What’s Behind California’s School Spending and Learning Concerns? | Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh

We're not going to prepare our students well enough to compete with the rest of the nation and in the world. That's a concern. In California, we spend about $27,000 a year per kid for K-12 education per year. That's about 45 percent of the state's budget. Meanwhile, local school districts are saying they're not getting enough funding and they need more. At the same time, parents are wondering whether we have high-quality education in public schools in California. If California is not producing and preparing our students, that means we're failing industry. We are not meeting the workforce requirements that are needed. The question is, where is the money going and is it getting to the right place? Today, we sit down with Senator Rosilice Ochoa-Ball to find out how the state is funding the education system in California and where the money is going and how much of it is ending up in the classrooms. Rosilice, it's great to have you and welcome back. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. We want to talk about education and how much money we're spending in California. A number of school districts are having budget problems. Enrollments are going down. What are you seeing out there right now? You know, it's interesting because I think the number one feedback that I'm getting from parents, students, and teachers when I do my town halls throughout our district and speak to folks across the state is that we're not funding education enough. And I think that is one of the key takeaways that I have from visiting various school districts and communities in my district. And so I thought it was very important to really elevate the conversation about the investment that California is doing in education, especially as the vice chair for the committee on education and having the blessing to sit on the committee that deals with our education budget in California. So I'm one of three there with my, currently with my colleague, chair of education, Sasha Perez and Senator Archuleta. So the three of us sit on that committee. We see a lot of folks from across the spectrum of our educational systems in California coming in and making the case of the funding that they need and what they're doing with the funding. And so as I look to see our current budget proposal for California, which is per pupil upwards of $27,000 for 26-27. And as we look to see and understand and help the California understand that California is investing approximately, when you look at lower grades education all the way to higher ed, we're investing almost 48 percent of California state budget. Almost half. Almost half of California's budget goes towards education. And so when we look at every other function of government that we need to fund, whether it's healthcare, which is extremely expensive, public safety, which is at the forefront and responsibility for government, when we look at infrastructure and we look at government services and government itself, what is the pie supposed to look like if this is not enough? So I think this is why it's so important to elevate the conversation of what California is investing in education. And most importantly, how are we spending it? So the public is coming to you and telling you we need to invest more on education. Yes. And what's the feedback when you tell them we are spending 48 percent of our budget on education? I'll give you a little a little story. So we have an internship program in our office and we have folks from across age demographics that come and speak to us. And I always ask, you know, what is your biggest concerns within your demographic about California? What is it something that we need to work on a little bit more? What is it that you're concerned about? And many of the students, the number one is, of course, housing affordability. That's, you know, the cost of living, but most importantly, the housing affordability. And number two is is their understanding that we're not funding education enough. And so I listen to the students and I remember this one particular student from the high desert. She gave me her concerns and she was just passionate about it. And so I listened. She gave me her her her her her story. And then I said, you know, what if I told you and then I went on to explain how much California was was dedicating to education as a whole, how much they were receiving per pupil in California. And I also explained the unduplicated additional funding that schools get. So if you're in a low socioeconomic demographic, if your students are considered, you know, low socioeconomic demographic, if they are English learners or foster youth, they all get additional funding. And if and if that population is over fifty five percent in that particular fifty five or over in that particular school, those schools receive additional funding on top of the top of the twenty seven thousand on top of the twenty seven thousand. So that's why I think it's so important to have this discussion, right, because the state since 2013 has been making these investments in these communities. And for these particular students. So when I hear these these students and young adults and adults making that statement, I kind of cringe. It worries me. And so when I mentioned that and I walked her through it, she looked at me and she her face was that of complete astonishment. Her eyes were really big and really concerned. She said, so where's the money going? And that's a good question. It's a great question. And this is where I looked and I saw the answer. I have been a teacher. I've been a teacher. Yes, I've been I've been in the classroom. But back in the day, we were given a block grant where we could actually, you know, given a certain amount of money and we were allowed to purchase anything we wanted in our classroom for that particular