Branché Jones, Author at Grow Schools

CA_Gov_Brown_2015Budget — Photo from Sacramento Bee

On June 15th the California Legislature met their constitutional obligation and passed a budget on time, though it was a budget Governor Brown did not agree with. The next day, the leaders of both houses announced a “compromise” with the Governor that was only $61 million dollars higher than the Governor’s May Revision, but finds additional spending capacity by identifying additional “cost savings” since the May Revision. Those funds are primarily used to help fund expansions in early learning.
The 2015-16 state general fund budget spends $115.4 billion, and also transfers $1.9 billion to the Rainy Day Fund reserve (increasing the reserve to a total of $3.5 billion). The budget assumes the 2015-16 Proposition 98 guarantee is $68.4 billion, which is $7.5 billion higher than the 2014-15 Budget Act guarantee and $2.1 billion higher than the revised 2014-15 guarantee. Following are some of the key K-12 education elements of the final budget deal:
Key K-12 Education Elements

$6 Billion for Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF)
- The 2015-16 Budget will appropriate an additional $5.994 billion for implementation of the LCFF.

$3.2 Billion in Discretionary One-Time Funds
- The 2015-16 Budget appropriates about $3.8 billion in Proposition 98 K-14 funding as fully discretionary one-time funding that also counts to pay down the existing mandate backlog. Of this, $3.2 billion is allocated to K-12 and will be distributed on a per Average Daily Attendance (ADA) basis. Districts, county offices and charter schools should receive a little more than $530 per ADA.

$897 million to eliminate remaining K-12 Deferrals

Early Learning and Child Care
- The 2015-16 Budget will increase spending on preschool and child care (both CalWORKS and non-CalWORKs programs) by $423 million over 2014-15 Budget Act funding levels, with a little more than half of that increase funded within Proposition 98. Specifically, the Budget:
  - Provides funding for 4000 full-day State Preschool slots, 7030 full-day slots, 2500 part-day State Preschool slots with priority for children with disabilities, and provides 6,800 alternative payment program (voucher) slots.
  - Provides a five percent increase to the Standard Reimbursement Rate and a 4.5 percent increase to the Regional Market Rate (RMR).
  - Provides a cost-of-living adjustment for free and reduced price meals served at schools and child care centers.

Educator Effectiveness Training
The 2015-16 Budget includes $500 million in one-time funds for educator effectiveness. Of that amount:

$490 million is provided for school districts, county offices of education, charter schools and special schools in an equal amount per certificated staff in the 2014-15 fiscal year. The funding is very flexible and can be used for any number of things that benefit teachers.
$10 million is provided to the K-12 High Speed Network to provide professional development and training related to network management and infrastructure.

As a condition of receiving funds, local educational agencies must develop and adopt a plan for expenditure of funds. Funds may be expended through the 2017-18 fiscal year.
Career Technical Education and ROC/Ps
The 2015-16 Budget establishes the California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program, a competitive grant program administered by the CDE to provide support for career technical education in grades 7-12. The program provides $400 million in 2015-16, $300 million in 2016-17, and $200 million in 2017-18 for competitive grants in three size (i.e., ADA) related spans (0-140, 140-550, over 550 average daily attendance).
Adult Education Block Grant
The Budget establishes the Adult Education Block Grant program and appropriates $500 million for adult education services provided through regional consortia. The State Superintendent and Chancellor of the Community Colleges jointly approve consortia, including governance structures and funding allocations, with the advice of the Executive Director of the State Board of Education. Of this total funding the appropriation to school district adult education programs, based on the maintenance-of-effort certification, is capped at $375 million. The remainder of the funding will be allocated to consortia or consortia members by the Superintendent and Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Executive Director of the State Board of Education. The language also specifies that joint powers agencies may participate as adult education consortia members and that older adults may access programs that relate to employment or helping children succeed in elementary and secondary education.
Other K-12 Items
The 2015-16 Budget also:

