This is a story of cups half full and cups overflowing. Of kids and property values and student achievement. Of state school funding and local school funding, of the quest for equity and of plain ol’ reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic — which we’ll argue shapes the nation’s future.
It’s the story of how one Orange County public school district can spend more than $30,000 a year per student — more than tuition at a UC! — while nearby school districts spend less than half as much. And how bigger money often goes with much bigger achievement — but how social factors push relentlessly on the scales nonetheless, so a neighborhood’s poverty level continues to be one of the cleanest predictors of how much, and how well, kids learn.
This impacts kids for the rest of their lives. And how well they fare impacts your life as well.
Data from the state Department of Education suggests that California’s well-intentioned efforts to steer more money to schools with more needs isn’t always getting the job done:
• In Orange County, fewer than half of students met standards in math (47%), and just 57% met standards in English language arts.
• If that seems alarmingly low, consider that it’s quite a bit better than California overall. Statewide, only 35% of students met math standards and only 47% met English standards.
We’ll talk more about the money in a minute, but this simple snapshot suggests we take a radically different approach to educating kids with the greatest needs.
We’ll let the policy folks figure out what that might look like — if I were king with an unlimited budget, I might suggest halving class sizes and doubling teaching ranks for the neediest kids — but tweaking around the edges as we’ve been doing continues to leave far too many children behind.
“(P)reach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people,” Thomas Jefferson wrote hundreds of years ago. “(T)he more ignorant we become the less value we set on science, & the less inclination we shall have to seek it.”
Ours, he once quipped, are the only farmers who can read Homer.
Money money
California has almost 1,000 public school districts, and Orange County is home to 28 of them. The vast majority depend on state dollars for the bulk of their budgets — these are called “Local Control Funding Formula” districts.
But there are about 100 others that do not use state tax dollars. They’re called “Basic Aid,” or “community-funded” districts. Orange County has just two — Laguna Beach Unified and Newport-Mesa Unified — and they don’t need state dollars because local property values are high enough to furnish more than enough tax revenue to run the show. (This can be more nerve-wracking than it sounds; more on that in a minute as well.)
Laguna spends far and away more than any other Orange County district per “average daily attendance,” or child, at $31,596. It also has one of the lowest poverty levels in Orange County (the metric here is percent of free and reduced-price lunches), and it has among the highest student achievement.
Newport-Mesa is next up, spending $23,640 per child/ADA. Its poverty level is more than twice Laguna’s, and student achievement is considerably lower.
Spending almost as much as Newport-Mesa are the LAFF districts Anaheim Elementary and Santa Ana Unified, at around $23,000 per kid. They have some of O.C.’s highest poverty levels and lowest achievement.
Then a funny thing happens at Garden Grove Unified, spending $20,486 per kid. There are more children on free and reduced-price lunches there than at Anaheim or Santa Ana, but Garden Grove’s achievement levels are considerably higher. Its students consistently outperform the county and state averages on state tests, graduation rates, college readiness rates and Advanced Placement exams, spokeswoman Abby Broyles said, even as it serves primarily immigrant and first-generation communities.
“Our successful outcomes are a result of our focus on our three district goals (Academic Skills + Personal Skills = Lifelong Success) resulting in high-quality and research-based effective instruction, comprehensive professional development, targeted academic and social-emotional supports and robust mentoring and community outreach programs that equip students with the academic and personal skills for lifelong success,” Broyles said by email.
Earning and learning
The average spending in Orange County districts clocks in at $18,130 per kid, a bit shy of the state average of $18,586. Yet the majority of O.C. districts spend less than that.
State formulas — steering more money to needy kids — mean many solidly middle-class O.C. districts must make do with far less money. And they’re none too happy about it.
Consider Capistrano Unified, which spends $16,079 per ADA. Saddleback Valley, at $15,633. Irvine and Los Alamitos score on par with Laguna Beach on state tests, while spending less than half as much per student.
“Student demographics in the communities we serve mean we are barely funded above the base level,” says a video primer by Capo. “In fact, we receive some of the lowest funding countywide. The base funding we do receive has to go a long way.
“LCFF works for about 75% of the public school districts in California. But we need help,” the narrator says. “Contact your state elected officials and tell them that California public school students need a higher base funding.”
(iStockphoto via Getty Images)
As we mentioned, LCFF is an attempt at equity. Drawing all eggs from the property tax basket would mean wealthy areas always have more and poorer areas always have less.
The LCFF allocates greater funding to districts based on the percentages of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, English learners and foster youth, but doesn’t count students who meet several of these criteria more than once, Orange County Superintendent of Schools Stefan Bean explained by email.
Federal funding enhancements from 2021 through 2024 have also focused on equity in light of the educational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
“As you noted, it’s essential to recognize the substantial impact that economic conditions have on educational outcomes. Students from lower-income families — they often meet the criteria for free or reduced-price meals — consistently face greater obstacles in their academic performance. This disparity extends beyond mere economic status and is compounded by the reduced availability of essential educational resources outside of school hours, such as access to tutoring and enrichment activities that are more readily available to their higher-income peers.
“Some students face additional burdens, such as caregiving responsibilities for younger siblings or dealing with complex challenges in their communities, which can detract from their ability to focus on educational pursuits.”