those school years. So I that that was my experience. But what was interesting when she realized the numbers and the levity of the investment in California, I she said, where is the money going? Like really concerned. And I said this. And interestingly enough, I believe her mother was on the school board in her city. And I said, this is where school board members need to really look into the budget. This is where school site councils who work on where they want the funding to be spent on programs in their particular classroom. Then you have community cabinets who work with the school districts. You have school boards where the community can come and listen and partake and make statements about different issues. This is where information is power, because then you can at the local level hold people accountable and say, hey, I understand that we have these many students. This is what our budget is. What does that pie look like? And if a parent knows that if they're low socioeconomic demographic, if they're English language learners or if they're foster youth or they live in a school district that is considered low socioeconomic demographic and the population is 55 percent or more, then they can advocate for those services that they're supposed to be receiving for those particular students. So they're supposed to be receiving more services. Yes, because they're getting more money. Yes. But somehow it's not very clear where the money goes, because this is as much as a private school. Yes. You know, for. Yes. So you've been looking at this. What do you think is where do you think the money is going? Well, I think. Well, first of all, I think when I hear, you know, the pushback on the on the issue, I think at the forefront is is that and it is true. The governor proposes this budget, says they're going to do that, and then he makes deferred payments. He says, OK, we'll give you this money, but we're going to break it down and we're going to push it forward. This past two years, I think the intent was fulfilling those deferred payments, but also with that saying or stating that, OK, we're going to defer the payments. But when we give you the payment, we're going to give you extra additional funding to make that to make up the fact that we defer those payments. So ironically, just this past week or last week, I would say last week, the CTA actually sued the state for the monies that the state had not allocated or had not given them, which was quite a bit of money, which I think is a great push by the CTA to to insist that if you're going to promise this funding, we're entitled to it based on Proposition 98. This is the funding that you're supposed to give it to us. You're not supposed to be deferring it. You're supposed to be giving it to us when the year comes. I'm curious to see how this lawsuit is going to play out. We have a governor that is termed out. But it is interesting because even if we play that card and say, well, the governor did not actually give us the full amount that we were owed, school districts can still borrow the money to bridge between what they are given and what is promised. So they still are bridging to get that money back. One of the points that I try to make in committee when I'm advocating for these for the schools is that if we're not going to pay the school districts their full amount with their allotted amount and that we're going to defer those payments, we have to ensure that we're also adding the interest of the loans, the bridge loans that these school districts have to make in order to make their payroll. But it is hard for school districts to be able to plan their school year and their resources when they're not receiving that full funding. Is that a big amount based on what you know? Do you know how much it is? I don't have that right off the top, but I know it's in the billions of money that the state has not fully funded our educational system, which is why we come back and we, you know, at the end where we're deliberating the budget for California is that we have to ensure that we are fulfilling the promise that we made. If we have made it in the budget. Exactly. And especially because they're entitled to it based on a constitutionally. They're entitled to the money. Because of Proposition 98, right? Can you tell us about that proposition? So that proposition actually guaranteed funding by the state to our school districts that said, OK, this is what you can definitely count on moving forward so that the schools weren't guessing how much we're going to get from year to year negotiating what they're going to get. So basically it said you're guaranteed a percentage of the budget. It's about 40%. It's about 40%. And then 8%, it goes towards higher ed, but 40%. Now, as we all know, we're the fourth largest economy, right in the world, fourth largest. And so that budget. Is a lot. Is a lot. Now you have to combine that as well with the fact that California's enrollment is declining. But regardless, we still have students that we need to teach. Right. And of course, are we going to need potentially less teachers if we have a declining enrollment? We are. We're going to need less teachers. But that's nobody's fault. It's not the state's fault. Well, actually, some may argue that it is making the cost of living in California really expensive. Many families are leaving the state. Or you could argue, and I have heard this argument, that families are not happy with the curriculum and what the schools are teaching our students. And some are with the quality of education. Exactly. So we have families that are leaving the public school system and opting for charter schools, leaving the state or homeschooling their children. Now, in terms of this money, the $27,000, that's supposed to be going with each kid. Yes. How much of it do you think is going in the classroom and how much of it is getting to other administrative expenses or other types