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Evolution of California State School Finance with Implications from Other States

This paper provides an overview, evolution, and critique of the California school finance system. It is a companion to the descriptive analysis by Tim Timar, and comments on the papers by Peg Goertz and Allan Odden that provide a comparative state perspective of New Jersey, Wyoming, and Kentucky. The paper focuses upon the major flaws in the California finance system, as well as public opinion surveys on what to do about them. It addresses the inability of California to make non-incremental change in its whole finance system. California has created an aligned system of standards based reform in numerous ways, but has never integrated its basic finance system with what students are expected to know and do. Every state’s school finance system is different and shaped by its distinctive history, culture, political institutions, and socio-economic characteristics. Thomas Timar’s paper, “Financing K-12 Education in California: A System Overview,” demonstrates that the result of California’s school finance evolution is a system broken in every way. While Timar analyses the details of the current finance system, this paper begins with its historical roots. For example, California uses state ballot initiatives to implement significant political changes, such as Proposition 13 in 1978. In 2005, there were over 979 school districts in California, but 44% have fewer than 1,000 students.