Boom, bust
The higher funding levels afforded by higher local property values in Laguna Beach and Newport-Mesa allow the districts to do more — but can also leave them vulnerable.
Graduates toss their caps in the air during the Laguna Beach High School graduation ceremony on June 13. (Photo by Claire Nguyen, Contributing Photographer)
“Property taxes can be volatile and this is one of the primary reasons maintaining strong financial reserves is important for community-funded districts,” Laguna’s Anakaren Cárdenas Ureño said by email. “When looking back to the property tax revenues during the recession in 2008, we saw large fluctuations in the annual growth in property tax.”
Indeed. Between 2004 and 2008, Laguna saw annual growth of 10% to 15%. But once the recession took hold, growth slowed to as low as 1.48% and stayed low for years. That’s a problem.
“Costs associated with staffing and goods and services grow each year, usually in the realm of 3%-4%, so when large drops in property tax revenue occur below the natural rise in costs it can be very problematic unless the district has strong reserves to help mitigate the lack of revenue growth,” she said. “Generally speaking, LBUSD maintains between 40%-50% of the total operating budget in reserves.”
Newport-Mesa is a much larger and more diverse district than Laguna. Spokeswoman Annette Franco said that it muscled through the recession by prioritizing core educational services and deferring non-essential expenses. But, rough patches aside, having more resources allows these districts to do more for their kids.
“(W)e have been able to invest in providing a comprehensive education that supports their overall well-being and academic growth,” Newport-Mesa’s Franco said. “Our expanded programs, like engineering education at all elementary grade levels, are complemented by purposeful staffing, including counselors at every school, elementary support teachers, music, P.E., and science specialists, and administrative interns who act as graduation coaches. Together, these elements create a strong foundation for student success. … We are fortunate to have the stability to continue to provide high-quality services and attract and retain exceptional employees.”
Ditto in Laguna Beach.
Isla Tabler talks to her transitional kindergarten classmate on the first day of class at Price Elementary School in Anaheim on Aug. 8. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
“Having more resources available allows us to take a comprehensive, whole-child approach to education, which goes beyond the basics of classroom instruction,” said Cárdenas Ureño. “With our community-funded model, we’re able to allocate resources toward expanding school-based mental health services, adding interventionists to support student learning, and offering robust enrichment programs that engage students in a variety of creative and academic pursuits.”
It also partners with local organizations such as the Laguna Art Museum, Pacific Marine Mammal Center, Laguna College of Art and Design and the Boys & Girls Club to provide high-quality programs without tying all its dollars to salaries and benefits, she said, which gives the district flexibility.
In the interest of full disclosure, my daughter is a student in Laguna. I feel guilty. I mean, her teachers respond to emails on the weekends.
Fix this!
“Across the nation, there is a growing consensus that schools must change in fundamental ways if they are to accomplish the goals we now have for them: teaching our very diverse student population for higher order thinking and deep understanding,” said a now decades-old study on building better schools.
“The system we work in today was invented nearly 100 years ago for another time and another mission — the processing of large numbers of students for rote skills and the education of only a few for knowledge work. It was never designed to teach all children to high levels. Caring and dedicated teachers, administrators and parents work hard every day within this system to educate our children for more ambitious thinking and performance skills— and yet their efforts are often stymied by outmoded institutional structures, most notably the large, impersonal, factory-model school.”
Some tout charters and vouchers, others providing meals and wrap-around services, others sing the praises of before-and-after school programs and year-round schedules, while still others champion universal preschool and intensive tutoring.
The experts can fight over all that. I’ve been stuck on halving class sizes for the neediest kids for eons. My first newspaper job was covering schools in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, where the “Homestead Exemption” meant that almost no one paid property taxes, which meant that public schools were grotesquely underfunded, which meant that everyone who could went to private school or Catholic school, which meant that starved public schools virtually cemented the cycle of poverty.
So I ran my simplistic idea past Nancy Watkins, director of the Educational Doctorate Program and associate professor of educational leadership at Cal State Fullerton. “I agree with you!” she said by email. “Reducing class sizes and increasing funding for public education would enhance individualized instruction, improve academic outcomes and address the achievement gap by providing equitable resources and support to all students.”
We do need to rethink how we fund schools, she said, but privatizing or using market-driven initiatives is not good for public education. Reducing class sizes, however — something California has invested in, particularly in the early grades — has positively impacted student achievement, especially for underserved and marginalized students, she said. But it’s expensive — you need more facilities to house all those classes, and more teachers to teach them. There doesn’t seem to be enough to go around.
Watkins ran our data through an artificial intelligence analysis that spit out these observations: Despite similar per-pupil spending, there’s variability in academic performance, highlighting the importance of how funds are utilized rather than just how much is spent. The exceptional performance of Los Alamitos Unified and Fountain Valley Elementary, despite their lower spending compared to other districts, suggests that factors like effective administration, teaching quality and community support play significant roles in success. Higher funding, when effectively utilized, correlates with better academic outcomes. And smaller class sizes, and lower absenteeism and suspension rates, positively affect student performance.
“The process of creating better schools is hard work,” wrote Linda Darling-Hammond in “Redesigning High Schools: What Matters and What Works.” “There is no progress without struggle. As we undertake this struggle together, we should remember the words that Langston Hughes used to describe our collective quest to build a better world: ‘Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on.’ “
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