History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
California’s budget woes hit neediest students the hardest
- 08-08-2011
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Opinion by John Affeldt/Thoughts on Public Education
John Affeldt is Managing Attorney at Public Advocates Inc., a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy.
Californians have been hit with so much bad budget news these past three years it’s easy to assume that we’re all suffering more or less equally. Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to our schools. Essentially every fiscal maneuver our policymakers have undertaken to respond to the budget crisis has delivered more pain to the neediest schools and students. Even before the traumatic $18 billion in accumulated cuts to school funding since 2009, the underlying school finance system had devolved to one that disproportionately denies low-income students and English learners an equal shot at learning the state’s academic content standards. Two constitutional challenges currently winding through the courts are confronting the fact that our districts are underfunded overall and that high-poverty districts and schools generally spend below or only at the state average even while they are trying to serve a needier student population. (more...)
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