of costs? So because all of that is actually negotiated at the local level, that is, I don't, I think we could do a study to pull and bring in that data as an average. But it does vary from school district to school district because all of that is negotiated at the local level. This is where we need to empower our board of trustees to really ask those questions as to what is reasonable for the area that they live in to justify the salaries that are being paid. Because that is also a concern that has been brought to my attention in our school districts where we have superintendent of schools per se making half a million dollars or, you know, over $300,000. And of course that's relative, right? That's, I'm in the Inland Empire. So those numbers kind of vary. But I think that needs to be discussed locally from the school board members and from the parents and stakeholders in that district is looking at those salaries and say, hey, and putting the pressure there locally. Because once again, these are tax dollars. When you work in public service, I'm not sure if the goal is to ensure that people are living in luxury or people are living comfortably. And so I think those are the questions we need to be asking at the local level to see if it makes sense. And I do want to caution because this is something else that really concerns me. And that is that you will often hear at different levels of education that they have to pay these salaries because they're comparing it to the neighbors, to their neighboring school districts, their neighboring cities. And what that does is that it helps them justify increasing the salaries to supposedly attract the best talent into that school district or that city, if it may be. But we have to be wise. I don't buy into that mindset. I think it's dangerous because you see the level of inflation of literally state agencies, state departments and jurisdictions. I think that is incredibly dangerous that we have sort of justified paying these, what I would describe humbly as exorbitant salaries at the expense of the taxpayer, which when you look at the cost of government in California or you look at the taxes that we pay, we're the highest taxed state in the nation. We always vie in the top two to three, but we're the highest taxed state. And when you speak to the head of departments and agencies, our school systems, every state funded jurisdiction or entity will tell you that they're not fully funded. So the money is not reaching to different agencies because we are compensating certain positions at a very high level because we are worried that those people will go somewhere else. And that is just, we might be even competing as ourselves because we have 900 something school districts, don't we? Exactly. And each school district is competing and we're raising the price. And that could be very, very well the case. Now, I think as we're looking from the outside in and we're looking and having these conversations, I think it's important to note that, you know, we don't have a formal study that has highlighted that component, but I think it's pretty obvious when you look at what we're spending and how it's spending. I think it merits asking those questions locally. Is it reasonable to be paying what we're paying in the administration? How much? And I think we look at that for non-profits, you know, how much money goes to non-profits admin and how much does it go to the actual folks that they're supposed to be serving, right? I think we need to start doing that also in government entities and agencies. We need to start asking, well, what's reasonable for the state to be spending on admin versus the actual services going into the classroom? Because parents will tell you, my teacher, you know, has to literally is asking for supplies for the classroom. Or I'll have folks say, you know, I was a teacher and I was spending about between 500 and $1,500 out of my own money for supplies in the classroom. So once again, now that we know one of the key roles for us as state legislators is to ensure that accountability is in place, right? Now that we know that the state will be investing this level of monies into education, then the follow-up will be to ensure that we're asking the right questions, that we are informing the public so they can ask the right questions locally, and that we hold accountable those stakeholders about how that money is being spent and ensuring that those services that those students that the state is investing in are receiving. Now going back to these school districts, if they don't spend the money, do they lose it? Is there a thought that I should hire the superintendent and pay like $700,000 because I have the money now? And if I don't do this, I might lose this money. What are your thoughts on that? You know, I am not sure that I would buy into that. I know that, I know when I taught, which was in the late 90s, I know that that was the thought that, not the thought, the understanding that we needed to spend this money and we need to spend also, I was trying to figure out like how to, what to spend it on in the classroom because I need to spend it because we weren't. And they say you may not have that. Exactly, exactly. So I know that was the case and I think that's the wrong mindset to have. I think we need to be good stewards of the money and if that is the case at the local level or even at the state level, I think we need to re-evaluate. I think more importantly though, as I've been listening to our school districts coming in and asking for additional funding for programs, honestly I think one of the biggest issues that I would see more so than that would be that we're duplicating programs and asking for funding for duplicating efforts on programs at schools. So meaning we might have programs that only a few students need and we have them on every school which we may not need? That or programs that basically are doing the