Riemblog

One thing that is largely mysterious to many people regarding the entire field of education — or “the education game” as we pros like to call it — is the field of school funding and finance. This is the first area this series will address, as the allocation and disbursement of funds directly relates to the management structure of schools and districts (our second topic) and school governance (our third topic).

Public school financing is complicated by the fact that it is two-tiered: on one level, heavily regulated and controlled by the state of California, and on the next level distributed down to individual school districts of widely varying size and political clout.  The state’s regulation and control has largely eliminated the inequities characteristic of school funding in the 1970s and previously, when school boards had direct access to local property taxes as the primary source of funding. By passing the control of funding up a level to the state, and by imposing “revenue limits” in order to level the playing field at the outset, in California all districts receive reasonably proportional “pieces of the pie.”

The sticking point (especially in large districts like Los Angeles) is the district then distributes monies to the individual schools, according to its own policies — and individual school funding becomes part of hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-a-year, elaborate shell game. A breakdown of  all funds follows:

•  Federal = 11%
•  State = 61%
•  Property Tax = 21%
•  Local = 6%
•  Lottery = 1%

For the exact figures in the ‘ 08-’ 09 school year go to http://www.edsource.org/1824.html

Previous to the current “revenue limit era,” inequalities were rife, as districts in more affluent areas raked in money from local property taxes. Now, those monies are distributed throughout the state and local property taxes are limited by proposition 13. Local schools can still generate extra revenue by local fund-raising through PTAs and booster clubs and the like, but these resources do not severely distort the overall system.

Most of the funds go to salaries. Here, districts are in competition, but even the most lucrative teacher salaries are modest by any standard. Although there is an ongoing debate about the comparability of teacher salaries to other professions — an issue complicated by number of days worked per year — there is obvious truth to the old saw: “no one ever became a teacher to get rich.” And districts certainly figure this into their salary schedules.

The next post will detail how real-world budgeting affects real-world schools.