Provides $50 million to the K-12 High Speed Network to facilitate technology infrastructure improvements according to a tiered priority structure that focuses on LEAs lacking sufficient internet capacity to administer state assessments.
Appropriates $273 million to the School Facilities Emergency Repair Account, to fulfill the terms of the Williams v. State of California settlement.
Provides $67 million ($63 million Prop 98 and $4 million federal funds) for a package of special education-related activities, with the largest increase for expanding services for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities.
Provides $40 million to fund a 1.02% COLA for the remaining K-12 categorical programs that receive COLAs.
Provides a $10 million augmentation of the Foster Youth Services program which, among other things, covers foster youth living with their relatives, and specifies that funds appropriated for the foster youth services program are intended to expand eligibility that aligns program requirements to reflect the establishment of the Local Control Funding Formula.
Extends the deadline for the State Board of Education to adopt evaluation rubrics for one year, to October 1, 2016.
Establishes homeless students as a subgroup for purposes of the unduplicated pupil counts used in Local Control and Accountability Plans.
Shifts transportation funding that has gone to home-to-school joint powers agencies (JPAs) to the agencies’ member school districts, but includes authority for the JPAs to continue to operate and administer the program.
Permits students who will turn five years old after the eligibility window for Transitional Kindergarten to be enrolled in Transitional Kindergarten before they turn five years old, but does not allow them to general ADA under certain circumstances.
Removes grade spans for pupil-to-teacher ratios in independent study programs and requires calculations of the ratios to be based on average daily attendance rather than enrollment.
Extends the encumbrance period for funding for the second cohort of the Career Pathways Trust program for one additional year from 2014-15 through the 2016-17 fiscal year.

On May 14th the Governor Jerry Brown released his May Revision. The May Revision contains the Governor’s adjustments to his January budget proposal. After his budget was released in January the legislature’s budget subcommittees held hearings on all aspects of the proposal. The hearings wrapped up last week and now they will begin to hear the changes that are proposed in the May Revision. In short the state’s revenues are way up above expectations and Proposition 98 will receive most of the new revenues. That means that education is the big winner in the May Revision.
Here are the major highlights from the May Revise to view the entire document go to www. dof.ca.gov and click the link for the 2015-16 May Revision Summary.

Prop 98 increases $5.8 billion, bringing the guarantee to $68.4 billion:
2013-14 – $240 million
2014-15 – $3.1 billion
2015-16 – $2.7 billion
$5.4 billion of the Prop 98 increase goes to Maintenance Factor – but this does not retire all of the debt.
One-Time Money – The Administration proposes a total of $3.5 billion in one-time funds. This reflects a $2.4 billion increase over the January proposal to provide $1.1 billion in one-time funds. These dollars will go out per ADA and be applied to prior year mandate claims.
LCFF – The administration proposed to increase the LCFF funding by $2.1 billion over his January proposal, to a total of $6.1 billion. This would increase gap closure funding from 38% to 53% in 2015-16 – roughly leaving LCFF approximately 60% implemented.
CTE – Modifies the Governor’s January proposal by increasing the overall investment over three years from $750 million to $900 million. With a new implementation mechanism, which would provide the following levels of funding:

$400 million – 1st year
$300 million – 2nd year
$200 million – 3rd year

The administration also proposes a new phased-out matching program, as follows:

1 to 1 match – 1st year
1.5 to 1 match – 2nd year
2 to 1 match – 3rd year

The Administration wants to keep a “competitive” program.
Special Education – In response to the Special Education Task Force report, the Administration proposes to spend $60.1 million on the following:

$30 million for Early Education for special needs pupils
$12 million to provide 2500 additional slots for Preschool students with special needs
$10 million for school-wide data support
$1.7 million for alternative dispute resolution

On April 8th the Assembly Education Committee voted to pass AB 787 on a party line vote.
Assemblywoman Shirley Weber was the only Democrat to vote against the bill.
The anti-charter bill requires the charter school authorizer to appoint a majority of the charter school’s board members. AB 787 would effectively gut the entire charter school law by removing any autonomy that the charter school has. Charter schools would all become dependent of their authorizer and would no longer be schools of choice.
A host of groups and individuals lined up to oppose the bill while the entire labor community supported it. Assemblywoman Weber made an impassioned speech against the bill and brought up several good points while describing her opposition to it.
The measure now moves forward to the Assembly Appropriations Committee where it faces an uncertain fate because of the costs to have authorizers implement the policy.
Last year AB 1531, a similar bill, was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee because of its costs.