same thing and we're calling them different names and asking for different funding for basically doing the same thing. And I think that's why at least in my role in education in the committee and in budget, I ask to inquire on whether or not we already have programs that are providing similar services. So I think that's where I think my focus has been and I think it should be also at the local level. Like the school board members? School board members and but also the staff, the admin at the university levels and at the local school districts is that we need to look at what programs we're currently providing our students, what are we supposed to receive in return for providing those services and evaluating if those programs are actually delivering results and if not after maybe maybe three years toss them out. Toss them out and and re-evaluate what other programs we can bring in to meet the needs of our students. And I think that's incredibly important because I cannot tell you how many times I've heard of you know advocacy groups coming in and saying hey we need this funding for this particular program and after six years in the committee I remember past pitches on programs and I remember allocations for programs and so I started asking well didn't we already give money for this particular program? And so we have to have good memory, we have to remember what we have allocated and especially when you're looking at the size of our educational system, right? We have so much out there when it comes to programs, services that I think we kind of forget what we have and I know it happens in government in general and I think this is where we need to start asking those questions. Well what else do we have here? What about the results? And this is another question a lot of people have. Do you get any feedback from the community on how the schools are doing? That's a great question as well because I think that's one of the reasons why we're also seeing declining enrollment is the fact that parents feel that their students are not getting the rigor that they would like to see. I met a parent out in the Napa Valley who was literally preparing her child to send them to the east coast to a private school because she was not confident of the schools here in California and that was an eye-opening conversation that I had with this particular parent and I always ask a lot of questions because I want to understand the rationale behind what people are thinking. I think that as legislators that's incredibly important. What is the understanding that the public has so that we can either dispel or help advocate and change what is broken? And when I heard this mother and she was giving me the perspective and her concern was math. She said the math. He goes we don't teach math in California and I thought you know listening to that perspective was very very important. She goes have you seen our scores? Have you seen? And she was the kind of parent who was engaged in the school looking at the textbooks, looking at the materials. I mean a very engaged parent. She knew and she had also had the opportunity to study in the east coast but was living here in the west coast. That also was disheartening to hear that we were not providing the level of rigor when it came to math and science which is evidenced by the assessments that we give in our schools and just most recently which was really eye-opening UC San Diego's admission assessment math test for the incoming freshmen where the students were basically testing it about you know middle school math and these are students that were coming in with a 4.0. They're coming to UCSD right? Yes one of the top universities in California but that goes to also elevate the conversation and the concerns that over 3,000 university professors in California have coalesced and are basically making this plea. First a statement and then a plea. A statement that the rigor that these students are coming into the UC system he goes it's not close to what it should be and it's been declining for a very long time and they're extremely concerned that these students are coming into the UC system with 4.0 GPAs and above and yet they really can't assign long reading assignments. They can't write coherent essays. They're not testing in math. They have to go to the basic and teach and this is the UC system and people will ask you know I had a school board trustee say well it's our moral obligation that it doesn't matter where they come from or at what level once they're in our schools it's our duty it's our moral obligation to ensure that they have what they need to be successful. I agree however we then have to start asking the question why are they not prepared? Because it's our own schools right? Exactly and there's arguments that many of the UCs provide transitional summer programs to get them up to par so they can do better once they enter the the UC system so they have a six-week program sometimes eight six to eight weeks where they really work on these students but is it fair to assume that a six-week maybe eight-week course summer course is going to teach everything a student of 12 years of schooling that they haven't you know grasped? Is it fair and so is and is it the role of the UC system to do that? This is where we also start looking into the school systems that we have in California the master plan of education that California designed back yes back in the 60s which designated what community colleges needed to do their role in education the CSUs and the UCs and the mindset has always been that when students are not quite prepared to the rigor of maybe a UC research facility that they have an additional two years at a community college to strengthen those skills that's what community colleges were supposed to be intended for and now we're just assuming and saying okay you see you're going to have to take care of these kids get them up to par and get them through