Report highlights effects of California's school finance deregulation; Oakland one of 10 districts included in study

05-26-2011

By Katy Murphy/Oakland Tribune

For years, academics and policy analysts complained that California's school finance system was way too complicated; as proof, they pointed to the state's 60-some special-purpose funds, each with its own restrictions. Two years ago, lawmakers made a deal: They'd cut state spending on education, but they would temporarily lift restrictions on 40 of those funds. Districts would be able to balance their budgets with $4.5 billion that had been previously earmarked for a special purpose, such as adult education or Gifted And Talented Education. A new report by Rand Corp. and Policy Analysis for California Education says the deregulation experiment was hastily put together without clear goals and with little communication to school districts. Since districts were under pressure to make spending decisions quickly, the funds were often rapidly and unilaterally "swept" into the general fund by top administrators, with little community input, researchers found. Of the 10 California school districts included in the case study, eight of them -- including Oakland Unified -- reduced or eliminated adult education to spare their K-12 programs from further cuts. (more...)

Also: Los Angeles Times

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Report highlights effects of California's school finance deregulation; Oakland one of 10 districts included in study

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