Credit: Allison Shelley / EDUimages
Former governor Jerry Brown headlines a party next week toasting the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), California’s ten-year-old reshaping of school finance, the nation’s most ambitious effort to target public investment toward narrowing disparities in student achievement.
In 2013, Brown and the Legislature recast state funding to shift dollars toward districts that serve greater shares of low-income and non-English-speaking children. The logic remains compelling: educators labor to bring all children over proficiency hurdles in reading and math, so greater resources must go to students who have the farthest to climb.
Party goers in Sacramento do have cause to celebrate. The extra funding has worked to lift performance among students living in areas of concentrated poverty. Test scores, graduation rates, and college readiness have all seen increases stemming from the…