but then you speak to the professors and they say we have to lower our standards or focus on other rather than our curriculum and focus on getting these students up so we're doing a disservice all around I think it's a disservice for the students maximizing their their time in the classroom once they reach the UC system we're not maximizing what we should be maximized which is the community college ensuring that they're they're doing their job of getting these students up to par so that they can actually learn what they're supposed to be learning once they reach the UC system so I don't think we're giving enough time and urgency to the pleas of these professors who are at the front lines with these students seeing them and saying hey there's a problem here and that's where in the senate in education I'm I really want to elevate those those concerns because I think they're incredibly valid especially considering the investments that California is has been making and what can we do about it have you thought about any fixes this is a big problem oh it's a huge problem and I you know it's a I always say it's a huge problem many folks I don't think think it's sexy you know it's not and that's a word that I use because it really catches people's attention because there's not a lot of money to be made in in education right it's not like you're talking about technology or you're not talking about oil or something that you know or housing per se but this to me to me is incredibly important because if California is not producing and preparing our students that means we're failing industry we are not meeting the workforce requirements that are needed and we're not going to prepare our students well enough to compete with the rest of the nation and in the world that's a concern that's that's a that should be a a national concern and that goes along with all of our states I just want to take a little opportunity and just kind of bring to the forefront also an article that came out a couple of years ago which brought forth my my math package my math legislative package because I was really concerned about our math in curriculum in California but the Department of Defense came out and stated that the U.S. as a whole wasn't producing the workforce that they needed to protect the United States of America right that's think about that the U.S. was not producing the workforce that they needed when we look at that and really grasp that that that concern and we think about where California is performing math in math in science and the fact that they're having difficulties reading and writing what does that say about us and our students worldwide you were in schools yourself you when when you were teaching was it like this was the quality of the students like this or somehow we end up giving 4.0s to everyone something something changed in terms of quality we've gone away from thinking positively about assessments I think there's been a negative connotation linked to assessments arguments would be that assessments are discriminatory towards black and brown children there's arguments that assessments especially at the younger grade levels are not reflective of students they're not prepared they don't know how to take tests arguments would be that it would be unfair to test students because we have had a pandemic my argument would be first of all that California's first and second graders are not the only students who are being tested nationwide we have many students at the first and second grade being assessed my argument would be with regards to discriminatory black and brown students would be that the SATs per se were actually instituted to overcome the universities only picking students from elite schools SATs were supposed to be so that they could test students across our nation and bring in those those students that had fared well in these tests and be able to qualify and be able to bring them into our universities our elite you know universities so they were supposed to be a level playing field in its original purpose so and finally you know the pandemic when it came to the pandemic the whole nation the entire world suffered the pandemic so I would fight back on all of those premises when we see an argument against assessments assessments are a tool that allow us to see what a student has mastered and where they're actually need additional support in if we remove these these assessments and navigate the students through the system and graduate them and say we've done our job are we being fair to that child and are we being honest or are we living in smoking mirrors in an environment of smoking mirrors and I think that's where we have to be honest with ourselves and the systems that we have in place and why it's so important to give this information to the public so that then we can ask the questions and expect more and I think that's the only way that we're going to change the low expectations increase our understanding that students are able to learn more if we believe in that student and if we give them the opportunity if we give them well-prepared teachers if we give them the materials the curriculum that is robust I think and when parents know that if their child does need help for a variety of reasons that the resources are there and that they can advocate for their student to receive those services. Senator Roselicia Ochoa-Bow, it was very great to have you on please come back and update us with what's going on in Sacramento with education. Absolutely anytime I'm here. Tell us what you think about this discussion. Do you think we're spending enough on education in California or do you think we should spend more and what are your thoughts on the quality of education in California? Make sure to tell us in the comments or email us at siamak.californiasatter.com. We read all of your emails and comments. I'm Siamak Khorrami, this is California Insider, we'll see you next time.