Coign of vantage and action: Considering California’s local accountability and school finance plans for English learners

Abstract

Local control has been a bedrock principle of public schooling in America since its inception. In 2013, the California Legislature codified a new local accountability approach for school finance. An important component of the new California Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) approach is a focus on English learners (ELs). The law mandates that every school district produce a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) to engage the local community in defining outcomes and determining funding for ELs. Based on an exploratory analysis of a representative sample of LCAPs, we show that, although California's new approach offered an opportunity to support locally-defined priorities and alternatives to top-down accountability, few if any districts had yet taken full advantage Coign of vantage and action 2 of the opportunity. That is, the school districts in our sample had not yet engaged with the local community to facilitate significant changes to accountability or redistribution of funding and resources to support educational equity for ELs.

The Effect of School Funding on Opportunity Gaps for Students With Disabilities: Policy and Context in a Diverse Urban District

“…Studies show that gaps in test score proficiency between students from different socioeconomic strata are smaller in states and districts where funding reform initiatives based on equity have taken root (Card & Payne, 2002; Lafortune et al, 2018), and that policies aiming to equalize financial resources between students with high- and low-income backgrounds have thus far been effective (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). School finance reform, constructed through equity-based funding formulas such as California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), has the potential to address some inequities that exist in urban schools (Vasquez Heilig et al, 2017).…”