal penalties districts would otherwise have faced for having student-teacher ratios above state benchmarks.
The other large basket of waivers the board approved last year were given to districts enrolled in the Quality Education Investment Act – a program that came out of a court settlement and offered struggling schools extra state support on the condition of meeting several performance and administrative goals.
QEIA schools have been required to reduce class sizes by five students from a base year (either 2006 or 2007) or