Last Friday was the deadline for California charter school bills to be introduced in the legislature. With thousands of bills introduced, several bills were ‘put across the desk’ that will affect charter schools if they become law. Some of these measures are punitive and some of them will help charter schools. It remains to be seen how many of them will make it through the process and actually be signed into law by the Governor. Here is a brief recap of some the charter school bills:
Once again measures were introduced to impose conflict of interest standards on charter schools in California. This year two identical bills have surfaced to accomplish this; AB 709 by Assemblyman Gipson and AB 1057 by Assemblyman Median. Both bills impose the Brown Act, Political Reform Act, Public Records Act and portions of Government Code 1090 on charter schools. AB 787 by Assemblyman Hernandez is a ‘spot bill’ that deals with charter schools and their non-profit status. You will have to monitor this measure closely to see what amendments will be added to it. SB 211 by Senator Hancock adds more notification requirements for charter schools, SB 322 by Senator Leno requires charter schools to comply with suspension and expulsion requirements that currently apply to school districts, while SB 739 by Senator Pavley requires the Department of Education to produce a study on how many charter schools are located outside the boundaries of their authorizer’s districts.
There are also some positive pieces of legislation that have been introduced for charter schools. AB 207 by Assemblywoman Grove allows independent charter schools to claim ADA for students that are up to 125 miles away. Assemblyman Allen has introduced two measures on behalf of charter schools, AB 839 adds a charter school and parent representative to the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence and AB 943 would require that a contractor hired to work with charter schools by the Collaborative have prior experience working with charter schools. Other bills to watch are AB 734 by Assemblywoman Kim, AB 748 by Assemblyman Lackey, AB 803 by Assemblyman Hadley and AB 1379 by Assemblyman Nazarian. These bills have provisions that currently affect charter schools but they may be amended later so you should keep your eyes on them.
To view any of these bills go to www.leginfo.ca.gov and put in the bill number.

This month, budget hearings are set to begin as the California Budget Subcommittees of the Legislature look at the Governor’s January budget proposal. Each subcommittee will start hearing the respective issue areas that they have jurisdiction over.
For education this means that Assembly Budget Subcommittee #2 and Senate Budget Subcommittee #1 will start examining the Governor’s proposal for funding Proposition 98. The Governor has proposed to increase Proposition 98 funding by $7.8 billion for schools and community colleges. Specifically, $5 billion will be for programmatic increases and $2.8 billion will be for retiring existing debt. The legislative analysts office has examined all of the Governor’s proposals and published recommendations on all of them.
As budget hearings begin, another issue is gaining steam in Sacramento: Should the state propose a school bond?
It is well accepted that school districts and charter schools throughout the state are in need of facility assistance. The administration has been resistant to legislative efforts to sponsor a school bond while members of the legislature have introduced two measures to place a bond on the ballot. Additionally, a coalition of school builders and construction officials have submitted a $9 billion proposed bond to the state and are beginning to gather signatures to get it qualified for the ballot. They will need to gather 366,000 signatures to get it on the ballot.
It is unclear if this is a serious effort (because the bond campaign would cost millions of dollars and everyone is not on board yet) or if it is an effort to force the state to place a bond on the ballot by applying additional pressure to state officials. What is clear is the fight will only intensify over the next few months as we go through the budget hearing process.
Check back for more details and legislative updates.

On January 9th Governor Jerry Brown unveiled his new budget proposal for the year.
The legislature will begin hearing the Governor’s budget in the Budget Subcommittees in the coming weeks. They will hear all of his proposed policies in advance of him releasing a May Revision to his budget once the state’s tax receipts begin to come in. The May Revision will reflect the Governor’s final changes to his January budget proposal and the Legislature’s budget committees will take action on it. Anything that both houses of the legislature do not agree on will then head to the Joint Budget Conference Committee which will take final action before voting a final product to be acted on by both houses. The legislature will then have to pass a budget by June 15th if they want to continue reciting pay checks.
In his Budget proposal the Governor did not create many new plans and only increased funding for education and some ‘safety net’ programs. He also ensured that the state’s rainy day fund has a healthy reserve; at the end of the year the fund should have $2.8 billion in it. The document he released really is a status quo budget except for the new education dollars.
For education specifically, the Governor proposes to spend $65.7 billion on Proposition 98. Total per-pupil expenditures from all sources are projected to be $13,223 in 2014-15 and $13,462 in 2015-16. Ongoing K-12 Proposition 98 per-pupil expenditures are $9,667 in 2015-16. Specific funding adjustments include:

Over $900 million to eliminate remaining deferrals
$4 billion in one time funds for further implementation of the LCFF
$1.1 billion in one time funds to further implement the Common Core
- Of this amount $20 million will go to County Offices of Education
- The balance will go to Districts and Charter Schools
- All of the funds will be distributed on an ADA basis
$100 million in one time technology funds to help schools with internet infrastructure and connectivity
A proposal to change the threshold to be funded by the Charter School Facility Grant Program from 70% free and reduced lunch to 55%
$10 million for teacher preparation, teacher and administrator performance assessments
$500 million for an Adult Education Block Grant
$250 million in one time funds (for three years) for a transitional CTE Incentive Grant Program
Allocates $368 million of energy efficiency programs to:
- $320.1 million and $39.6 million to K-12 schools and community colleges for energy efficiency project grants
- $5.3 million to the California Conservation Corps for continued technical assistance to K-12 school districts
- $3 million to the Workforce Investment Board for continued implementation of the job-training program

More details can be found in the Governor’s entire budget summary.

