Public Advocates fights for fair school funding so that every child, no matter their background, can achieve their full potential. We must reimagine our education system as a powerful oasis that can contribute to the resolution of longstanding societal injustices.

Together, we reckon with the history of exclusion and racism in public education and advocate for young people of color and families whose promise of an equal education has gone unfulfilled. We seek to build a system that provides plentiful funding and resources committed to creating historically, culturally and linguistically responsive and abundantly funded schools.

Background

The LCFF Equity Coalition is a coalition of civil rights, advocacy, community, family, student, educator and other organizations working to implement the state’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and focus resources on closing opportunity and achievement gaps. With our community organizing partners in the Campaign for Quality Education (CQE), who we represented in the school funding litigation CQE v. California, and other equity advocates in Sacramento, the LCFF Equity Coalition not only worked diligently to make LCFF a reality but has worked since 2012 to effectively implement the LCFF and its accountability system, both at the state and local level. 

We are committed to ensuring that LCFF lives up to its equity promise to focus resources on helping California’s neediest students overcome the barriers they face in graduating college and career ready and accessing a more equitable school system. Our commitment extends to LCFF’s foundational principles of meaningful local engagement informed by a new level of transparency and fiscal accountability in local districts and schools. 

Partner Organizations

As a coalition, we have advocated before the Governor’s office, legislature, and state agencies – including the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education. 

Our partners–several of whom are founding partners–include: 

• ACLU California Action 
• Alliance for Children’s Rights
• Bay Area Parent Leadership Action Network (PLAN)
• Building Healthy Communities (BHC) – Monterey County
• California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE)
• California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA)
• Californians for Justice (CFJ)
• Californians Together 
• Catalyst California
• Children Now
• Children’s Defense Fund California
• Coleman Advocates
• Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagements (COPE)
• Dolores Huerta Foundation
• East Bay Community Law Center
• EdVoice
• Families in Schools
• GO Public Schools
• Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC), PICO CA Education for Liberation
• InnerCity Struggle
• Loyola Marymount University – Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL)
• National Center for Youth Law
• Orange County Congregation Community Organization, PICO CA Education for Liberation
• Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE)
• Parent Organization Network – Los Angeles (PON)
• Partnership for Children & Youth
• Sacramento ACT, PICO CA Education for Liberation
• Public Advocates
• Reading and Beyond
• TeachPlus
• The California Endowment
• The Children’s Partnership
• The Education Trust – West
• The Opportunity Institute
• True North Organizing Network, PICO CA Education for Liberation
• UnidosUS

Legislative and Advocacy-Related Victories

The Equity Coalition achieved notable wins during the 2023 budget and legislative season. 

LCAP Accountability

New changes to the LCAP process and template now mandate the following:  

• Focusing LEA actions on closing student performance gaps, building LEA capacity to use LCAP for comprehensive strategic planning and continuous improvement, and evaluate the effectiveness 
• Improving transparency by strengthening districts’ public reporting of performance data on state and local indicators via the Dashboard and requiring CDE to submit an annual report to the relevant policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature, SBE, and DOF on the System of Support. 

New Equity Multiplier Funds

Provides $300 million ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund to LEAs with school sites with a prior year non-stability rate of 25% as identified through the Stability Data File and also 70% of its students who are socio-economically disadvantaged. This ensures that increased funds will go to more Black students in the state restricted to “supplementing, not supplanting” other pots of LCFF funding.

Requires reporting of LCAP focus goals for Equity Multiplier school sites to address 1) lowest performing student groups and 2) any teacher credentialing, preparation, and teacher retention issues.

Requires funding be allocated to eligible schoolsites to not less than $50,000 annually for purposes of this apportionment. 

Community Engagement Initiative (CEI)

Building upon a 2022-23 Budget appropriation of $100 million one-time Proposition 98 General Fund, co-administered by CCEE and the lead agency, requires a CEI partnership to include providing fiscal support to community partner organizations to support their capacity for meaningful collaboration and implementation of CEI.

Block Grants

Expanded Learning Opportunity Program (E-LOP). Maintains $4 billion in on-going Proposition 98 funding for after school and summer options for all students. 

Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant. Makes only a $1.59 Billion reduction (as opposed to a proposed $7.9 billion reduction) and provides intent to possibly restore $1.1 billion in 3 installments in future budgets 2025-26 through 2027-28. Learning loss has been most disproportionately felt by children with the highest needs – particularly Black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) and low-income students

Golden State Pathways Program: Prevented a $400M proposed cut. This program is not only good for students who participate in Linked Learning programming overall–but especially good for early recruitment of teacher candidates who could serve in their own community by supporting them with early completion of academic requirements and post-secondary planning. 

