Thursday, July 29, 2010
School Finance    
Facts about Funding for Our Schools
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To be perfectly frank, Benicia public schools are grossly underfunded. When compared to the rest of the state and the nation, our children receive far less funding than most other kids in the nation!  As a result, our educators must make difficult choices between which programs and services they can provide--and which they can't. Simply, the more each of us gives to the Benicia Education Foundation, the more programs and services we can provide our kids and the fewer our educators must cut.

 

For more information about school funding in Benicia, please see this powerpoint presentation which provides some startling data:

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Where To Go to Learn More About California School Funding
 
“California’s public education system is immense: more than six million students in about 9,000 schools, governed by almost 1,000 elected school boards regulated by a complex Education Code and a finance system that is largely controlled by the Legislature and governor.”
--Ed-Data
 
If you want to fully understand funding of public schools in California, here is a short list of sites you can visit and articles you can read:
 
 
EdSource Online
EdSource Online www.edsource.org offers a wealth of information on the basics of California school funding. EdSource is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit agency that studies and reports on California school finance, whose mission is to “clarify complex education isssues and promote thoughtful policy decisions.” Their School Finance Overview www.edsource.org/edu_fin.dfm does a great job explaining the basics. We also recommend their page on Revenue Limit vs. Basic Aid http://www.edsource.org/sch_fin_basicaidfund.cfm, which reviews how the state determines how much a school district receives from property taxes and how much it receives from other state sources.
 
Ed-Data
Once you have a broad grasp of how the state finances California’s schools, you’re ready to delve into the finance data. The Ed-Data website provides a wealth of data on California’s K-12 schools provided by a collaboration between the California Department of Education, EdSource (see above) among others. Data is collected by the California Department of Education from schools, teachers, districts, and counties, certified and released by the CDE, and then published on Ed-Data as a searchable database of reports. We recommend you go to the Ed-Data home page http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/welcome.asp then search District reports. There are a variety of reports you can select from the pull down menu. (Financial Reports for District is a great place to start.) You may also want to read their articles on various Education topics.
 
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There are plenty of other places to find good information on funding of California’s schools. We’d also like to recommend:
 
California Department of Education http://www.cde.ca.gov/
 
PACE – Policy Analysis for California Education < http://pace.berkeley.edu/>
 
National Center or Education Statistics http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/
 
Public Education Finance Report 2004 http://ftp2.census.gov/govs/school/04f33pub.pdf from the US Census Bureau
 
What’s Good About Public Schools? http://www.cep-dc.org/pubs/PTA_May_2004/PTA_May_2004.htm from the National PTA.
 

History of American Education http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/ a web project maintained by Professor Robert N. Barger.
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The BEF is the only non-profit, all-volunteer organization in Benicia that works for every child in all seven Benicia public schools.

Your donation is tax deductible. Ask your employer about their matching gift program.
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