This week the legislature reconvenes for the 2015-16 legislative session and below we have outlined how committee changes may impact California charter schools.
The first day of session was actually the first Monday in December when both houses of the legislature met for an organizational session, electing their leadership and swearing in new members.
In addition, on Monday Governor Jerry Brown was sworn in to office for an unprecedented fourth term. If he finishes out his final term in office he will be the longest serving Governor in California’s history. In his inaugural address the Governor did not lay out many specifics for the state but did discuss the state’s overall fiscal situation and some of his long term objectives which include continuing to build the state’s high speed rail line. The Governor also made it clear that he was proud of the work that the state had accomplished with the Local Control Funding Formula and looked forward to continuing to provide more resources for education.
Additionally legislative committee assignments have been made in both houses of the legislature.
For education interests and advocates the chairmanship of education policy and budget subcommittees are very important. The Assembly Education Committee will be chaired by Patrick O’Donnell, a freshman Democratic member and former teacher from Long Beach. Rounding out this committee will be Democrats: McCarty, Santiago, Thurmond and Weber. The Republican Vice-Chair of this committee is Rocky Chavez from San Diego and Young Kim is the other Republican on the committee.
The Assembly Budget Subcommittee with jurisdiction over education issues will be chaired by freshman Kevin McCarty of Sacramento who previously worked for Early Edge California. In the Senate, Carol Liu of Los Angeles County will continue her chairmanship of the Senate Education Committee and Marty Block from San Diego will continue to chair Budget Subcommittee with jurisdiction over education issues. Additional members of the Senate Education Committee include Democrats Block, Hancock, Leyva, Mendoza and Pan with Republican leader Bob Huff serving as the committee’s Vice Chair and Senator Vidak being the other Republican on the committee. This means continuity in the Senate on education and early learning issues while there will be a learning curve for the new chairs in the Assembly.
Also, in the Assembly Shirley Weber will assume the chair of the powerful Budget Committee which could be an excellent sign for educational advocates. Ms. Weber is one of the most knowledgeable and capable members of the Assembly and was formerly a San Diego School Board and charter school board member.
The Governor’s budget is due to come out later this week and you can expect a detailed analysis next week. Once the Governor’s budget is produced legislative budget subcommittees will begin hearing on its policy and fiscal provisions until the beginning of May. After that the Governor will propose a May revision of his January Budget proposal and the full Budget Committees will begin hearing those changes and forwarding items of disagreement to the Joint Budget Conference Committee.
Check back in the coming weeks for more in-depth legislative information focused on California.

As the dust settles on the California general election we can begin to see what it means for education reform advocates in the near future.
The majority of the reformers put their financing and influence behind Marshall Tuck’s failed run for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
This was the second time that reformers challenged the current Superintendent as they spent heavily to back former Senator Gloria Romero when she ran against Tom Torlakson four years ago.
Torlakson, then a State Senator, easily defeated Romero and Larry Aceves who was supported by the state’s Administrators Union.
As a result Torlakson’s first term as Superintendent of Public Instruction was rocky at best for education reform advocates so you can imagine what it will be like now that they are 0-2 against him.
It remains to be seen how reformers will go about mending fences with Torlakson but they have to come up with something now that he will control the Department of Education for another for years. If they do not then they will not be able to proceed with any reforms or initiatives that involve the Department.
From a legislative perspective things will not change much for supporters of education reform.
The Democrats are still firmly in control of both houses of the legislature but they failed to attain a 2/3 majority in either house. This means that they will have the final say in all legislation and budgetary matters in the state legislature and that the Republican party will be witnesses and not participants in the process.
However, it also means that they cannot override a veto by the Governor. So if like in past years the legislature passes anti-charter school legislation the Governor will still serve as the ultimate back stop because he has vetoed those bills in the past.
Where reformers will be stymied is in their attempts to pass any legislation giving parents and students more school choice options. These measures will most assuredly be dead on arrival.