Teacher Quality 

National Board Certification Initiative. Prevented a $200M proposed cut to a key program that promotes teacher preparedness. 

Golden State Teacher Grant Program. Provides an additional $6 million in one-time federal funds, where teacher candidates who commit to teaching at a priority school (where 55% or more of the students are unduplicated pupils) are eligible for the grant. Program is expanded to teacher candidates in a pre-school setting.

Data on Teacher Credentialing and Misassignments. Adds schools to the Williams inspection list if a particular school and its district failed to report its Teacher Assignment Monitoring Outcomes (TAMO) and CalPADs data. These amendments help ensure that the TAMO (data moves us forward in assessing allocation of teacher quality. 

Teacher Residency Grant Program. Increases the per-candidate grant allocation from $25,000 to $40,000 to LEAs that develop/expand teacher and school counselor residency programs. Educators can now serve their four years at any public school, instead of their original sponsoring school. Priority is given to schools 1) where 50 percent or more of students are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch; 2) that are in either a rural or densely populated location. Funds must target “shortage fields” such as special education, bilingual education, science, computer science, technology, engineering, mathematics, transitional kindergarten, or kindergarten, school counselors, and “any other fields identified by the commission;” AND efforts to recruit and retain a diverse teacher workforce that reflects the make-up of their communities. 

Diversity Education Leaders Pipeline Initiative. Provides $10M for the program. The program awards grants of up to $30K per administrator candidate to local educational agencies to train, place, and retain diverse and culturally responsive administrators in transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, and grades 1 to 12.

Multilingual Learners

Long-term English Learners (LTELs) definition and addition to the  Dashboard. Added LTELs as a numerically significant student group in the CA Schools Dashboard for the first time!  

Adding LTELs as numerically significant pupil subgroup in the LCAP template. Ensures that specific actions are listed in the LCAP to address the needs of LTELs in LEAs with more than 15 LTEL students. 

Literacy coaches. Provides $250M for the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant Program for schools that did not receive a grant under the initial program to develop school literacy programs that employ/train literacy coaches and reading and literacy specialists, and develop intervention programs for students. This is a great support for teachers! 

Bilingual Teacher Professional Development Program. Provides $20 million in one-time funding through FY 2028-29. Grant helps address the needs of ethnically and linguistically diverse learners in our schools by reducing the bilingual teacher shortage through a grow-your-own program for several language programs.

Community Schools

Maintains $4.1 billion in on-going Proposition 98 funding per prior budget cycles. 

Data Advocacy

California College Guidance Initiative. Increases CCGI by $2 million in ongoing Proposition 98 funding, and authorizes a data sharing partnership between CCGI and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC). Authorizes CCGI to provide its services to all LEAs and requires the department to notify LEAs of the additional use of CalPADS data and advise LEAs to include in their annual parent notifications information about CalPADS and CCGI data, as provided. 

Cradle-to-Career Data System: Approves 10 new positions for the Office of Cradle to Career, in GovOps.

County Office of Education (COE) Court & Community Schools

Provides $80 million ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund to support county court and community school operations, include declining enrollment protections, and to establish the Student Support and Enrichment Block Grant.

Includes these additional accountability measures for court/community schools:

• Requires collaboration between county probation departments and COEs, to ensure access for juveniles with a high school diploma or a CA high school equivalency to public postsecondary academic and career technical education courses.
• Requires an independent evaluation of county court and community schools, due November 1, 2025.
• If county superintendents and county probation officers enter into a MOU, require that provisions related to intake evaluation processes, transition plans, and others be included, and require the MOU be posted on the COE website.
• Require annual reporting of data regarding justice-involved youth.
• Convenes an Individuals with Disabilities Education Act workgroup to provide recommendations related to county court and community schools.
• Improves better transparency of funds allocated to county offices of education.

Statewide System of Support (SSOS)

California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE): Establishes Equity Leads in the statewide system of support. 

Differentiated Assistance: Increases the base grant for COEs to provide differentiated assistance to school districts from $200,000 to $300,000, for $11.9 million ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund.

Restorative Justice

Appropriates $7 million one-time Proposition 98 General Fund to provide support for LEAs opting to implement the Restorative Justice best practices that will be developed and posted on CDE’s website by June 1, 2024.

Related Work

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