PUSD: Finding a Common Language

GUEST OPINION

Pasadena Unified School District (Photo – ColoradoBlvd.net)

I’ve been advocating for public education for over a decade. During that time, I’ve noticed some particular, repeated narratives about public education that are difficult to dispel.

By Patrick Cahalan

This is the first in a series of editorials that seeks to establish a common ground of understanding among the general populace in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) area.

For the first installment, we’ll tackle a few big misleading narratives, local and national, about public education.

Narrative #1: “National Studies Show”

This is a very common narrative among ideologically-focused educational policy think tanks. Often pulling from established, peer-reviewed educational research literature, a complex argument is woven that paints an overarching picture of public education in the United States.

The problem with this approach is that there is not one single system of public education in the U.S.  Each of the 50 states has its own, highly localized system of education, which often is significantly different from those of other states (and there are additional systems in the U.S. territories and those run by the Department of Defense.)

This is a problem that has plagued education research in the U.S. for decades: reasonable comparisons between two systems of education cannot be drawn if there are no simple control mechanisms that would make it much easier to draw strong general conclusions.

This is not to say that there is not good research in this problem domain, because there certainly is.  But it is far too easy to find studies that cannot easily be generalized and use them to construct an argument that ignores limitations or contradicting data.

One common example of this is the correlation between funding and student outcomes.  There are about 50 million students in U.S. public education.  Of those, 6.7 million are in the state of CA, 5.7 million in TX, 3 million in FL, 1.6 million in NC, 1.8 million in GA, 1.3 million in AZ.  Those states also consistently are the states that spend less per pupil than the national average.  Comparing the outcomes of students in CA to those in New York, when New York spends more than twice the amount per pupil that CA spends, likely will result in misleading conclusions. 

Narrative #2: State Funding in CA is tied to need

Can we at least look at how funding is tied to outcomes here in the state of California?  Unfortunately, this also is difficult. New York distributes nearly the same amount of funding per pupil, regardless of which district is receiving the funds, but California’s internal funding model has significant distribution issues. When looking at a distribution of funds nationally, it can be seen that some states are better than others. Even with the LCFF funding reforms which were put in place in California in 2013-14, and which were intended to send more funds to the more disadvantaged students, one can see a very wide disparity in per-pupil funding inside our state. The disparity ranges from well above the national average to significantly below it. Contrary to popular belief, that funding disparity is not correlated with need.

Narrative #3: The System is Wasteful

Examples are legion and, to be fair, there are many examples that seem entirely legitimate.  Why, the public wonders, does this occur?  The simplest answer is that local school boards, particularly those here in California, have limited ability to control their own funding streams. As a result, long-term plans are difficult to sustain and easily crumble when faced with funding shortfalls.

Funding here in California is largely structural and formulaic, as an outcome of the combination of Prop 13 (1978) and Prop 98 (1988).  One generally unrecognized outcome of Prop 98 is that budget shortfalls in our state due to recessions unfortunately fall largely upon our system of K-12 education.

To give a direct example of scale, in November 2018 the CA Legislative Analyst Office predicted that a two-year recession in the near future would reduce funding for K-12 education by 10%.

For PUSD, this would represent a loss of between $28 and $38 million in net funding over those two years. PUSD does not have a $38 million reserve at the present time. Such a cut in state revenue would be devastating to the PUSD budget.

Contrary to general public belief, there is no state rainy-day fund for education (only for the rest of the California budget.)  There is no historical pattern of the CA Legislature sustaining funding above the Prop 98 minimum guarantee. Local districts would be hard pressed, therefore, to assume reasonably that the state will protect public education should a recession occur.

Should PUSD prioritize building a budget reserve to handle this risk?

This is not a simple question. Currently, PUSD has enrolled about 16,000 students who have needs. The base level of funding in California is inadequate to reasonably serve those needs. Should we also not provide them all of our current funding in order to protect PUSD from a financial crisis caused by a statewide recession that may not occur?

The questions of competing pressures between the needs of the students in PUSD now and our inability to guarantee funding in the future are not easily answered.

Narrative #4: We Just Added Local Funding, Isn’t That Enough?

In the last election cycle, Pasadena residents authorized a sales tax increase, 1/3 of which went to the local school system. This represents approximately $7 million in ongoing revenue for PUSD.  $7 million seems like such a large number. Isn’t it enough?

$7 million for a district of 15,880 students comes in at just over $440 per student, which raises our general education per-pupil spending to $10,540. This is about 20% lower than economic powerhouse Wisconsin, almost 50% lower than Wyoming, and about half of New York.

If the state of California funded public education like Wisconsin does, PUSD would have about $30 million more in ongoing funding every year. If CA funded public education like conservative Wyoming, we’d have about $80 million more.  If we approached New York’s level of funding, our general fund would have a whopping $150+ million more per year in educational funding.

The $7 million authorized by Measure J is a vote of confidence in the public school system in Pasadena, and PUSD leaders are deeply grateful to the general public for putting more of their tax dollars into the system. It cannot be stressed enough that every dollar counts. In the context of adequately funding public education, however, $440 more per student simply is not enough to cover the disparity between what PUSD needs and what it is getting.

Patrick Cahalan is the Vice President of Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education. Opinions in this op-ed are not official statements of the Board of Education and should not be considered an official district communication.

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