After the polls closed in California and a long night of counting ended most of the state’s legislative and state-wide contests are complete. Overall the Democratic Party was victorious in every state-wide contest. Though several races were very close, Democrats swept each race.
The toughest, most expensive race was for the Superintendent of Public Instruction where the current Superintendent, Tom Torlakson, was seeking a second term in office. He was opposed by Marshall Tuck, a former charter school operator and education reform supporter back by numerous individuals who play heavily in education reform. Torlakson was supported by the California Teachers Association and some of the state’s other unions.
The race became the most expensive race in the state as total spending exceeded $30 million; this was more than triple the total amount spent on the race for Governor where Governor Brown cruised to an unprecedented fourth term. Both sides were well funded and were able to present their case to the voters; in the end the Superintendent will serve four more years.
In the State Senate the Democrats lost a race in Orange County where moderate Democrat Lou Correa was termed out of office. He will be replaced by Republican Janet Nguyen who defeated former Assemblyman Jose Solorio by 20 percentage points. The Republicans were able to hang on to their only ‘targeted’ seat as Senator Andy Vidak beat back his Democratic opponent Luis Chavez.
In a move of musical chairs three State Senators were elected to Congressional seats which will create three vacancies and require three special elections set by the Governor. This will be added to the current vacancy that exists in the 35th Senate district where an election has been scheduled for December 8th.
The 35th will elect a Democratic State Senator, one of the other vacancies will also add to the Democratic side of the aisle and the other two will go Republican. This leaves the State Senate breakdown as 25 Democrats and 11 Republicans; the Democrats currently sit two votes short of a 2/3 majority.
In the State Assembly the Democrats lost four seats but did pick up one vacancy. The Republicans picked up more seats in one election cycle than they have in the last few cycles combined.
The Democrats lost the 16th district where the California Teachers Association fielded one of their former employees Tim Sbranti. After defeating a moderate Democratic candidate in the June primary he lost to Republican Catharine Baker who ran a tremendous race.
In the 36th Assembly district Republican Tom Lackey defeated Assemblyman Steve Fox. Fox’s earlier election had been a surprise to legislative Democratic leaders and he was always considered a ‘target.’
In the 65th Assembly district Republican Young Kim defeated Democratic Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva and in the 66th Republican David Hadley defeated Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi for the Republicans fourth pick up of the night.
The Democrats did pick up Republican Assemblyman Jeff Gorrell’s seat as he vacated it to run for Congress. That leaves the Assembly breakdown 52-28 in favor of the Democrats again leaving them two votes short of a 2/3 majority.
To view complete election results go to www.sos.ca.gov and hit the election results tab.

The last day of September was officially the close of the 2013 – 2014 legislative session.
Though the legislature adjourned at the end of August it was the last day for the Governor to sign or veto bills.
The Governor acted on the remaining bills sitting on his desk, signing several hundred of them while also vetoing a fair share of bills. As he has since he began his third term as California’s Governor, the Governor stood firm in his belief of local control, opposed the creation of ‘new programs’ and supported charter school flexibility. He vetoed a number of bills that would have created new regulations in a number of policy areas in the state and, to the surprise of some, he also vetoed a package of ethics reform bills that the legislature passed in response to the indictment of three sitting State Senators (one has been convicted, sentenced and resigned his seat) and an ever growing staffing scandal that has engrossed the Senate and come to light through the testimony of several current Senate staffers in a robbery/murder trial playing out in Sacramento. The trial has provided the public with a rare insight into how the legislature operates and how power is wielded inside the State Capitol.
For charter schools, the end of the legislative session saw no significant changes, but significant victories.
The Governor vetoed the two most egregious bills impacting charter schools (SB 1263 and AB 913) and there was no other negative legislation that passed.
AB 913 was another attempt to create conflict of interest policies and governance accountability for charter schools but the Governor correctly stated that the measure went too far. It was typical legislative overreach as we have seen this type of legislation introduced almost every year for the last decade and a half. Even though AB 913 was vetoed, the discussion is playing out much differently at the local level throughout the state. There are a number of authorizers, especially the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, who are using conflict of interest issues to revoke charter schools. LAUSD and LACOE are reacting much more aggressively than other districts and county offices of education to conflict of interest issues. Some of these cases are ending up in court and some are winding their way through the process and will end up before the State Board of Education, but it has become the new attack line for many authorizers. Charter schools must be prepared for this new frontal assault. Additionally, we will see our opponents introduce a new version of AB 913 when the legislature reconvenes in January.
View the Governor’s veto message on AB 913.