In a letter on Monday, leaders of the state Senate and Assembly criticized proposed regulations on state funding for the state'due south neediest students as inconsistent with the intent of the new school finance law.

Their letter to the Country Board of Education, which must adopt the regulations in Jan, adds an assertion point to like criticisms from organizations representing depression-income students, foster youth and English learners. Legislators and advocates are arguing that the proposed regulations for the Local Control Funding Formula or LCFF would give districts too much flexibility to make up one's mind how to spend money targeted for high-needs students.

Signing the letter of the alphabet were Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg; Assembly Speaker John Pérez; Senate Upkeep Committee Chairman Marker Leno, D-San Francisco; Associates Budget Committee Chairwoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley; Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Carol Liu, D-Glendale; and Assembly Pedagogy Commission Chairwoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo.

The iii-folio alphabetic character suggests ix changes to the regulations and the proposed template for the Local Control and Accountability Plan or LCAP, which the State Board besides is considering. Starting the next school year, every commune and charter school volition be required to adopt an LCAP, detailing how they volition respond to  the eight priorities, including school climate, parent engagement and pupil achievement, that the Legislature mandated under the new school funding formula.

The regulations are an endeavor to strike a residuum between LCFF's goals of giving school districts flexibility over spending decisions and ensuring that extra money allocated to high-needs students are spent on them. Legislators conclude those students need more than protection. Among the recommendations:

  • Eliminate the choice that districts could prepare goals and merits they raised student accomplishment for targeted students without actually spending proportionally more than money on them;
  • Ensure that, in districts and schools with few high-needs students, money is spent directly on services for those students and not on school-broad or district-wide purposes;
  • Create a standard methodology for determining how much money for calculating how much districts receive under LCFF for loftier-needs students;
  • Standardize the reporting of outcomes and growth data nether the LCAP and so that districts statewide can exist compared;
  • Make reporting of expenditures under the LCAP transparent and then that parents and the public can see which services are for targeted students, how much will be spent on them and whether the expenditures are for schoolwide or districtwide purposes.

The legislators wrote that they appreciate "the telescopic and complexity of the task" facing the Country Board. In what could be interpreted as an offer or assist or a veiled threat if they weren't satisfied with what the Country Board adopts, they conclude, "If statutory changes are needed to realize the promise of the LCFF, we are prepared to make them."

State Board Chairman Michael Kirst declined to annotate on the letter other than to confirm in an email that the Board would be making changes to the proposed regulations. The Board sees the regulations and the LCAP "interacting together," he wrote.

John Fensterwald covers education policy. Contact him or follow him on Twitter @jfenster. Sign up here for a no-cost online subscription to EdSource Today for reports from the largest instruction reporting squad in California.

To get more reports like this one, click hither to sign up for EdSource's no-toll daily email on latest developments in education.